cut

Rory McIlroy carded a woeful eight-over-par 78 as he missed the cut at the Canadian Open.

It is the first time the Northern Irishman has failed to make the weekend in a tournament since the Open Championship last July.

The Masters champion, who won this event in 2019 and 2022, ended his second round at TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley on nine over par overall, 149th in a 153-man field – a remarkable 22 shots behind leader Cameron Champ.

McIlroy, who started the day on one over par, made a quadruple-bogey eight on the par-four fifth and dropped further shots at the eighth, 10th, 11th and 13th holes before recording his first birdie of the day on the 15th.

Another bogey arrived at the 17th, and while he delivered a birdie on the final hole it left McIlroy well short of the projected cut line at three under.

Champ, who only arrived in the early hours of Wednesday morning having been the eighth alternate last weekend, followed up an opening 62 with a four-under 66, as he opened a two-stroke advantage over fellow American Andrew Putnam.

It was also a good day for Ireland’s Shane Lowry, whose two-under-par 68 took him to eight under, four shots adrift of Champ.

Denmark’s Thorbjorn Olesen is just ahead of Lowry at nine under along with home favourites Richard Lee and Nick Taylor, and France’s Victor Perez.

However, there was also disappointment for Justin Rose, who McIlroy defeated in a play-off at the Augusta National in April.

The Englishman will also not be around for the weekend after missing out in unfortunate circumstances at one under par.

After finding the rough off the seventh tee, the 2013 US Open champion unintentionally caused his ball to move while shifting a loose impediment and was given a two-stroke penalty after failing to put the ball back in its original position.

France’s Matthieu Pavon also had a second round to forget, signing for a 10-over-par 80, which included a 12 on his opening hole, the par-four 10th.

June 5 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to cut Elon Musk‘s government contracts through Tesla amid his departure from his role cutting government spending and opposition to Trump’s sweeping legislative agenda bill.

Trump threatened to end all government contracts with the Musk-founded Tesla in a post on Truth Social and suggested that would be a fast way to reduce government spending.

“The easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon’s governmental subsidies and contracts,” Trump wrote.

Tesla share prices declined by more than 14% on Thursday and shed $152 billion in value from the EV maker.

Trump on Thursday accused Musk of going “crazy” after the president canceled the federal electric vehicle mandate imposed by the Biden administration.

“I took away his EV mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Thursday. “He just went crazy!”

Trump said he asked Musk to leave his advisory position with DOGE, although Musk was scheduled to exit the position at the end of May.

Musk earlier said Trump would not have won the Nov. 5 election without his help.

He contributed an estimated $250 million to Trump’s campaign effort.

“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk said Thursday morning in a post on X.

Musk has criticized the proposed “one big, beautiful” federal government budget bill as increasing the nation’s debt and negating his work with DOGE.

The entrepreneur opposes the spending bill that the House has passed and is before the Senate because it removed tax credits and subsidies for buying EVs, Trump claimed.

“I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done that months ago,” Trump said in a subsequent Truth Social post on Thursday afternoon.

“This is one of the greatest bills ever presented to Congress,” he continued. “It’s a record cut in expenses, $1.6 trillion dollars, and the biggest tax cut ever given.”

If the measure is not passed, Trump said it will trigger a 68% tax increase, “and things far worse than that.”

The president said the “easiest way to save money … is to terminate Elon’s governmental subsidies and contracts” with Tesla.

Later on Thursday, Musk in an X post said it is “time to drop the really big bomb” on the president.

Trump “is in the Epstein files,” Musk said. “That is the real reason they have not been made public.”

Musk did not say in what context Trump allegedly appears in the Epstein files, but ended his post with: “Have a nice day, DJT!”

He made a subsequent post that asks: “Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?”

Trump and Musk often appeared together at high-profile events in the first four months of the administration.

June 5 (UPI) — Procter & Gamble said Thursday it plans to cut 7,000 jobs as part of a plan it said aims to accelerate growth.

The company said the cuts will take place over the next two years and represent 15% of its non-manufacturing workforce.

“In Fiscal 2026, we’ll begin a 2-year effort to accelerate P&G’s growth and value creation. These changes across our portfolio, supply chain and organization are designed to unlock significant opportunities for stronger delivery of P&G’s integrated growth strategy,” the company said in a statement.

