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      Trump Cuts Threaten Meals and Services for People With Disabilities and the Aging

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      Every Monday, Maurine Gentis, a retired teacher, waits for a delivery from Meals on Wheels South Texas.“The meals help stretch my budget,” Ms. Gentis, 77, said. Living alone and in a wheelchair, she appreciates having someone look in on her regularly. The same group, a nonprofit, delivers books from the library and dry food for her cat.But Ms. Gentis is anxious about what lies ahead. The small government agency responsible for overseeing programs like Meals on Wheels is being dismantled as part of the Trump administration’s overhaul of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Roughly half its staff has been let go in recent layoffs and all of its 10 regional offices are closed, according to several employees who lost their jobs.“I’m just kind of worried that the whole thing might go down the drain, too,” Ms. Gentis said.In President Trump ’s quest to end what he termed “illegal and immoral discrimination programs,” one of his executive orders promoted cracking down on federal efforts to improve accessibility and representation for those with disabilities, with agencies flagging words like “accessible” and “disability” as potentially problematic. Certain research studies are no longer being funded, and many government health employees specializing in disability issues have been fired.The downsizing of the agency, the Administration for Community Living, is part of far-reaching cuts planned at the H.H.S. under the Trump administration’s proposed budget.While some federal funding may continue through September, the end of the government’s fiscal year, and some workers have been called back temporarily, there is significant uncertainty about the future. And some groups are reporting delays in receiving expected federal funds.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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      Indiana Evangelicals Are Focusing on Creation Care With Environmental Work

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      The solar panels on the churches were inspired by Scripture.So were the LED lights throughout the buildings, the electric-vehicle charging stations, the native pollinator gardens and organic food plots, the composting, the focus on consuming less and reusing more.The evangelical Christians behind these efforts in Indiana say that by taking on this planet-healing work, they are following the biblical mandate to care for God’s creation.50 States, 50 Fixes is a series about local solutions to environmental problems. More to come this year.“It’s a quiet movement,” said the Rev. Jeremy Summers, director of church and community engagement for the Evangelical Environmental Network, a nonprofit group with projects nationwide.In Central Indiana, a patchwork of evangelical churches and universities has been sharing ideas and lessons on how to expand these efforts, broadly known as creation care. Some have partnered on an Earth Day-like celebration they named Indy Creation Fest.Tell Us About Solutions Where You Live More

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      Pope Meets With JD Vance After Criticism of Trump Administration

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      Vice President JD Vance met with Pope Francis at the pontiff’s residence in Rome on Sunday, the Vatican said, in a previously unannounced visit during Easter celebrations.The Vatican said the meeting was a “brief” exchange of Easter wishes that lasted “a few minutes.” In a photograph released by the Vatican, the pope is seated in a wheelchair opposite Mr. Vance as the pair talk.The meeting came after the pope criticized the Trump administration’s deportation policies and urged Catholics to reject anti-immigrant narratives, in an unusually direct attack on the American government.The rebuke came in the form of an open letter to American bishops in February, with some of the pope’s criticisms apparently leveled directly at statements made by Mr. Vance.Mr. Vance, who was baptized as a Catholic six years ago, has been spending Holy Week in Rome with his family. He attended the Good Friday service in St. Peter’s Basilica. On Saturday, Mr. Vance met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, and with Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister.Mr. Vance had not been expected to meet the pope, who only recently left the hospital after spending five weeks there in serious condition. The pope has made unannounced appearances since his hospital stay, but his health tightly restricts his planned engagements.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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      In Trump Attack on Harvard, Punishment Before Proof

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      The legal underpinnings of the administration’s broadsides against universities and schools stretch precedents and cut corners.In the White House’s campaign against Harvard University, the punishment came swiftly.The Trump administration has frozen $2.2 billion in grants to the school, while seeking to exert unprecedented control over hiring, impose unspecified reforms to its medical and divinity schools, block certain foreign students from enrolling and, potentially, revoke its tax-exempt status.It is a broadside with little precedent. And, as with the White House’s other attacks on universities, colleges and even K-12 schools, the legal justifications have been muddled, stretched and, in some instances, impossible to determine.“It’s punishment before a trial, punishment before evidence, punishment before an actual accusation that could be responded to,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education and the U.S. Department of Education’s third-ranking official during the Obama administration. “People talk about why higher ed hasn’t responded. Well, how can you fight a shadow in this way?​”The legality of each threat varies. In more typical times, some of the individual punishments might be validated by lengthy investigations in which a university would have a right to defend itself.But taken together, law professors and education experts said, the immediacy of the sanctions and threats conveyed an unmistakable hostility toward Harvard and other schools in the president’s sights. The broad vendetta, they said, could weaken the legal argument for each individual action.“You can’t make decisions — even if you have the power to do so — on the basis of animus,” said Brian Galle, a Georgetown University law professor who teaches about taxation policy and nonprofit organizations. “Those aren’t permissible reasons that the government can act. And so what’s interesting about the fact that it’s doing all of these things to Harvard at the same time, is that undermines the legitimacy of each of them individually.”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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      Are Easter Baskets Getting Out of Hand?

