The Trump administration’s war on children

The Trump administration’s war on children

By Eli Hager This story was originally published by ProPublica The clear-cutting across the federal government under President Donald Trump has been dramatic, with mass terminations, the suspension of decades-old programs and the neutering of entire agencies. But this spectacle has obscured a series of moves by the administration that could profoundly harm some of the most vulnerable people in the U.S.: children. Consider: The staff of a program that helps millions of poor families keep the electricity on, in…

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Pentagon leadership vacuum overwhelms Hegseth’s office: ‘It’s a free-for-all’

Pentagon leadership vacuum overwhelms Hegseth’s office: ‘It’s a free-for-all’

Politico reports: The circle of top advisers in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orbit has shrunk in recent days to little more than his wife, lawyer, and two lower-level officials — leaving the Pentagon’s lead office without longtime expertise or clear direction. Hegseth’s decision to fire three senior aides last week and reassign his chief of staff has blown a hole in his leadership team, severing essential lines of communication across the department and leading to fears about dangerous slip-ups such…

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Voters oppose Trump power grab

Voters oppose Trump power grab

The New York Times reports: [A New York Times/Siena College poll found] [b]road majorities said they would prefer to place limits on exactly the kinds of powers that Mr. Trump has tried to exercise: 61 percent of voters, including 33 percent of Republicans, said a president should not be able to impose tariffs without authorization from Congress. 54 percent, including 26 percent of Republicans, said a president should not be able to eliminate programs enacted by Congress. 63 percent, including…

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Some federal agencies are walking back workforce cuts with critical functions at risk of failure

Some federal agencies are walking back workforce cuts with critical functions at risk of failure

Government Executive reports: Some federal agencies are asking employees to reconsider their plans to leave government or requiring those it has designated for termination to come back to work, as the Trump administration seeks to avoid catastrophic interruptions to pivotal government operations. The Agriculture Department is already planning for reduced or ceased work in key areas such as avian influenza response, according to employees involved in those efforts, causing the administration to ask employees to reverse course and rejoin government….

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Ancient tusk fragments hint at social learning among early humans 400,000 years ago

Ancient tusk fragments hint at social learning among early humans 400,000 years ago

ZME Science reports: In the plains of western Ukraine, researchers digging through ancient soil found a handful of small, broken pieces of ivory that might change how we think about early humans. The fragments—24 in total—came from the tusks of a long-extinct mammoth species. Most were unremarkable at first glance. But as scientists studied them more closely, they noticed patterns and shapes that didn’t seem like they had been accidentally broken. Some pieces had been chipped in a way that…

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We visited Rumeysa Ozturk in detention. What we saw was a warning to every American

We visited Rumeysa Ozturk in detention. What we saw was a warning to every American

Sen. Edward J. Markey, Rep. Jim McGovern and Rep. Ayanna Pressley write: A young woman walked casually down a public street only to find herself suddenly surrounded by masked law enforcement officers in plain clothes. Without explanation — and in the absence of criminal charges and any due process — she was forced into a waiting vehicle and vanished into the labyrinth of the state security system. Sound familiar? You’d be forgiven for thinking we’re recounting what happened to the…

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Federal authorities arrest two judges, escalating Trump immigration crackdown

Federal authorities arrest two judges, escalating Trump immigration crackdown

CNBC reports: Federal authorities have arrested a former New Mexico judge and a Wisconsin judge in two separate cases, accusing them of interfering with Trump administration immigration enforcement efforts. Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested Friday morning and charged with obstruction for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant evade arrest after he appeared in her courtroom last week. Dugan’s arrest came one day after federal authorities arrested a former New Mexico judge and his wife on charges related to…

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Officials were developing a plan to get Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. Then the White House took over

Officials were developing a plan to get Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. Then the White House took over

Nick Miroff writes: Late last month, three days after Abrego Garcia’s family filed its lawsuit over his deportation, government attorneys began discussing how to undo the mistake and bring him back. In their conversations, officials went so far as to float the idea of having the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador make a personal appeal to the country’s president for Abrego Garcia’s return. But first, the State Department’s legal team wanted more information from DHS about his alleged role in…

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Switching from ICE to DoD custody: An alarming violation of court order on deportations to El Salvador

Switching from ICE to DoD custody: An alarming violation of court order on deportations to El Salvador

Ryan Goodman writes: Earlier today, I discussed one of the “sleeper” immigration cases that had largely flown below the radar: D.V.D. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. On Wednesday night, the Justice Department submitted a filing in district court in which it appears to openly describe steps the government took to essentially evade the court’s temporary restraining order. Keep your eye on the ball: Which department had custody of the individuals following the court’s order. On March 28, the court ordered the defendants in the case –…

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A carve-up in gift wrapping: In Trump’s peace plan, all the sacrifice is demanded from Ukraine

A carve-up in gift wrapping: In Trump’s peace plan, all the sacrifice is demanded from Ukraine

Dan Sabbagh writes: “Crimea will stay with Russia,” Donald Trump told Time magazine in a largely sympathetic profile on Friday. And with that statement, the US president made clear that he wanted to carve up another country, Ukraine, and so legitimise the forcible seizure of land made by Moscow 11 years ago. From reading the transcript of the interview, Trump’s thinking is hardly coherent. Crimea, he says, wouldn’t have been seized if he had been president in 2014, but “it…

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Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney Ed Martin

Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney Ed Martin

The Washington Post reports: The acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia sent a letter to the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia, accusing the tax-exempt organization of “allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public.” In the letter dated April 24, Ed Martin, said he sought to determine whether the Wikimedia Foundation’s behavior is in violation of its Section 501(c)(3) status. Martin, who was appointed to the post by President Donald Trump in January, asked…

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When we see the Earth as ‘a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam’ what do we learn about human significance?

When we see the Earth as ‘a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam’ what do we learn about human significance?

Tim Bayne writes: On St Valentine’s Day 1990, NASA’s engineers directed the space-probe Voyager 1 – at the time, 6 billion kilometres (3.7 billion miles) from home – to take a photograph of Earth. Pale Blue Dot (as the image is known) represents our planet as a barely perceptible dot serendipitously highlighted by a ray of sunlight transecting the inky-black of space – a ‘mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam’, as Carl Sagan famously put it. But to find that mote of dust, you need to know…

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U.S. agencies alarmed after China plays trump card: curbs on exports of rare-earth minerals

U.S. agencies alarmed after China plays trump card: curbs on exports of rare-earth minerals

The Washington Post reports: Senior administration officials are scrambling to stem economic damage from China’s restrictions on rare-earth exports, as President Donald Trump’s trade war risks cutting key industries and defense contractors off from supplies of metals crucial to production, according to three people familiar with internal deliberations. While companies search for alternative suppliers and urge the White House to cut a deal that will keep the materials flowing to U.S. manufacturers, the Trump administration is finding there are no…

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A Georgetown beneficiary of the Scholars at Risk program never imagined the U.S. would pose a risk

A Georgetown beneficiary of the Scholars at Risk program never imagined the U.S. would pose a risk

Nader Hashemi writes: In March, Badar Khan Suri, an Indian postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, was arrested by federal agents. The nature and circumstances of his detention parallel the cases of Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia University and Rumeysa Ozturk at Tufts. I am the academic director of the center at Georgetown that hosted Badar Khan Suri as a postdoctoral fellow — the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. I recently went to visit him at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement…

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