Procter & Gamble said the workers losing their jobs will be “managed with support and respect, and in line with our principles and values and local laws.”

The workforce reduction is part of similar actions across U.S. industries amid tariff turmoil, fierce competition and consumer spending changes.

Companies are spending less, slowing hiring and sending layoff notices,” Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in an emailed statement to CBS News.

According to Challenger, job cuts are 47% higher now than a year ago.

According to Procter & Gamble, fiscal year 2024 was the eighth straight year of 2% or better earnings per share growth.

“Through the first three quarters of the 2025 fiscal year, P&G delivered +3% Core EPS growth — at the mid-point of 2-to-4% guidance range for the fiscal year,” the company statement said.

Procter & Gamble also said over the first three fiscal quarters of 2025 $13 billion was returned to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.

In addition to the layoffs, Procter & Gamble said changes it is implementing are focused on its portfolio, supply chain and organization design.

This will include ending some “categories, brands and product forms in individual markets” that could include some brand divestitures.

The Procter & Gamble supply chain will also be re-sized and re-located in an effort to ” drive efficiencies, faster innovation, cost reduction and even more reliable and resilient supply.”

There will also be changes in what Procter & Gamble said are “accountable organization design,” including making roles broader, making teams smaller while leveraging digitization and automation.

As Procter & Gamble reorganizes to deliver higher profits for shareholders, workers will be impacted by the job cuts and changing responsibilities within the company.

Procter & Gamble said taken together, these changes are “intended to widen P&G’s margin of advantage in superiority leading to growth and value creation.”

Warner Bros. Discovery is the latest media company to shed employees from its cable TV channels, with several dozen positions jettisoned Wednesday.

The layoffs, confirmed by an executive not authorized to comment publicly, are aimed at improving efficiency across the company as cable TV revenues sink because of cord-cutting.

The moves at Warner Bros. Discovery come two days after the Walt Disney Co. implemented a bloodletting across its film and television marketing teams, television publicity, casting and development as well as corporate operations.

The cuts at Disney numbered in the hundreds. The figure for Warner Bros. Discovery is much smaller than that, though an exact number was not disclosed.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s movie and TV production studios and streaming operation, soon to go back to its earlier name, HBO Max, will not be hit by the cutbacks.

The cuts come as Warner Bros. Discovery is said to be pondering a possible spinoff of its declining cable TV assets, which include its Turner channels, Discovery Networks, HGTV and Food Network, similar to what Comcast is doing with its NBCUniversal cable outlets (with the exception of Bravo).

Comcast is putting MSNBC, CNBC, the Golf Channel, USA Network and other outlets into a new company called Versant, separating the mature businesses from the rest of the company as it focuses on streaming.

Warner Bros. Discovery recently reorganized into two business units. The entertainment giant last year took a $9.1-billion writedown to reflect the declining value of its TV networks.

The cuts at Warner Bros. Discovery come just a day after a rare shareholder rebuke of its executive pay packages, a sign of growing unhappiness with the company’s financial performance.

A majority of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders voted against the 2024 compensation package given to Chief Executive David Zaslav and other executives at the company’s recent annual meeting, according to a regulatory filing.

Almost 60% of the votes cast came in against the 2024 executive pay package at the company, according to a regulatory filing Tuesday. The vote is nonbinding, and thus symbolic.

Walt Disney Co. launched another deep round of layoffs on Monday, notifying several hundred Disney employees in the U.S. and abroad that their jobs were being eliminated amid an increasingly difficult economic environment for traditional television.

People close to the Burbank entertainment giant confirmed the cuts, which are hitting film and television marketing teams, television publicity, casting and development as well as corporate financial operations.

The move comes just three months after the company cut 200 workers, including at ABC News in New York and Disney-owned entertainment networks. At the time, the division said it was cutting its staff by 6% amid shrinking TV ratings and revenue for traditional television.

Disney declined to specify how many workers were losing their jobs. The cutbacks come after Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger acknowledged to Wall Street that Disney had been pumping out too many shows and movies to compete against Netflix. The programming build-up accelerated as the company prepared to launch Disney+ in late 2019, and it bulked up its staff to handle the more robust pipeline.

