The draft was almost ready for submission, due in less than a month. More than 150 scientists and other experts had collectively spent thousands of hours working on the report, a first-of-its-kind assessment of nature across the United States. But President Trump ended the effort, started under the Biden administration, by executive order. So, on Jan. 30, the project’s director, …
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Trump Is Freezing Money for Clean Energy. Republican States Have the Most to Lose.
In less than three weeks, President Trump has thrown the U.S. clean energy industry into chaos, with much of the economic damage hitting Republican states and districts. In a quest to eliminate any funding linked to climate change, the Trump administration has frozen federal grants for everything from battery factories to electric school buses and issued executive orders that have …
Read More »A Sweeping Ban on D.E.I. Language Roils the Sciences
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, or NASEM, is an independent, 162-year-old nongovernmental agency tasked with investigating and reporting on a wide range of subjects. In recent years, diversity, equity and inclusion — collectively known as D.E.I. — have been central to its agenda. But the Academies’ priorities changed abruptly on Jan. 31. Shortly after receiving a “stop …
Read More »Trump and Musk Bring Vast Aid Machinery to a Halt in Africa
For decades, sub-Saharan Africa was a singular focus of American foreign aid. The continent received over $8 billion a year, money that was used to feed starving children, supply lifesaving drugs and provide wartime humanitarian assistance. In a few short weeks, President Trump and the South African-born billionaire Elon Musk have burned much of that work to the ground, vowing …
Read More »Trump Allows Low-Cost Chinese Products to Enter U.S. Without Tariffs, for Now
President Trump signed an executive order on Friday that will temporarily allow low-cost products from China to continue coming into the United States tariff-free. The order reverses, at least for now, a decision that he made last Saturday, when he signed an executive order eliminating so-called de minimis treatment for goods from China. The de minimis rule had allowed products …
Read More »What Privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Means
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two giant mortgage finance firms, have been controlled by the federal government for nearly 17 years, but a long-dormant idea of making them private businesses is starting to make the rounds in Washington again. Scott Turner, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said in an interview this week that coordinating the effort to privatize …
Read More »Dozens of Clinical Trials Have Been Frozen in Response to Trump’s USAID Order
Asanda Zondi received a startling phone call last Thursday, with orders to make her way to a health clinic in Vulindlela, South Africa, where she was participating in a research study that was testing a new device to prevent pregnancy and H.IV. infection. The trial was shutting down, a nurse told her. The device, a silicone ring inserted into her …
Read More »Trump’s Attacks on DEI Get Approval From Some in the Left Wing
A few days after President Trump issued an order urging the private sector to end “Illegal D.E.I. Discrimination and Preferences,” the Rev. Al Sharpton led about 100 people into a Costco in East Harlem for a so-called buy-cott. The idea was to shop and support the company for maintaining its diversity, equity and inclusion policies amid pressure from the new …
Read More »Trump Prepares to Take On the US Trade Deficit, a Familiar Nemesis
To President Trump, one economic number represents everything that is wrong with the global economy: America’s trade deficit. That deficit is the total value of what the United States imports from other nations, minus its exports to other countries. The fact that America runs a trade deficit reflects how the nation’s appetite for foreign goods now far outpaces what U.S. …
Read More »E.P.A. Demotes Career Employees Overseeing Science, Enforcement and More
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to demote career employees who oversee scientific research, the enforcement of pollution laws, hazardous waste cleanup and the agency’s human resources department and replace them with political appointees, according to two people familiar with the approach. The move would give Trump administration loyalists more influence over aspects of the agency that were traditionally led by …
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