Some 1,900 leading researchers accused the Trump administration in an open letter on Monday of conducting a “wholesale assault on U.S. science” that could set back research by decades and that threatens the health and safety of Americans. The letter’s signatories, all of them elected members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, warned of the damage being …
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Trump Order Could Cripple Federal Worker Unions Fighting DOGE Cuts
Federal worker unions have sought over the past two months to lead the resistance to President Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency, filing lawsuits, organizing protests and signing up new members by the thousands. This week, Mr. Trump struck back with a potentially crippling blow. In a sweeping executive order denouncing the unions as “hostile” to his agenda, the …
Read More »Trump and DOGE Create Anxiety but Opportunity for Federal Contractors
A contracting firm called Leidos took in more than $16 billion in revenue last year, most of it through contracts with federal agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs. So when the Trump administration’s budget cutters took aim at the V.A. last month, it seemed like bad news not just for the department’s employees but also for Leidos and dozens …
Read More »Trump Administration Sends Politically Charged Survey to Researchers
The Trump administration has asked researchers and organizations whose work is conducted overseas to disclose ties to those regarded as hostile, including “entities associated with communist, socialist or totalitarian parties,” according to a questionnaire obtained by The New York Times. The online survey was sent this week to groups working abroad to research diseases like H.I.V., gather surveillance data and …
Read More »Fired Federal Workers Face a Sluggish Job Market
For about a year now, the labor market has existed in a state of eerie calm: Not many people were losing their jobs or quitting, but not many of those seeking work were getting job offers. The mass layoffs now underway across the federal government, along with its employees who are voluntarily heading for the exits, could disrupt that uneasy …
Read More »Lutnick Remarks on Removing Government Spending in GDP Data Raises Fears
Comments from a member of President Trump’s cabinet over the weekend have renewed concerns that the new administration could seek to interfere with federal statistics — especially if they start to show that the economy is slipping into a recession. In an interview on Fox News on Sunday, Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, suggested that he planned to change the …
Read More »As the E.P.A. Withers, Will Its Museum Follow?
In a city where world-class masterpieces sit in marble temples that line the National Mall, the small museum devoted to the work of the Environmental Protection Agency, tucked away in a federal building near the White House, has not exactly inspired much fanfare. But as President Trump and Elon Musk slash and burn their way through Washington’s federal bureaucracy, this …
Read More »Mass Federal Firings May Imperil Pets, Cattle and Crops
Shortly after taking office for the second time, President Trump began making deep cuts to agencies and programs that play critical roles in human health, slashing funding for medical research, halting global health aid and firing scores of workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the campaign to downsize government, which has been led by Mr. Trump …
Read More »Who Are the Probationary Federal Workers Getting Cut Under Trump?
In news about the Trump administration’s job-slashing effort, one class of federal workers comes up repeatedly: “probationary” employees. At the Internal Revenue Service, 6,700 people with that status are being let go. At the Department of Health and Human Services, reports indicated the total could be 5,200. The Pentagon announced last week it would terminate 5,400. At the Forest Service, …
Read More »N.S.F. Cuts Raise Fears of a Reduced U.S. Presence in Polar Regions
Kelly Brunt wasn’t the only federal employee to be laid off this month while traveling for work. But she was almost certainly the only one whose work trip was in Antarctica. Dr. Brunt was a program director at the National Science Foundation, the $9 billion agency that supports scientific advancement in practically every field apart from medicine. As part of …
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