But the company since has retrenched, recognizing the need to focus on creating high-quality originals that meet Disney’s once lofty standards.

ABC News shed about 40 employees last October. The company’s TV stations also lost staff members.

The ABC television network and Disney-owned entertainment channels have seen dramatic audience defections as consumers switch to streaming services, including Netflix, Paramount+ and Disney+.

Hollywood trade site Deadline first reported the news.

Students could face subject “cold spots” if universities are not allowed to work together more to deliver courses, according to a new report.

The review by Universities UK, which represents 141 institutions, found universities were reluctant to collaborate because of concerns around breaking business laws designed to promote healthy competition between them.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it wanted to support collaboration where possible in a “very challenging” financial situation for the sector.

A government review of how higher education will be funded in the long term is under way in England, and is expected to be published later this year.

The Universities UK report said greater collaboration between universities could be a solution for institutions who are struggling to cut costs and become more efficient.

Some universities are already delivering courses this way, to the benefit of students.

Mature student Joe Vincent, 33, lives at home in Devon with his partner and baby while studying in Plymouth for a masters degree in pharmacy from the University of Bath, over 130 miles away.

“It’s everything for me”, he says, adding that being able to study and qualify locally “is the difference between me having this career, and not having this career”.

In 2018, he trained as a pharmacy technician at a nearby college, because there was no local university course available to become a pharmacist.

This close collaboration between universities is also intended to meet a shortage of community pharmacists in the South West.

Sir Nigel Carrington, who led the review for Universities UK, said more clarity was needed to prevent universities having to make decisions about which courses to close, or merge, in isolation from one another.

He told the BBC there was a risk of “cold spots emerging in which there will be no opportunity for prospective students to study the subjects they want to study in their home cities or their home regions”.

He said neighbouring universities should be allowed to look at which subjects they recruit the fewest students for and agree that only one of them should teach that course, “divvying up other courses between them” and working out where delivering a subject would be most cost effective.

After the University of Cardiff announced job losses earlier this year, vice-chancellor Prof Wendy Larner told The Times newspaper she was “deeply frustrated” by legal advice not to consult other universities on the impact of course closures, adding the system was “set up to enhance competition, not collaboration”.

The CMA enforces the existing law, which applies across different sectors to protect consumers, in this case students.

In a blog post published on Friday, it said it recognised the financial problems facing universities and that it wanted to support collaboration where possible.

The CMA said ideas such as sharing back-office functions, or discussing possible mergers with other universities, were unlikely to raise competition law concerns.

Juliette Enser, executive director of competition enforcement at the CMA, said: “We know universities are interested in collaborating on courses they offer and we are working to understand how this fits with overall plans for higher education reform.”

It would be for the government to change the law, or how universities are regulated, to allow up-front conversations to be had about whether some subjects need a different kind of collaboration in different regions.

University budgets have been strained by a 16% drop in international students – who pay higher fees than domestic students – after changes to visa rules came into force last January.

University income in the form of fees has also failed to keep up with inflation, rising for the first time in eight years this autumn from £9,250 to £9,535.

The higher education regulator in England, the Office for Students, has said four in 10 universities are heading for a financial deficit by this summer, despite thousands of job losses already having been announced.

Course cutbacks or closure announcements have also followed one after the other this year, from the University of East Anglia to Sheffield, Durham, Bournemouth and many more.

It has become a patchwork of individual institutional decisions, largely driven by market forces, including how many students want to sign up for individual subjects.

The government said it had been clear that universities needed to increase opportunities for students and contribute more to growth in the economy.

In response to the review, Jacqui Smith, the Skills Minister, said: “I am pleased to see the sector taking steps to grip this issue as we restore our universities as engines of opportunity, aspiration and growth.”

A review of the longer term future of higher education in England is expected to be published before the summer.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration invited travel industry executives to the White House in May for a meeting on federal plans for the 2026 World Cup, a landmark event that under normal circumstances would draw massive international tourism to the United States. It was a welcome gathering by President Trump and his team for an industry eager to capitalize on a rare opportunity and capture tourism dollars.

