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    Blumenthal Calls ‘Shadow Hearing’ on Trump Veterans Cuts

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    Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Veterans Affairs Committee, on Monday called on Doug Collins, the secretary of veterans affairs, to testify at an informal hearing next week to discuss how the Trump administration’s efforts to slash the federal work force have affected veterans and the federal agency that serves them.Mr. Collins is all but certain to decline the invitation from Mr. Blumenthal, who as a member of the minority party has no authority to call a hearing or set the panel’s agenda. His attempt to hold a so-called “shadow hearing” is the latest move by top Senate Democrats to try to scrutinize — and focus public attention on — the effects of President Trump’s policies on Americans at a time when Republicans who control Congress have refrained so far from using their oversight power to examine his administration’s actions in official settings.Mr. Trump’s initial job reductions at the Veterans Affairs Department, and the cancellation of hundreds of contracts, have caused chaotic ripple effects at the agency, disrupting treatment studies and forcing some facilities to fire support staff. Mr. Collins has promised a much deeper round of cuts — eliminating some 80,000 jobs and reviewing tens of thousands of contracts.In announcing his plan, Mr. Blumenthal emphasized the urgency of congressional oversight during what he called a “moment of crisis for veterans,” saying in a statement that he and his colleagues on Capitol Hill “have a responsibility to bring to light the impact of Musk-Trump’s disastrous and disgraceful cuts.” He said the hearing was also a bid to ensure that the voices of affected veterans and Department of Veterans Affairs employees were heard.The move underscores a notable deterioration in the normally bipartisan relationship between Mr. Blumenthal and Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas, the Republican chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee. The senators have maintained a productive working relationship, cosponsoring a range of legislation including measures to expand medical facilities run by the Department of Veterans Affairs and demonstrating a shared commitment to bettering the lives of veterans.Mr. Blumenthal’s effort mirrors similar action taken by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Banking Committee who in February organized a similar “shadow hearing” to question Elon Musk regarding changes to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Mr. Musk did not appear, and Democrats had no power to compel him.The Department of Veterans Affairs, a vast bureaucracy with nearly 500,000 employees, has been a focal point for the Trump administration’s overhaul efforts because of its complex structure and history of scandals and waste.“Hearing from veterans and impacted stakeholders firsthand is the first step toward holding this administration accountable for their reckless and lawless directives,” Mr. Blumenthal said. More

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      Arlington Cemetery Website Loses Pages on Black Soldiers, Women in Military and Civil War

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      Materials on the Arlington National Cemetery website highlighting the graves of Black and female service members have vanished as the Trump administration purges government websites of references to diversity and inclusion.Among the obscured pages are cemetery guides focused on Black soldiers, women’s military service and Civil War veterans. Some of the materials were still online Friday, but they were no longer easily accessible through the cemetery’s website.A part of the site devoted to segregation and civil rights was largely scrubbed. That section once included a walking tour focused on Black soldiers and a lesson plan on reconstruction.The cemetery, which is operated by the Army, said in a statement on Friday that it remained committed to “sharing the stories of military service and sacrifice to the nation with transparency and professionalism” and that it was working to restore links to the content.“We are hopeful to begin republishing content next week,” Kerry Meeker, a cemetery spokeswoman, said in an email on Friday.On Friday, the cemetery’s website still had an active page describing Section 27, which includes the graves of thousands of African Americans freed from slavery. Another active page listed prominent African Americans — including Medgar Evers, Thurgood Marshall and Colin L. Powell — buried on the grounds.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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      Her Brother Disappeared in War 80 Years Ago. She Finally Got to Say Goodbye.

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      Margery Hop Wong last saw her older brother Sgt. Yuen Hop in 1943. He was a soldier missing in action, until researchers solved the mystery behind his death.When Margery Hop Wong bade her older brother goodbye in 1943, she was just a 12-year-old girl who loved it when he took her for joy rides in his used convertible around the apple orchards their family worked.Yuen Hop left their home in Sebastopol, Calif., a small town 55 miles north of San Francisco, at 19 to join the U.S. Army. His little sister never saw him again. She knew he had died in the war, but she did not know how. Or where. Or what had happened to his body.On Friday, Ms. Wong, now 94, sat in the front pew of a mortuary just south of her home in San Francisco, her brother’s remains in a casket draped in an American flag. Younger generations of the Hop family and military veterans filled the rows behind her as a singer led the group in “Amazing Grace.”For 80 years, Sergeant Hop was lost. Now, he was found.Yuen Hopvia the Hop familyMs. Wong was the youngest of seven children born to Gin and Chan Hop, immigrants from China who spoke Cantonese and struggled to communicate with their American-born children, who grew up speaking English.Life was difficult because of anti-Chinese sentiment fueled by the Chinese Exclusion Act, passed by Congress in 1882 to dramatically restrict Chinese immigration. Chinese immigrants were regularly prohibited from living or working where they wanted, Ms. Wong recalled in an interview. She said her brother was proud to have scraped together money working as a mechanic and drying apples to buy a used convertible and tried to make life fun for his brothers and sisters.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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      John Kinsel Sr., Navajo Code Talker During World War II, Dies at 107

