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      Why Elon Musk and Tesla Have a Legal Bone to Pick With Wisconsin

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      As the billionaire and his allied groups pour more than $20 million into a race for the state’s top court, his car company is suing Wisconsin over a law restricting vehicle sales.Elon Musk is far and away the biggest spender in this year’s race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, throwing his fortune behind a conservative candidate aiming to topple the court’s 4-to-3 liberal majority.The deluge of cash — $20 million and counting from Mr. Musk and groups tied to him — comes as his electric car company, Tesla, is suing Wisconsin over its law prohibiting vehicle manufacturers from selling cars directly to consumers. The law requires a franchisee to act as a middleman.Tesla filed the lawsuit in January, days before Mr. Musk began spending on the race. He has not publicly mentioned the litigation, but for weeks it has served as a backdrop of the April 1 election. The case is now before a court in Milwaukee County, but it could proceed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the coming months.The conservative candidate, Brad Schimel, a Waukesha County judge who has declined to discuss the Tesla case, appeared with Mr. Musk on a social media livestream on Saturday and drew President Trump’s endorsement late last week. He faces Susan Crawford, a liberal Dane County judge backed by Wisconsin Democrats.Since Mr. Musk began spending to help Judge Schimel, Judge Crawford and Wisconsin Democrats have built their public messaging around the idea that she is in a battle with the billionaire leading Mr. Trump’s destruction of the federal government.“It is no coincidence that Elon Musk started spending that money within days of Tesla filing a lawsuit in Wisconsin,” Judge Crawford said during a televised debate this month.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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      U.S. to End Vaccine Funds for Poor Countries

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      A 281-page spreadsheet obtained by The Times lists the Trump administration’s plans for thousands of foreign aid programs.The Trump administration intends to terminate the United States’ financial support for Gavi, the organization that has helped purchase critical vaccines for children in developing countries, saving millions of lives over the past quarter century, and to significantly scale back support for efforts to combat malaria, one of the biggest killers globally.The administration has decided to continue some key grants for medications to treat H.I.V. and tuberculosis, and food aid to countries facing civil wars and natural disasters.Those decisions are included in a 281-page spreadsheet that the United States Agency for International Development sent to Congress Monday night, listing the foreign aid projects it plans to continue and to terminate. The New York Times obtained a copy of the spreadsheet and other documents describing the plans.The documents provide a sweeping overview of the extraordinary scale of the administration’s retreat from a half-century-long effort to present the United States to the developing world as a compassionate ally and to lead the fight against infectious diseases that kill millions of people annually.The cover letter details the skeletal remains of U.S.A.I.D. after the cuts, with most of its funding eliminated, and only 869 of more than 6,000 employees still on active duty.In all, the administration has decided to continue 898 U.S.A.I.D. awards and to end 5,341, the letter says. It says the remaining programs are worth up to $78 billion. But only $8.3 billion of that is unobligated funds — money still available to disburse. Because that amount covers awards that run several years into the future, the figure suggests a massive reduction in the $40 billion that U.S.A.I.D. used to spend annually.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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      U.S. Could Run Out of Cash by May, Budget Office Predicts

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      The Congressional Budget Office said that the so-called X-date could occur as early as spring if Congress does not lift or suspend the nation’s debt limit.The U.S. could run out of money to pay its bills by late May if Congress does not raise or suspend the nation’s debt limit, the Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday.The forecast puts added pressure on Congress and the Trump administration to address the borrowing cap, which restricts the total amount of money that the United States is authorized to borrow to fund the government and meet its financial obligations. A protracted standoff later this year could rattle markets and complicate President Trump’s plans to enact more tax cuts.The C.B.O. noted that its forecast is subject to uncertainty over how much tax revenue the federal government will collect this year. It expects that the United States will have sufficient funds to keep paying bills through August or September. However, it said that if borrowing needs exceed its projections, the U.S. could run out of cash by late May or sometime in June.“The projected exhaustion date is uncertain because the timing and amount of revenue collections and outlays over the intervening months could differ from C.B.O.’s projections,” the budget office said in a report.The so-called X-date is the moment when the United States is unable to pay its bills, including interest payments to investors who hold government debt. Failure to meet those obligations could result in the United States defaulting on its debt. The U.S. has never defaulted on its debt, which is considered one of the safest investments in the world, and brinkmanship over missed payments could be economically damaging.The national debt is now approaching $37 trillion. Lawmakers agreed in June 2023 to suspend the $31.4 trillion debt limit until Jan. 1, 2025.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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      Annotated Text From Leaked Signal Group Chat With Top Trump Officials