Welcome, at least, until Vice President JD Vance cracked a joke.

“We’ll have visitors from close to 100 countries — we want them to come, we want them to celebrate, we want them to watch the games. But when the time is up, they’ll have to go home. Otherwise, they’ll have to talk to Secretary Noem,” Vance said, referring to the Homeland Security secretary and head of border enforcement.

Vance’s remarks, while taken in jest, fell flat in a room filled with experts more keenly aware than most of the challenges facing travel in the Trump era.

“It’s one of those moments where you’re almost, like, stop helping us,” one participant in the meeting told The Times, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Stories are flooding media overseas of capricious denials and detentions at U.S. border crossings, raising concern among international tourists over spending top dollar on vacations to America that may end up disrupted, or never materialize. Erratic tariff policies out of the White House have shaken consumer confidence that experts say reliably tracks with discretionary spending on travel. And a series of scares in U.S. aviation, coupled with cuts to the National Park Service and the National Weather Service, have made planning trips to some of the country’s top destinations less reliable.

In California, the nation’s No. 1 tourist destination, international visits are expected to drop by 9.2% through the year, with international spending anticipated to drop 4.2%, according to a forecast published last month by Visit California and Tourism Economics.

Around Yosemite National Park, one of the nation’s most popular attractions, reported bookings were down “as much as 50% going into Memorial Day weekend,” Caroline Beteta, president and chief executive of Visit California, told The Times.

Narratives of travel disruptions under the Trump administration have given pause to U.S. officials and industry experts concerned not only with the immediate economic consequences of a slower summer season, but with the prospects of anemic attendance at World Cup games next year and, beyond, for the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.

“Consumer confidence certainly matters,” said Geoff Freeman, president and chief executive of the U.S. Travel Assn. “It creates a degree of uncertainty.”

‘People should plan ahead’

Unlike much of the rest of the country, California is particularly susceptible to shifting trends among tourists from Asia, where tourism has yet to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic as robustly as it has in the Americas and Europe. Commercial flight restrictions over Russian airspace and the strength of the U.S. dollar haven’t helped, Freeman said.

On the other hand, California benefits from a tourism industry that relies more heavily on domestic travelers, the source of 80% of tourism dollars spent in the state, Beteta noted.

“There’s no question that there are widespread misperceptions about impacts to the travel experience, from reports about staff cuts to detentions at the border,” Beteta said. “Cuts at the National Park Service, for example, don’t affect the park concessionaires — and those companies run most of the visitor-facing services, such as lodging, dining, shuttle services and much more. The misperception of chaos at the parks is a PR issue that can have real consequences.”

Visitors board buses in Yosemite National Park on May 20. Reported bookings around Yosemite National Park were down 50% leading into Memorial Day weekend.

(Carlos Avila Gonzalez / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

But Cassidy Jones, senior visitation program manager at the National Parks Conservation Assn., said that cuts to the parks are tangible and will directly affect visitors’ experience over the coming months, despite efforts by leadership at the Department of the Interior to paper over the cracks.

“There may be fewer entrance gates open,” Jones said. “People should plan ahead and remember to be helpful park visitors. Take the optional shuttle. Come with supplies with you, as some facilities may be closed at hours you’re not expecting, because they don’t have the staff to keep them open. Toilets may not be unwinterized yet if they’re in cold places.”

In April, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order directing that national parks be “open and accessible” through the summer season, as fears grew that staffing cuts implemented by the administration could become apparent. Still, the White House cuts and hiring freezes severely disrupted a seasonal hiring and training cadence for park rangers that usually begins around Christmas, Jones said.

“Some parks may not feel like a lot of changes are evident, but there’s a lot of work that is not being done in the background,” Jones added. “The order basically demanded that even though parks have experienced devastating staffing cuts, they are to put on a sort of public appearance that everything is business as usual. That means pulling superintendents to work in visitor centers, science and research management staff to make sure facilities are clean — biologists cleaning toilets, that sort of thing.”

Flight disruptions expected

Twenty years ago, roughly half of flight delays were caused by uncertainty over the weather — a number that has dropped to 33% in recent years thanks to improved forecast quality. That progress is starting to reverse due to widespread cuts in talent, and will be felt by travelers sooner rather than later, said Rick Spinrad, who served as administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under President Biden.