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      Social media feeds are awash in images of lavish baskets overflowing with expensive gifts. Some parents are giving their children bikes. Others are pushing back.“Is it even Easter if you don’t get a new bike?”So asks Judy Newton, a mother of three in Philadelphia, in a recent video on TikTok.In the weeks before Easter this Sunday, social media feeds have been full of videos of parents filling baskets with more than just the usual marshmallow Peeps. Instead, they are packing blankets, stuffed animals, shoes and knickknacks into large wicker baskets, tote bags or plastic buckets. And, yes, they are also giving bikes.“When you see some people post their videos on social media, it looks like Christmas morning,” Ms. Newton said. “Now these kids are getting that for Easter.”Baskets have, of course, long been associated with Easter. But in the age of influencer-driven consumption, Easter has been joined by Halloween (“boo baskets”), Christmas (“brr baskets”), Valentine’s Day and virtually every other holiday (“Leprechaun baskets” for St. Patrick’s Day) as social media encourages people to celebrate by spending lavishly.The Easter Bunny can hardly keep up.

      @kendra.crabtree Easter basket for girls!!! 🫶🏼💕 #easter #easterbasket #easterbasketideas #easter2025 #resurection #jesusisthereason #girlmom #fostermom #girls #spoiled ♬ original sound – KENDRA CRABTREE “Every holiday now, we make baskets,” said Talia Stenson, a mother and social media content creator in Sacramento. “And I think as the years have gone on, people just go above and beyond with these baskets, and now they’re almost a little too overboard.”

      @haileyjoor #easterbasket #easter2025 #boymom #basket #toddlermom #sahm ♬ original sound – mw🎧🧡 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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      Ukraine and U.S. Sign Agreement in Lead-Up to Full Minerals Deal

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      The signed memorandum of understanding was thin on details, and the White House did not comment. But President Trump has said he expects to sign a minerals deal with Kyiv soon.Ukraine and the United States signed a memorandum of understanding late on Thursday as a “step toward a joint economic partnership agreement,” according to Ukraine’s economy minister, bringing both sides closer to a minerals deal that has gone through multiple, contentious rounds of negotiations.The agreement was thin on details. While it referred to the creation of a fund that would invest in reconstruction in Ukraine — which has been devastated by the war Russia has waged since a full-scale invasion in 2022 — it did not specify the source of such revenue.There was no immediate comment from the White House. But the Ukrainian minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, who is also deputy prime minister, announced the agreement in a post on Facebook, after signing it on a video call with the U.S. Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, who was in Washington. Ms. Svyrydenko said the agreement would “benefit both our peoples.”Mr. Bessent, in his own comments on Thursday afternoon, did not mention he had signed the memorandum but said he expected a full deal next week.Yulia Svyrydenko, the Ukrainian economy minister, announced the signing of a memorandum of agreement with the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent.Angelo Carconi/EPA, via ShutterstockEarlier drafts of a minerals deal had swiveled between what critics called a brazen extortion of Ukraine by the Trump administration and versions that included points sought by Ukraine, such as references to U.S. support for post-settlement security guarantees.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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      A Harvard Scientist’s Tuberculosis Research Is Threatened by Trump’s Cuts

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      Researchers who have lost funds warned of long-term repercussions, but several said their school should still refuse to comply with the federal government.Dr. Sarah Fortune, an immunologist who spends a lot of time in her laboratory at Harvard, never expected to be caught in a battle with the White House.But early Tuesday morning, she received an official notice to “stop work” on her lab’s federally funded research on tuberculosis, an infectious disease that kills more than a million people a year worldwide.Just hours earlier, the Trump administration had vowed to freeze $2.2 billion in research funding at Harvard. If fully executed, it will be the deepest cut yet in a White House campaign against elite universities that began shortly after President Trump took office in January. Other universities, including Princeton, Cornell and Columbia, have also seen deep cuts to research funding.Dr. Fortune’s contract, a $60 million National Institutes of Health agreement involving Harvard and other universities across the country, appeared to be one of the first projects affected. Stop-work notices also began arriving this week at an obscure Harvard office called “sponsored programs” that coordinates federal research funding.One Harvard professor, David R. Walt, received a notice that his research toward a diagnostic tool for Lou Gehrig’s disease, or A.L.S., must stop immediately. Two other orders will affect research on space travel and radiation sickness, just weeks after the scientist, Dr. Donald E. Ingber, who engineers fake organs that are useful in studies of human illnesses, was approached by the government to expand his work.David R. Walt at his lab at Harvard Medical School, where he does research searching for a diagnostic tool for Lou Gehrig’s disease, or A.L.S.Cody O’Loughlin for The New York TimesWe 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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      What to Know as Trump Freezes Federal Funds for Harvard and Other Universities

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      The showdown between the Trump administration and institutions of higher learning intensified on Tuesday, when President Trump threatened Harvard University’s tax-exempt status after the school refused to accept his administration’s demands on hiring, admissions and curriculum.His threat, and the stakes involved, highlighted not only the billions of dollars in government funding that colleges receive every year but how that practice started and what all that money goes toward.When did colleges and universities begin receiving substantial federal funds?Around the time of World War II, the U.S. government started funding universities for the purpose of aiding the war effort, funneling money toward medical research, innovation and financial aid for students.The relationship between the federal government and higher education soon became symbiotic. As the government counted on universities to produce educated and employable students, as well as breakthrough scientific research, universities came to rely on continued funding.In 1970, the government dispersed about $3.4 billion to higher education. Today, individual colleges depend on what could be billions of dollars, which mainly go toward financial aid and research. Harvard alone receives $9 billion.What does the government money fund, and what kinds of programs will lose out if it is cut?The funding freezes have caused work stoppages, cut contracts, imperiled medical research and left students in limbo. Reductions can also affect hospitals that are affiliated with universities, like the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital, both of which are affiliated with Harvard.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