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      Mr. Kinsel, who served from October 1942 to January 1946, was part of the second group of Marines trained as code talkers at Camp Elliott, Calif., after the original 29 who developed the code for wartime use.John Kinsel Sr., a World War II veteran who was one of the last surviving Navajo Code Talkers, a group of Marines whose encrypted wartime messages based on the Navajo language helped secure an Allied victory in the Pacific, died on Saturday. He was 107.Buu Nygren, president of the Navajo Nation, announced Mr. Kinsel’s death in a post on social media. No cause was given.An estimated 400 Navajo Code Talkers served during World War II, transmitting a code crafted from the Navajo language that U.S. forces used to confuse the Japanese and communicate troop movements, enemy positions and other critical battlefield information. Mr. Kinsel, who served from October 1942 to January 1946, was part of the second group of Marines trained as code talkers at Camp Elliott in California, after the original 29 who developed the code for wartime use.The code was never broken. A fictionalized version of the codetalkers’ story was depicted in the film “Windtalkers,” directed by John Woo.In an interview in 2019 with The Arizona Republic, Mr. Kinsel remembered training alongside 25 other marines at Camp Elliott, and he recalled working with some of the original 29 to develop additional code, including by working on code words for military words like “tank” and “aircraft.”Mr. Kinsel was assigned to the Ninth Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division, and took part in the battles of Bougainville (in Papau New Guinea), Guam and Iwo Jima. He was never deployed to the front lines, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, but he worked with his division headquarters while on Bougainville Island to develop code and transcribe messages.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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      Abortion as an Issue in the Election

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      More from our inbox:Veterans as Poll WorkersAn Immigrant’s StoryPolitical Messages: Time to Turn Up the Sound Allison Dinner/EPA, via ShutterstockTo the Editor:Re “November’s Second-Most-Important Election,” by David French (column, Oct. 14):I find it difficult to understand why the heart has become a determiner of fetal life in abortion discussions and law when it’s the brain that makes us truly human.According to much neurological research, the brain doesn’t reach its major development until the end of the second trimester, about 24 weeks into a pregnancy, also known as viability. The brain then continues to develop through the ninth month of pregnancy, and certain parts, such as the frontal cortex, are not fully developed until adults reach their mid-20s.All of us, even lawmakers, should pay attention to the neurological science instead of emotional reactions to sounds.Ellen CreaneGuilford, Conn.To the Editor:I personally am deeply conflicted on the issue of abortion, but the problem I have with many pro-life supporters is that they never talk about support after the baby is born.Live babies and children need diapers and food and child care and good schools and support for college or learning a trade and safe schools and streets. If you have no concrete plans to eliminate child poverty, improve public education and put gun controls in place, can you really say that you support children?Ending the conversation (and legislation) at birth is not pro-life, but pro-childbirth.Margaret DowlingPhiladelphiaWe 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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      Pentagon to Give Honorable Discharges to Some Kicked Out Under ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

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      More than 800 service members administratively separated from the military under the now-repealed policy will receive discharge upgrades.The Pentagon announced on Tuesday that more than 800 service members who were kicked out of the military under the now-repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy will receive honorable discharge upgrades.Pentagon officials said they had completed a review of about 2,000 cases, as Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III ordered last year.Mr. Austin said in a statement that the military would “continue to honor the service and the sacrifice of all our troops — including the brave Americans who raised their hands to serve but were turned away because of whom they love.”About 13,500 service members were separated from the military because of their sexual orientation while the policy was in effect from 1994 until 2011. About a third of them were not considered for discharge upgrades because they were separated during their initial military training and had not served long enough to qualify.Some groups that work with veterans said the Pentagon should review those cases as well.“We don’t have a ton of clarity about how the Department of Defense went about its process here,” said Renee Burbank of the National Veterans Legal Services Program, which provides legal assistance to veterans on a wide array of issues.Ms. Burbank, who serves as the group’s director of litigation, said that about 7,000 of the 13,500 people ousted under “don’t ask, don’t tell” had already received honorable discharges.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 North Carolina Town Hall, Trump Makes a Series of Promises to Appeal to Veterans