Trump’s government efficiency program, known as DOGE, has eliminated hundreds of positions at NOAA, including at the National Weather Service, and is proposing a 25% cut in the agency’s budget.

“In the short term, this summer, when people are doing longer traveling, we may see a degradation of services. You may see more delayed flights, more weather-impacted flights,” Spinrad said.

But Spinrad’s concern is that the cuts to NOAA will soon be felt much more deeply, at the local level, among the emergency managers, local transportation departments and public health centers that count on reliable forecasts to map out their work.

“What we’re going to start to see, I think, is the erosion of the capability of NOAA to provide services to the degree that people had become accustomed to,” he said.

Spinrad visited Southern California in late May and was taken aback by the number of people raising concern over the agency’s ability to continue predicting atmospheric river events, with all of their implications on public safety, reservoir operations and hydro power. Those forecasts rely heavily on the work of a satellite operations facility that was gutted by the Trump administration.

And the capabilities of the National Weather Service to predict phenomena like Santa Ana winds, which fueled devastating fires in Los Angeles in January, are at risk, with 30 of the agency’s 122 weather forecast offices operating without meteorologists and with technicians cut throughout, he said.

“I know it will degrade, just by definition. Everything’s going to degrade,” Spinrad added. “All of NOAA’s predictive capabilities will degrade as a result of these cuts.”

Mark Spalding, president of the Ocean Foundation, warned the aviation industry would soon face disruptions as NOAA’s capabilities continue to diminish.

“We will see effects this summer, because they’ve fired so many people and shut down so much activity,” Spalding said.

“There are a lot of services that a lot of people rely on that NOAA provides — weather prediction, ocean observing, tsunami early warning, hurricane center monitoring,” he added. “There’s a lot this summer that could be affected in ways that are akin to what we’re seeing in air traffic control due to the sudden loss of personnel there.”

Still, Freeman, of the U.S. Travel Assn., expressed optimism for the U.S. tourism sector going forward, noting he and his counterparts are in “regular communication” with the Trump administration over headwinds facing the multitrillion-dollar industry.

“We have no shortage of challenges in the travel industry,” he said. “I think the picture right now for travel is uncertain, at worst.”

“For every challenge you see, there is an opportunity on the other side,” he added.

PBS filed a federal lawsuit Friday asking a court to block the May 1 executive order by the Trump White House to cut off funding to public media, calling the move a violation of the 1st Amendment.

The suit from the service that airs “Sesame Street,” Ken Burns documentaries and the “PBS NewsHour” for free to millions of American homes, said that Congress has repeatedly protected PBS from political interference by filtering its funds through the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which is not a federal agency.

“The [executive order] makes no attempt to hide the fact that it is cutting off the flow of funds to PBS because of the content of PBS programming and out of a desire to alter the content of speech.”

NPR, which also receives CPB funding, filed a suit on similar grounds on Tuesday.

The White House alleges that PBS has “zero tolerance for non-leftist viewpoints.” Trump’s order called for an end to government dollars for CPB, the taxpayer-backed entity that has provided funding to NPR and PBS for decades through Congress.

Trump called the public media outlets “left wing propaganda.” The White House press release announcing the order — titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media” — contained 19 bullet points citing news coverage and other content by NPR and PBS that prompted the action.

The PBS suit says the data the White House cited to support that view are inaccurate and misrepresent the balanced range of viewpoints presented on PBS programs.

The White House has also asserted that government funding of broadcast media is no longer necessary in an era when consumers have a vast array of platforms for information and entertainment. PBS was founded when most of the country only had access to the three commercial broadcast networks and a handful of other TV stations.

PBS’ suit also says that, regardless of any policy disagreements the administration may have over the role of public television, “our Constitution and laws forbid the President from serving as the arbiter of content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS.”

Government escalates row with university over demands to curb pro-Palestine student activism and change racial diversity policies.

The administration of US President Donald Trump will move to sever remaining federal contracts with Harvard University, escalating a row centred on issues such as pro-Palestine student activism and racial diversity.

