Trump’s slush fund gets ditched (verbally), but he may still pocket $600 million by dodging taxes

Trump’s slush fund gets ditched (verbally), but he may still pocket $600 million by dodging taxes

Politico reports: The Trump administration will drop its $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that was widely criticized as a payout for the president’s allies, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a congressional hearing Tuesday. “We’re not moving forward with the fund, period,” said Blanche in remarks before the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees funding for the Department of Justice. Republican blowback from the announcement of the fund has stalled movement on an immigration enforcement bill in the Senate, where GOP…

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The Manhattan Institute helped kill DEI. Now it’s coming for protests

The Manhattan Institute helped kill DEI. Now it’s coming for protests

Wired reports: A right-wing think tank responsible for the emergence of zero-tolerance policing in 1990s New York City and the Trump administration’s scorched-earth campaign against “diversity, equality and inclusion” programs is behind state-level legislative efforts to classify minor protest-related crimes as “civil terrorism.” The Manhattan Institute, cofounded in 1978 by former Central Intelligence Agency director William Casey, is in the midst of a yearlong campaign to pass state-level legislation reclassifying minor crimes like vandalism, blocking a roadway, or trespassing during…

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White House seeks to impose political test on billions in federal grants

White House seeks to impose political test on billions in federal grants

The New York Times reports: The White House is seeking to exert more control over billions of dollars in annual government grants, aiming to restrict a vast swath of funding — in health, housing, science and transportation — so that it primarily serves the purposes and organizations politically aligned with President Trump. While the administration says that its primary goal is to safeguard taxpayer money, its proposal amounts to a major escalation in its attempt to reimagine the nation’s spending,…

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Trump is destroying ‘the world’s most advanced continuously operating ocean observing systems’

Trump is destroying ‘the world’s most advanced continuously operating ocean observing systems’

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration is dismantling a $368 million deep-ocean observation system that was put in place a decade ago to monitor coastal environments, marine ecosystems and powerful currents that affect the global climate. The National Science Foundation said it would send ships in June to begin removing more than 900 deep-sea instruments anchored off Oregon, Washington State, Alaska, North Carolina, and an area between Greenland and Iceland known as the Irminger Sea. Scientists have used…

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Federal judge blocks breakup of National Center for Atmospheric Research

Federal judge blocks breakup of National Center for Atmospheric Research

The Colorado Sun reports: A federal judge in Denver on Monday blocked federal officials from breaking up Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research by handing over a renowned supercomputing center to the University of Wyoming, in a 38-page injunction raking the Trump administration for enacting political revenge on Colorado. Senior U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson issued an injunction because the National Science Foundation divesting the supercomputing center was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance…

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Pentagon hires convicted Jan. 6 rioter for sensitive counterterrorism job

Pentagon hires convicted Jan. 6 rioter for sensitive counterterrorism job

The Washington Post reports: A convicted Jan. 6 rioter who later said that he regretted his participation in the U.S. Capitol attack has been hired by the Trump administration to work inside a Pentagon office that manages highly classified military operations, according to four people familiar with the matter. The appointment of Elias Irizarry, who was 19 at the time of the riot in 2021, to a post in the Defense Department’s Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict office has…

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The chemistry of life is not exclusive to life

The chemistry of life is not exclusive to life

Siddhant Pusdekar writes: For 15 years, Sébastien Fontaine has been trying to kill dirt. The biochemist, who runs a lab at the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment, wanted to know how much carbon is released by soil — just dirt alone, completely devoid of life. His team sealed dirt into jars and blasted them with sterilizing gamma radiation. Then they waited for the carbon dioxide released by the soil — a sign of ongoing microbial respiration —…

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Trump administration retreats on $1.8 billion slush fund

Trump administration retreats on $1.8 billion slush fund

Politico reports: President Donald Trump is retreating from plans for a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” after a fierce backlash from congressional Republicans, according to two people granted anonymity to describe the decision. White House officials communicated the move Monday to top Republicans on Capitol Hill, the people said. The Justice Department, which was set to administer the fund, also indicated Monday it would “abide by the Court’s ruling” to halt progress after a federal judge in Virginia on Friday temporarily…

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Losing trust in DOJ, judges call out its lawyers’ behavior

Losing trust in DOJ, judges call out its lawyers’ behavior

The New York Times reports: In late April, a lawyer for the Justice Department told a federal judge that her colleagues had been in the midst of negotiations with a Rhode Island hospital about turning over gender-transition treatment health records, only for the hospital’s lawyers to stop responding. But Judge Mary S. McElroy of Federal District Court in Rhode Island concluded that was not true. While the government claimed it had not heard from the hospital since February, emails showed…

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Trump tells CNBC: ‘I don’t care’ if Iran negotiations are over and he tells Netanyahu: ‘you’re fucking crazy’

Trump tells CNBC: ‘I don’t care’ if Iran negotiations are over and he tells Netanyahu: ‘you’re fucking crazy’

CNBC reports: President Donald Trump on Monday shrugged off the possible collapse of peace negotiations with Iran, telling CNBC, “I don’t care if they’re over, honestly.” “I really don’t care. I couldn’t care less,” Trump told CNBC’s Eamon Javers in a phone interview midday Monday, saying he thought the protracted discussions “started to get very boring.” Trump had been asked about the prospect of Iran ending talks with the U.S. in light of reporting earlier Monday that Iranian negotiators would…

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Scott Pelley accuses CBS News boss of ‘murdering’ 60 Minutes

Scott Pelley accuses CBS News boss of ‘murdering’ 60 Minutes

The New York Times reports: CBS News faced a fresh wave of turmoil on Monday after Scott Pelley, the “60 Minutes” correspondent, laced into the show’s newly hired executive producer during a staff meeting and accused Bari Weiss, the network’s editor in chief, of “murdering” the longstanding Sunday news program. In an extraordinary exchange, Mr. Pelley, his newscaster’s baritone sometimes shaking in anger, told Nick Bilton, the new executive producer, that he had “slender” qualifications for his new job and…

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The Trump administration’s attack on immigrants are all about racism and sadism

The Trump administration’s attack on immigrants are all about racism and sadism

Paul Krugman writes: There was a time when anti-immigration activists claimed not to hate immigrants as people. Their concern, they insisted, was only about illegal immigrants, the purported crime wave they caused, or the loss of jobs for the native born. If you believed any of that, you were naive. The Trump administration is trying to drive out all immigrants, legal as well as undocumented, with almost no pretense that its pogroms serve any wider social or economic purpose. And…

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Hegseth strikes female and Black Navy officers from promotion list

Hegseth strikes female and Black Navy officers from promotion list

The New York Times reports: In a move that disproportionately targets women and minority officers, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently blocked the promotions of at least seven Navy officers who had been selected by a board of senior Navy admirals. The net result of Mr. Hegseth’s intervention is a slate of 22 nominees to be one-star admirals that bears little resemblance to the broader force these officers will help lead. At least two of the officers removed by Mr. Hegseth…

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Why one branch on the human family tree replaced all the others

Why one branch on the human family tree replaced all the others

Nick Longrich writes: On the western slope of Mount Carmel, in Israel, lies the cave of Es-Skhul. About 140,000 years ago, during the Ice Age, nomadic hunter-gatherers made camp here. The sea to the west had receded, exposing a broad plain covered with groves of live oak, almond and olive, meadows filled with asphodel and anemone. Herds of fallow deer, rhinoceros and aurochs roamed the plains. People hunted animals with stone-tipped spears, and foraged wild mustard and olives. And when…

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