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      Trump Administration Has Begun a War on Science, Researchers Say

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      Nearly 2,000 scientists urged that Congress restore funding to federal agencies decimated by recent cuts.Some 1,900 leading researchers accused the Trump administration in an open letter on Monday of conducting a “wholesale assault on U.S. science” that could set back research by decades and that threatens the health and safety of Americans.The letter’s signatories, all of them elected members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, warned of the damage being done by layoffs at health and science agencies and cuts and delays to funding that has historically supported research inside the government and across American universities.“For over 80 years, wise investments by the U.S. government have built up the nation’s research enterprise, making it the envy of the world,” the letter said. “Astoundingly, the Trump administration is destabilizing this enterprise by gutting funding for research, firing thousands of scientists, removing public access to scientific data and pressuring researchers to alter or abandon their work on ideological grounds.”Read the LetterResearchers at academic institutions nationwide say that U.S. science is being dismantled.Read Document 75 pagesThe letter said that many universities and research institutions had so far “kept silent to avoid antagonizing the administration and jeopardizing their funding.” But, it said, “the nation’s scientific enterprise is being decimated.”The signatories called on Americans to appeal to Congress to protect scientific funding.With Elon Musk’s efforts to cut spending and President Trump’s crackdown on institutions he sees as ideological enemies, the administration has sought to dismantle parts of the federal government’s scientific funding apparatus.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why the Right Still Embraces Ivermectin

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      Five years after the pandemic began, interest in the anti-parasitic drug is rising again as right-wing influencers promote it — and spread misinformation about it.Joe Grinsteiner is a gregarious online personality who touts the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin. In a recent Facebook video, he produced a tube of veterinary-grade ivermectin paste — the kind made for deworming horses.He gave the tube a squeeze. Then he licked a slug of the stuff, and gulped.“Yum,” Mr. Grinsteiner said in the Feb. 25 video, one of a number of ivermectin-related posts he has made that have drawn millions of views on Facebook this year. “Actually, that tastes like dead cancer.”Ivermectin, a drug proven to treat certain parasitic diseases, exploded in popularity during the pandemic amid false claims that it could treat or prevent Covid-19. Now — despite a persistent message from federal health officials that its medical benefits are limited — interest in ivermectin is rising again, particularly among American conservatives who are seeing it promoted by right-wing influencers.Mr. Grinsteiner, 54, is a Trump supporter and country music performer who lives in rural Michigan. He has claimed in his videos that ivermectin cured his skin cancer, as well as his wife’s cervical cancer. In a video last month, he said a woman told him her nonverbal autistic child had become verbal after using ivermectin. In a recent phone interview, Mr. Grinsteiner said that he takes a daily dose of ivermectin to maintain his general well-being.There is no evidence to support people taking ivermectin to treat cancer or autism. Yet Mr. Grinsteiner believes that the medical and political establishments just want to keep average people from discovering the healing powers of a relatively affordable drug. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump’s Tariff Agenda Bets on Americans Giving Up Cheap Goods

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      Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent argues that the American dream is about more than cheap televisions, but inflation-weary consumers might disagree.President Trump’s sweeping tariffs are expected to raise the cost of cars, electronics, metals, lumber, pharmaceuticals and other products that American consumers and businesses buy from overseas.But Mr. Trump and his advisers are betting that it can sell an inflation-weary public on a provocative idea: Cheap stuff is not the American dream.“I couldn’t care less if they raise prices, because people are going to start buying American-made cars,” Mr. Trump said on NBC’s Meet the Press show on Sunday in response to fears of foreign car prices spiking.The notion that there is more to life than low-cost imports is an acknowledgment that tariffs could impose additional costs on Americans. It is also a pitch that the burden will be worth it. Mr. Trump’s ability to convince consumers that it is acceptable to pay more to support domestic manufacturing and adhere to his “America First” agenda could determine whether the president’s second term is a success or a calamity.But it is not an easy sell. The onslaught of tariffs has roiled markets and dampened consumer confidence. Auto tariffs that go into effect on Thursday will add a 25 percent tax on imports of cars and car parts, likely upending pricing in the sector. Mr. Trump has already imposed tariffs of 20 percent on Chinese goods and more are expected later this week, when the president announces his “reciprocal” tariffs on major trading partners, including those in Asia and Europe.In confronting anxiety over the trade uncertainty, Mr. Trump and his top economic aides have resorted to asking Americans to think about the bigger picture. They espouse the view that Mr. Trump’s trade wars are necessary to correct decades of economic injustice and that paying a bit more should be a matter of national pride.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elon Musk Says ‘Destiny of Humanity’ Rests on Wisconsin Judicial Race