The New York Times and Reuters news agency reported on Tuesday that a draft letter from the General Services Administration (GSA) instructs all federal agencies to review and possibly cancel existing contracts with Harvard, worth an estimated $100m.

A copy of the draft letter shared by the Times states that Harvard has continued to engage in “race discrimination, including in its admissions process” and that the university’s failure to halt alleged acts of anti-Semitism suggests a “disturbing lack of concern for the safety and wellbeing of Jewish students”.

The move would be the latest effort by the government to use federal funds to force universities to accept changes sought by the Trump administration, including greater control over curricula, harsher steps against pro-Palestine students, and an end to policies that encourage racial diversity and greater opportunities for racial minorities.

The Trump administration has portrayed efforts to encourage greater racial diversity at US universities as a form of discrimination that prioritises racial identity over merit. Supporters say that such efforts, such as using race as one factor of many in admissions decisions, are necessary to remedy long histories of racist discrimination and exclusion in US higher education.

“GSA understands that Harvard continues to engage in race discrimination, including in its admissions process and in other areas of student life,” the letter reads.

The administration has also taken an aggressive stance on pro-Palestine activism on university campuses, which erupted after the beginning of Israel’s most recent war in Gaza in October 2023.

Critics have portrayed those steps as part of a larger assault on US universities, which Trump has depicted as hotbeds of political dissent and radical ideas at odds with the goals of his administration.

“The Trump administration has gone after Harvard because of the pro-Palestinian protests, and also has made a list of demands that goes far beyond any of that,” Al Jazeera correspondent Patty Culhane reported from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Harvard is located.

“It wants detailed information on foreign students that Harvard is refusing to give. It wants basically a political audit to see where people’s ideologies are. So Harvard University has sued in court to stop many of these moves, and this will undoubtedly be the next one that goes before a judge.”

In March, the GSA and the Departments of Education (DOE) and Health and Human Services (HHS) announced an official review of $255.6m in Harvard contracts and $8.7bn in multi-year grants, stating that the review was part of an effort to combat alleged anti-Semitism on college campuses.

The administration also cut $400m in grants to Columbia University in New York City in March, despite a series of concessions to government demands.

The administration has said that campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza and the US provision of billions of dollars of weapons to Israel are driven by anti-Semitism and create an unsafe environment for Jewish students on campus.

Several international students have been arrested and detained by the administration for their involvement in pro-Palestine activism, including a Turkish international student named Rumeysa Ozturk at Tufts University, who was arrested on the street by federal agents for co-signing an op-ed calling for an end to the war.

Trump has consistently threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, and moved last week to block the university’s ability to accept international students, who currently make up about 27 percent of the university’s total enrolment.

A judge blocked that effort, which Harvard had called an act of retaliation for “our refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body”.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is asking federal agencies to cancel contracts with Harvard University worth about $100 million, a senior administration official said Tuesday, intensifying the president’s clash with the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university.

The government already has canceled more than $2.6 billion in federal research grants for the Ivy League school, which has pushed back on the administration’s demands for changes to several of its policies.

A draft letter from the General Services Administration directs agencies to review contracts with the university and seek alternate vendors. The administration plans to send a version of the letter Tuesday, the official said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.

The New York Times first reported on the letter.

President Trump has railed against Harvard, calling it a hotbed of liberalism and antisemitism. The school filed a lawsuit April 21 over the administration’s calls for changes to the university’s leadership, governance and admissions policies. Since then, the administration has slashed the school’s federal funding, moved to cut off enrollment of international students and threatened its tax-exempt status.

Contracts include scientific research, executive training

The administration has identified about 30 contracts across nine agencies to be reviewed for cancellation, according to another administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly and provided details on the condition of anonymity.

The contracts total roughly $100 million. They include executive training for Department of Homeland Security officials, research on health outcomes related to energy drinks and a contract for graduate student research services.

Agencies with contracts that are deemed critical are being directed not to halt them immediately, but to devise a plan to transition to a different vendor other than Harvard.

The letter applies only to federal contracts with Harvard and not its remaining research grants.