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      At the end of his town hall in North Carolina on Friday, former President Donald J. Trump was asked by a former Air Force pilot whether he would create a panel to keep “woke generals” out of the Defense Department.Mr. Trump not only agreed, but also went a step further. “I’m going to put you on that task force,” he said, to cheers from the crowd.The remark was the last in a series of promises the former president made as he answered preselected questions from voters in Fayetteville, N.C., an area with a large military population. It’s a dynamic that happens often at Mr. Trump’s events, in which he makes direct commitments on small and large issues to appeal to and energize his specific audience.He promised that his proposed missile defense system, an American clone of Israel’s Iron Dome, would be made in North Carolina. He pledged to raise military pay. And before taking a question, he promised to restore the name of nearby Fort Liberty, the largest U.S. military base, back to Fort Bragg, which honored a Confederate general from a slave-owning family. The name was changed in June 2023 as part of the U.S. military’s examination of its history with race.Attendees cheered as Mr. Trump arrived for the town hall at Crown Arena in Fayetteville, N.C.Kent Nishimura for The New York TimesSitting onstage at the Crown Arena in front of several thousand people, many of whom said they were active-duty military service members or veterans, Mr. Trump took eight questions from audience members. Like the event’s moderator, Representative Anna Paulina Luna, Republican of Florida and a veteran, the participants teed him up to offer lines from his stump speech. Many of the questions echoed his exaggerated and false claims about immigration, approved of his vow to conduct massive deportations of undocumented immigrants and acknowledged his fear-inspiring predictions of global war.All Mr. Trump had to do, largely, was agree. He repeated his false claims that Democrats cheated in the 2020 election and made familiar attacks against the media.Mr. Trump earlier in the day toured parts of Georgia hit by Hurricane Helene, and he claimed that reporters were doing little to cover the storm and the Biden administration’s response.Ms. Luna, a proud and combative ally of Mr. Trump, took the ball and ran with it, and claimed that the administration’s response was intentional. “I do believe that they’ve intentionally, this is my opinion, not helped out those residents, because it’s red communities that are impacted,” she said. More

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      Trump Campaign Pushes Back at Harris With Gold Star Families’ Statement

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      The partisan dispute over Arlington National Cemetery escalated on Sunday when the campaign of former President Donald J. Trump published statements from family members of slain U.S. troops attacking Vice President Kamala Harris after she criticized Mr. Trump for politicizing the cemetery.It was the latest effort by the Trump campaign to defend itself after a physical altercation between a Trump aide and a cemetery official that was triggered by the campaign defying a ban on political campaigning at the Arlington cemetery in Virginia during Mr. Trump’s visit last week. Most of the family members who were with Mr. Trump for that visit signed onto the statement promoted by the Trump campaign.The Army said in a statement on Thursday that an official at Arlington National Cemetery was physically pushed by a Trump campaign aide after she tried to stop the campaign from filming in a heavily restricted area of the cemetery. Trump campaign officials then insulted the cemetery worker — insisting that there was no physical altercation and that they were prepared to release footage to prove it, but the campaign has not done so.In her first public comments on the situation, Ms. Harris said in a statement on Saturday that Mr. Trump had desecrated the cemetery — considered to be among the most sacred of American institutions. Ms. Harris said that the Arlington cemetery was a solemn place that should be free of politics, describing the campaign’s filming of Section 60 — largely reserved for service members killed in recent wars overseas — as “a political stunt.”The Trump campaign then released the statement signed by family members of 7 of the 13 U.S. troops killed by a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate at the Kabul airport during the withdrawal from Afghanistan three years ago.The statement spoke of the heroism of the troops killed at Abbey Gate, and the grief that the family members have felt in the three years since their loved ones were killed. But it also sought to blame Ms. Harris for the politicization of the cemetery, asserting that it was the vice president who had “disgracefully twisted” Mr. Trump’s visit “into a political ploy,” and effusively praised Mr. Trump’s leadership, with the family members of the troops asserting that “if he were still commander in chief, our children would be alive today.”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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      At Arlington, Trump Returns to the Politics of the ‘Forever Wars’

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      The 2024 presidential race is the first in 24 years without a major American ground war, but Donald J. Trump continues to stoke division over the post-9/11 conflicts that helped give rise to his movement.Follow along with the latest election updates as Harris and Trump hit the campaign trail.The extraordinary altercation on Monday between Trump campaign aides and an Arlington National Cemetery official over political photography on sacred military ground is playing out in a hyperpartisan moment when war records and former President Donald J. Trump’s respect for military service are already up for debate.But the conflict at Arlington Cemetery’s Section 60, reserved for those recently killed in America’s wars abroad, points to a deeper issue for Mr. Trump and his core foreign policy identity: The 2024 presidential campaign between the former president and Vice President Kamala Harris is the first in 24 years to unfold without an active American ground war.Mr. Trump’s rise in 2016 signified a major break from the foreign policy orthodoxy of both major parties, which believed in a U.S.-led internationalism and the projection of force abroad, whether it was the wars launched by George W. Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq or the conflicts embraced by Democrats to thwart ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and Bosnia and to end a dictatorship in Libya. That year, it was the Republican, Mr. Trump, who spoke of ending war, and the Democrat, Hillary Clinton, who bore the unpopular mantle of military aggression with her vote authorizing the invasion of Iraq and her muscular diplomacy as secretary of state.Mr. Trump has used the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan during the Biden administration to resurrect his critiques of the “forever wars” that in part powered his movement. Now, he warns of a looming “World War III,” promises to end the war in Ukraine before he is inaugurated and brags that his relationships with authoritarian leaders like Xi Jinping of China, Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Kim Jong-un of North Korea will restore stability and allow him to focus on securing domestic tranquillity.Mr. Trump is the candidate of peace through strength, said Brian Hughes, a Trump campaign senior adviser, while Ms. Harris is “the candidate of war because as ‘the last person in the room’ with Biden before the Afghanistan debacle, we are closer than ever to a world war than any other time in the last 50 years.”But to Mr. Trump’s political opponents, his arguments are having trouble sticking in part because voters do not believe his warnings of imminent American warfare.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