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      <!–> [–><!–>Excerpts of a Signal chat published Monday by The Atlantic provide a rare and revealing look at the private conversations of top Trump administration officials as they weighed plans for U.S. strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [!–> <!–> Thursday, March 13 [–> Michael Waltz 4:28 p.m. […] More

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      U.S. Adds Export Restrictions to More Chinese Tech Firms Over Security Concerns

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      The additions included companies that are customers of Intel and Nvidia, and one firm that was the focus of a New York Times investigation last year.The Trump administration on Tuesday added 80 companies and organizations to a list of companies that are barred from buying American technology and other exports because of national security concerns.The move, which targeted primarily Chinese firms, cracks down on companies that have been big buyers of American chips from Nvidia, Intel and AMD. It also closed loopholes that Trump administration officials have long criticized as allowing Chinese firms to continue to advance technologically despite U.S. restrictions.One company added to the list, Nettrix Information Industry, was the focus of a 2024 investigation by The New York Times that showed how some Chinese executives had bypassed U.S. restrictions aimed at cutting China off from advanced chips to make artificial intelligence.Nettrix, one of China’s largest makers of computer servers that are used to produce artificial intelligence, was started by a group of former executives from Sugon, a firm that provided advanced computing to the Chinese military and built a system the government used to surveil persecuted minorities in the western Xinjiang region.In 2019, the United States added Sugon to its “entity list,” restricting exports over national security concerns. The Times investigation found that, six months later, the executives formed Nettrix, using Sugon’s technology and inheriting some of its customers. Times reporters also found that Nettrix’s owners shared a complex in eastern China with Sugon and other related companies.After Sugon was singled out and restricted by the United States, its longtime partners — Nvidia, Intel and Microsoft — quickly formed ties with Nettrix, the investigation found.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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      After the Signal Leak, How Well Do You Know Your Own Group Chats?

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      A journalist’s inclusion in a national security discussion served as a reminder that you might not know every number in the chat — and that could be a big problem.Hey, are you sure you want to send that to your group chat? Like, one thousand percent sure?Just checking. Because it’s been a strange week in the history of the group chat, those seemingly intimate text conversations that ping back and forth among friends and family members and, apparently, national security personnel.On Monday, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote that he had accidentally been added to a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal. He followed along as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth laid out attack plans against Houthi strongholds in Yemen and watched other national security officials post celebratory emoji after the strikes had taken place.As lawmakers on both sides of the aisle condemned the security breach, Americans with their own unruly group chats watched with recognition and disbelief: How had some of the country’s most powerful officials managed to so badly bungle using technology that millions of people rely on every day?“Obviously it’s a very relatable screw-up,” Mr. Goldberg said during an interview with Tim Miller of The Bulwark on Tuesday. “We’ve all sent texts to the wrong people,” he added.Those inadvertent texts, however, don’t typically contain high-stakes national security information that is being shared outside secure government channels.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 Crypto Venture Introduces a Stablecoin

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      World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency company started by Donald J. Trump and his sons, announced on Tuesday that it was planning to sell a digital currency called a stablecoin, deepening the president’s financial ties to crypto as his administration relaxes enforcement of the industry.The stablecoin would be known as USD1, the company wrote in a social media post, without revealing when it would go on sale. Stablecoins, a popular form of cryptocurrency, are designed to maintain a constant value of $1, making them useful for many types of crypto transactions.“No games. No gimmicks. Just real stability,” World Liberty Financial posted on its X account.The stablecoin is the fourth digital currency that Mr. Trump and his business partners have marketed to the public over the last year. World Liberty already offers a cryptocurrency called WLFI. This month, World Liberty announced it had sold $550 million of those digital coins. A business entity linked to Mr. Trump receives a 75 percent cut of the sales.Days before his inauguration, Mr. Trump also started selling a so-called memecoin — a type of digital currency based on an online joke or a celebrity mascot. Melania Trump put her own memecoin on the market that same weekend.Mr. Trump has made aggressive forays into the crypto market as his administration eases enforcement of crypto firms and rolls back regulations. His efforts to profit from an industry he oversees amount to an enormous conflict of interest, with virtually no precedent in American history, government ethics experts have said.World Liberty’s stablecoin adds to that messy knot of business conflicts. Congress is considering legislation to regulate stablecoins that could reach Mr. Trump’s desk before the end of the year. In a speech at a crypto conference this month, Mr. Trump called for “simple, common sense rules” for stablecoins, saying they would “expand the dominance of the U.S. dollar.”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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      Read the Justice Department’s filing in the Adams case.