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      Elon Musk framed Tuesday’s election for Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court in nothing less than apocalyptic terms, telling a crowd on Sunday night in Green Bay that the vote could ultimately swing control of Congress — meaning it could effectively “affect the entire destiny of humanity.”Mr. Musk revels in provocative, inflammatory rhetoric. But his remarks — and the visit itself, 36 hours before polls open for Election Day — reflected his extraordinary push to bolster Judge Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate for the State Supreme Court. The election, he said, is not “some kind of judicial thing that is not that important.”“What’s happening on Tuesday is a vote for which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives. That is why it is so significant,” Mr. Musk said, referring to the key role that judges could play in congressional redistricting. “And whichever party controls the House to a significant degree controls the country, which then steers the course of Western civilization. I feel like this is one of those things that may not seem that it’s going to affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will.”The billionaire Mr. Musk, a close adviser to President Trump, dispensed two giant $1 million checks onstage to Wisconsin voters, following through with a well-worn gimmick despite an unsuccessful, last-minute lawsuit from Democrats that tried to put a stop to it.Mr. Musk and allied groups have spent over $20 million to help the conservative candidate, and he said on Sunday that he considered Judge Schimel an underdog. “We’ve got to pull a rabbit out of the hat — next level. We actually have to have a steady stream of rabbits out of the hat, like it’s an arc of rabbits flying through the air, and then landing in a voting booth.”Mr. Musk took the stage wearing his own headgear — a cheesehead hat popular with Packers fans, before signing it and tossing it into the crowd. More

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      Trump Says He ‘Couldn’t Care Less’ if Auto Tariffs Raise Car Prices in the U.S.

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      President Trump has said that “tariffs are the greatest thing ever invented.” For someone who once called himself a “tariff man,” tariffs are the solutions to many economic problems.He has argued that imposing tariffs would protect American factories, spur manufacturing, create new jobs and bend uncooperative governments to his will. Since his inauguration, while imposing and then suspending and then imposing tariffs again, Mr. Trump has upended the global trading system.But over that time Mr. Trump has also begun conceding that tariffs could cause financial discomfort for Americans. That possibility came up in stark terms in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” from Saturday, when Mr. Trump said that he “couldn’t care less” about the prospect of higher car prices.The president repeated the sentiment twice when asked about the 25 percent tariffs on imported cars and auto parts that he has promised will go into effect on Thursday. He told the NBC News host Kristen Welker that the tariffs were permanent, and that he would encourage auto companies and their suppliers to move to the United States.In one exchange, Ms. Welker asked Mr. Trump if he was at all concerned with the effect of tariffs on car prices, which experts have said could go up by thousands of dollars. “No, I couldn’t care less,” he said, “because if the prices on foreign cars go up, they’re going to buy American cars.”After the interview, an aide to the president told NBC that Mr. Trump was referring to the increase in foreign car prices.While the White House sought to emphasize foreign-made vehicles, the tariffs will affect American companies like Ford Motor and General Motors, which build many of their vehicles in Canada and Mexico. Nearly half of the vehicles sold in the United States are imported, according to S&P Global Mobility data, and almost 60 percent of auto parts in cars assembled in the country.A study by the Yale Budget Lab, a nonpartisan research center, forecast that tariffs would cause vehicle prices to increase by an average of 13.5 percent — an additional $6,400 to the price of an average new 2024 car.On Sunday, Shawn Fain, the president of the United Automobile Workers union, said that the tariffs were indeed a “motivator” for carmakers to bring jobs back to the United States. But, he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” they were not an “end-all solution” to help American auto workers. If jobs are being brought back to the United States, Mr. Fain said, they need to be “good paying union jobs that set standards.”Peter Navarro, a senior trade adviser to Mr. Trump, defended the tariffs and said they would raise about $100 billion, which would translate to tax credits for people who buy American cars. He, too, told Americans not to worry about the effects of the tariffs.Instead, he said on Sunday, they should “trust in Trump.” More

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      Fire at New Mexico Republican Party Headquarters Being Investigated as Arson