Trump threatens to give Harvard’s funding to trade schools

Trump laid into Harvard on social media over the weekend, threatening to cut an additional $3 billion in federal grants and give it to trade schools across the United States. He did not explain which grants he was referring to or how they could be reallocated.

The president also accused Harvard of refusing to release the names of its foreign students. In a new line of attack, he argued that students’ home countries pay nothing toward their education and that some of the countries are “not at all friendly to the United States.” International students are not eligible for federal financial aid, but Harvard offers its own aid to foreign and domestic students alike.

“We are still waiting for the Foreign Student Lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country,” Trump said on social media.

It wasn’t clear exactly what he was demanding. The federal government already has access to visa information and other records on foreign students at Harvard and other universities.

The Department of Homeland Security has demanded that Harvard turn over a trove of files related to its foreign students, including disciplinary records and records related to “dangerous or violent activity.”

Harvard says it complied, but the agency said its response fell short and moved to revoke the university’s ability to enroll foreign students. A federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the move after Harvard sued.

Other nations respond

Japan’s government said Tuesday that it’s looking for ways to help Harvard’s foreign students. Education Minister Toshiko Abe told reporters she planned to ask Japanese universities to compile measures to support international students.

The University of Tokyo, Japan’s top school, is considering temporarily accepting some Harvard students hit by the Trump sanctions.

Superville and Binkley write for the Associated Press.

The layoffs come days after US President Donald Trump threatened 50 percent tariffs on EU goods.

Swedish automaker Volvo is set to cut 3,000 white-collar jobs amid restructuring efforts as prices begin to rise due to tariff-driven uncertainty.

The company announced the news on Monday. The layoffs come as the Swedish automaker tries to resurrect its rock-bottom share price and drum up better demand for its cars by restructuring part of its business and cutting costs.

CEO Hakan Samuelsson, who was recently brought back to the role after heading the company for a decade until 2022, unveiled a programme in April to slash costs by $1.9bn (18 billion Swedish crowns), including a substantial cut to Volvo’s white-collar staff, who make up 40 percent of its workforce.

“It’s white collar in almost all areas, including R&D  [research and development], communication, human resources,” Samuelsson told the Reuters news agency.

The layoffs represent around 15 percent of the company’s office staff, Volvo Cars said in a statement, and would incur a one-time restructuring cost of $160m (1.5 billion crowns).

Volvo Cars’ new CFO Fredrik Hansson told Reuters that while all of its departments and locations would be impacted, most of the redundancies will happen in Gothenburg.

“It’s tailored to make us structurally more efficient, and then how that plays out might vary a bit depending on the area. But no stone is left unturned,” Hansson said.

With most of its production based in Europe and China, Volvo Cars is more exposed to new United States tariffs than many of its European rivals, and has said it could become impossible to export its most affordable cars to the US.

The company said in a press release that it would finalise a new structural setup by the third quarter of this year.

Volvo withdrew its financial guidance as it announced its cost cuts last month, pointing to unpredictable markets amid weaker consumer confidence and trade tariffs causing turmoil in the global auto industry.

The layoff announcement comes only days after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 50 percent tariff on imports from the European Union from June 1. On Monday, however, he backed away from that date, restoring a July 9 deadline to allow for talks between Washington and Brussels.

As a result, Volvo’s CEO said the move would make it harder for it to sell one of its electric vehicles (EVs) — the EX30 EV that is made in Belgium — in the US market.

James and Georgina Nair, both 78, have been coming to Tenerife for 30 years, usually twice a year. But, since they became pensioners, they have made just the one annual trip

A Liverpool couple who have been regular visitors to Tenerife for three decades are now cutting back on their trips due to soaring costs.

James and Georgina Nair, both 78, from West Derby, Liverpool, cherish Tenerife as a “special” place and are planning to celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary there next year. The pair, James, a retired engineer, and Georgina, a former seamstress, have enjoyed the Spanish island’s charms for 30 years, typically visiting twice annually. However, since retiring, they’ve reduced their visits to once a year.

“We’d be lost without a holiday like this,” but noted that the area has undergone changes, not all of which they appreciate. Complaining about rising prices, Mr Nair told the Express: “Everywhere you go now, everything’s double the price.”