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      Case 1:24-cr-00556-DEH Document 175-1 Filed 03/25/25
      Page 10 of 15
      the motion is uncontested, the court should ordinarily presume that the prosecutor is acting in good
      faith and dismiss the indictment without prejudice”). But Adams’s consent-which was
      negotiated without my Office’s awareness or participation-would not guarantee a successful
      motion, given the basic flaws in the Department’s rationales. See Nederlandsche Combinatie, 428
      F. Supp. at 117 (declining to “rubber stamp” dismissal because although defendant did not appear
      to object, “the court is vested with the responsibility of protecting the interests of the public on
      whose behalf the criminal action is brought”).
      The Government “may, with leave of court, dismiss an indictment” under Rule 48(a) of the
      Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. “The principal object of the ‘leave of court’ requirement is
      apparently to protect a defendant against prosecutorial harassment, e.g., charging, dismissing, and
      recharging, when the Government moves to dismiss an indictment over the defendant’s objection.”
      Rinaldi v. United States, 434 U.S. 22, 30 n.15 (1977). “But the Rule has also been held to permit
      the court to deny a Government dismissal motion to which the defendant has consented if the
      motion is prompted by considerations clearly contrary to the public interest.” Id.; see also JM 9-
      2.050 (reflecting Department’s position that a “court may decline leave to dismiss if the manifest
      public interest requires it).
      “Rarely will the judiciary overrule the Executive Branch’s exercise of these prosecutorial
      decisions.” Blaszczak, 56 F.4th at 238. But courts, including the Second Circuit, will nonetheless
      inquire as to whether dismissal would be clearly contrary to the public interest. See, e.g., id. at
      238-42 (extended discussion of contrary to public interest standard and cases applying it); see also
      JM 9-2.050 (requiring “a written motion for leave to dismiss. . . explaining fully the reason for
      the request” to dismiss for cases of public interest as well as for cases involving bribery). Although
      it appears rare, at least one court in our district has rejected a dismissal under Rule 48(a) as contrary
      to the public interest, regardless of the defendant’s consent. See Nederlandsche Combinatie, 428
      F. Supp. At 116-17 (“After reviewing the entire record, the court has determined that a dismissal
      of the indictment against Mr. Massaut is not in the public interest. Therefore, the government’s
      motion to dismiss as to Mr. Massaut must be and is denied.”).
      The cases show some inconsistency concerning what courts should do if they find the
      standard for dismissal without prejudice not met. Some have instead dismissed indictments with
      prejudice. See, e.g., United States v. Madzarac, 678 F. Supp. 3d 43 (D.D.C. 2023). The better-
      reasoned view, however, is that courts considering a Rule 48(a) motion to dismiss without
      prejudice must either grant or deny the motion as made-they cannot grant the dismissal, but do
      so with prejudice, unless the Government consents. See United States v. B.G.G., 53 F.4th 1353,
      1369 (11th Cir. 2022) (“[R]ule 48(a) does not give the district court the discretion to rewrite the
      government’s dismissal motion from one without prejudice to one with prejudice.”); United States
      v. Flotron, 17 Cr. 00220 (JAM), 2018 WL 940554, at *5 (D. Conn. Feb. 19, 2018) (denying
      Government’s motion to dismiss without prejudice as contrary to public interest and requiring
      Government to proceed to trial); see also In re United States, 345 F.3d 450, 453 (7th Cir. 2003)
      (suggesting that courts might condition grant of Rule 48(a) motion on Government’s consent that
      prejudice attach).
      The assigned District Judge, the Honorable Dale E. Ho, appears likely to conduct a
      searching inquiry in this case. Although Judge Ho is a recent appointee with little judicial track
      record, he has resolved the motions in this case in lengthy written opinions that included research
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