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      The headquarters of the Republican Party of New Mexico in Albuquerque was damaged early Sunday morning in what the party described as a “deliberate act of arson.”Albuquerque Fire Rescue confirmed that it had been dispatched to the party’s headquarters just before 6 a.m. for a report of a structure fire, which was brought under control within five minutes. No injuries to civilians or firefighters were reported.The fire burned the entryway of the headquarters and left smoke damage throughout the building, Lt. Jason Fejer, a spokesman for the fire department, said on Sunday.He confirmed that the department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives were investigating the fire as an act of arson.A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. confirmed that it was investigating but said she could not provide further details because the investigation was ongoing. The A.T.F. did not immediately respond to requests for information on Sunday.The Albuquerque Police Department confirmed that the federal authorities were investigating but did not provide any further information, including whether arrests had been made.In a statement, the Republican Party of New Mexico said the fire was “not an isolated incident” and was accompanied by the spray-painted letters “ICE=KKK.”In recent months, ICE, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has deployed agents across the country to carry out what the Trump administration has characterized as a new and more aggressive effort to target illegal immigration and deliver on a key campaign pledge to carry out mass deportations.The Democratic Party of New Mexico said on Sunday that it condemned “any vandalism at the Republican Party of New Mexico headquarters as strongly as possible.”The Republican Party of New Mexico said the fire was accompanied by the spray-painted letters “ICE=KKK.”Republican Party of New Mexico“We firmly maintain that this sort of act has absolutely no place in our democracy, and that peaceful discourse and organization are the only ways to approach political differences in our country,” the state Democratic Party added. “We hope whoever is responsible is found and held accountable.”Amy Barela, the chairwoman of the Republican Party of New Mexico, said on Sunday that the alarm system at the party’s headquarters had gone off around 1 a.m., about four hours before the fire started.There had been a separate bomb threat and other acts of vandalism at the headquarters in recent years, she said.A former Republican candidate for the New Mexico House of Representatives this month was found guilty of hiring people to shoot at the homes of Democratic officials in Albuquerque in 2022 and 2023.“We completely condemn violence,” Ms. Barela said. “It doesn’t matter where it’s coming from.”The party was “deeply relieved that no one was harmed in what could have been a tragic and deadly attack,” she said. More

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      White House Takes Highly Unusual Step of Directly Firing Line Prosecutors

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      Two longtime career prosecutors have been suddenly fired by the White House, in what current and former Justice Department officials called an unusual and alarming exercise of presidential power.In recent days, the prosecutors, in Los Angeles and Memphis, were dismissed abruptly, notified by a terse one-sentence email stating no reason for the move other than that it was on behalf of the president himself.The ousters reflected a more aggressive effort by the White House to reach deep inside U.S. attorney offices across the country in a stark departure from decades of practice. While it is commonplace and accepted for senior political appointees at the Justice Department to change from administration to administration, no department veteran could recall any similar removal of assistant U.S. attorneys.A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.Asked about the ousters and whether others had been let go in a similar fashion, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said, “The White House, in coordination with the Department of Justice, has dismissed more than 50 U.S. attorneys and deputies in the past few weeks.”She added, “The American people deserve a judicial branch full of honest arbiters of the law who want to protect democracy, not subvert it,” offering no explanation for how either of the two fired prosecutors might have done that. Prosecutors are part of the executive, not judicial, branch of government.During his campaign, Mr. Trump vowed to drastically reshape the ranks of career Justice Department officials, aggrieved by the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia in his first term and the four criminal indictments between his presidencies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Where Oligarchy and Populism Meet

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      More from our inbox:The Cruelties of Cash BailThalassa Raasch for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “It’s About Ideology, Not Oligarchy,” by Ross Douthat (column, March 23):Ross Douthat asks the right questions in this column: Why have Elon Musk and the other Silicon Valley hotshots swung hard behind President Trump? Why are they pouring money and energy into the MAGA movement? And why is Mr. Trump giving them free rein? But Mr. Douthat provides the wrong answer. It is not credible to think, as he suggests, that Mr. Musk has suddenly committed his life to lowering the deficit or shrinking the government.We know quite well what Mr. Musk and his tech-bro pals want: to translate their tremendous wealth into power, and use that power to remake the United States into a vehicle for the endless growth of technology and, not incidentally, of their own wealth and glory. There is ideology here, an Ayn Randian glorification of the noble creators. It is an ideology that amounts to oligarchy.Mr. Trump is seen as the vehicle for this transformation. His interests and those of the tech elite overlap, for now. Both want to fatally weaken the government and leave it open to a takeover. Mr. Trump sees himself as the new owner, while Mr. Musk and others want it run by the enlightened few. They will clash, but whoever wins, the American people will be the losers.Adam WassermanSanta Fe, N.M.To the Editor:Ross Douthat should take his cue on oligarchy from countries where it thrives. The central characteristic of these governments is rule of (a few) men rather than rule of law. The concentration of political and economic power is typically maintained not by a coherent ideology or by policies that explicitly favor the superrich, but by identity politics that divide people into “us” and “them.”In parts of Eastern Europe, oligarchs rely on a mixture of jingoism and ethnic nationalism fueled by external grievances and anti-immigrant and anti-L.G.B.T.Q. sentiment. These narratives justify the power of the oligarchs and maintain the system.Across the board, the rule of law unravels because it constrains the power of the oligarchs. Is America headed in that direction?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More