The Trump administration is continuing its assault on higher education, but in a departure from its earlier high-profile fights with individual institutions like Harvard, it is now rewriting the federal rules that govern all universities and colleges. Rules are being proposed by the Education Department and other agencies to impose the administration’s preferred policies on thousands of schools…
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Over the last few weeks, the Trump administration’s relentless war on the U.S.’s scientific infrastructure has picked up speed. The New York Times’s Lisa Friedman reported in late April that over the past months, more than 1,500 top scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Research and Development have either been laid off, pushed into early retirement…
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Kathy Quitno-Bolt was still numb when she started calling Social Security days after her husband’s sudden death in July. Steve, her partner of 25 years and husband of 13, died four days after being diagnosed with lung cancer — just enough time for their daughter to arrive and say goodbye. When she finally got through to someone, they told her they wouldn’t have an appointment to begin her…
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During the year she spent leading the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, Kristi Noem faced a torrent of criticism. Lawmakers from both parties assailed her for lying about the shooting of protestors in Minneapolis and spending millions of dollars on television commercials. Government audits concluded that she “systematically obstructed” investigations and created security risks at…
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The Washington Post has laid off more than 300 journalists, dismantling its sports, local news and international coverage. “Everybody is grieving, and it’s a loss for our readers,” says Nilo Tabrizy, one of the paper’s recently laid-off staff, who describes a “robotic” meeting announcing the cuts. “They didn’t have the dignity to look us in the eye.” The shocking staff culling has been widely…
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The Trump administration this week made abrupt cuts to the top federal disaster response agency, even as US communities face increased threats from natural disasters caused by the global climate crisis. Independent journalist Marisa Kabas reported on Wednesday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) “has begun issuing termination notices” to staff at the agency’s Cadre of On-Call…
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