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Georgina raised the increased cost of a gin and tonic, now around €7.50 (£6.30), lamenting the switch from draft to bottled mixers, which incurs extra charges. Her husband reminisced about the wider availability of Carling beer in the past, noting that while local beers are often cheaper, he remains loyal to his preferred British brand.

Despite these gripes, the Nairs acknowledge that Tenerife has seen improvements, with many bars having “changed hands” and “modernised”. Georgina concluded with affection for the island: “I love it here. The different hotels, different character.”

She reminisced about how they often visited a local pub over the years, which has since changed its character.

Recent months have seen protesters flooding the streets of Tenerife and the Canary Islands, voicing their concerns over the impact of over-tourism. When The Express quizzed the retirees on their views, James expressed his disapproval: “Personally, I don’t like what they’re doing. Ordinary tourists like me and my wife, we give more to the economy.”

He continued, highlighting the irony of the situation: “We’ve only come for a holiday. They’ve shot themselves in the foot. Many people are employed in hotels – they’d be out of work. They’re going after their own people.” He also noted that during the pandemic, Tenerife’s tourist hotspots “suffered a lot”.

Georgina chimed in with her perspective: “It’s a special place, we know the area very well. We can understand where they come from. But we help them.”

The rising price of a break in many popular Spanish destinations has given some Brits cause to pause before booking a holiday in recent years. As has the rise of protests aimed at overtourism issues.

“Spain has been at the forefront of locals’ overtourism protests – perhaps 100,000 massed across the Canaries last weekend – and cruise limits are in place in Barcelona and Palma. This is not just about cruise passengers, though. There are wider issues of mass beach and city tourism in Spain and beyond and the impact it can have on a community,” the Mirror’s travel editor Nigel Thompson recently wrote on the topic.

“That said, we should not forget the huge amount of valuable income tourism can generate. Billions poured into economies and hundreds of thousands of jobs are not to be ignored, just as the grievances of locals in destinations are not to be ignored either. A very tricky issue to balance out.”

A power cut in southern France caused by suspected sabotage has disrupted screenings on the final day of the Cannes Film Festival.

About 160,000 homes in the city of Cannes and surrounding areas lost power early on Saturday, before supply was restored in the afternoon.

Officials said an electricity substation had been set on fire and a pylon at another location damaged.

Organisers of the international film festival say the closing ceremony will go ahead as planned as they have an alternative power supply.

Prosecutors say a first power cut occurred when a substation in the village of Tanneron, which supplies Cannes, was attacked by arsonists in the early hours.

At about 10:00 (08:00 GMT) the legs of an electricity pylon near the town of Villeneuve-Loubet were cut, triggering a second outage.

In Cannes, shops and restaurants struggled to operate.

“Another hour and I’ll throw everything away,” Laurent Aboukrat, who owns Cannes’ Jamin restaurant, told the AFP news agency. He said his fridges had been off since the morning.

“Cannes is in a total slowdown, meltdown, there’s no coffee anywhere, and I think the town has run out of croissants, so this is like crisis territory,” Australian producer Darren Vukasinovic told Reuters news agency.

Several screenings were interrupted by the cut in the morning, before festival organisers were able to switch to private generators.

Saturday is the last day of the festival. French actress Juliette Binoche and her jury are set to announce the winner of the Palme d’Or – the highest prize awarded at the festival.

Major power outage hits the prominent film festival on its closing day and impacts 160,000 homes in the area.

French police were investigating a possible arson attack as being the main cause for a power outage which hit the Alpes-Maritimes region in southern France, including Cannes which is hosting its world-famous annual film festival.

“We are looking into the likelihood of a fire being started deliberately,” a spokesperson for the French national gendarmerie said on Saturday, adding that no arrests had been made at this stage.

The local authority for the Alpes-Maritimes region had said earlier on Saturday that the western part of the area, which includes Cannes, was suffering from a major electricity outage and that grid operator RTE France was working on restoring power.

The outage, which affected 160,000 homes, according to RTE and regional officials, started shortly after 10am local time (08:00 GMT) on Saturday.

Police sources said the outage was caused by an overnight fire, probably an arson attack, at a high-voltage substation in the village of Tanneron.

Traffic lights were knocked out and businesses closed on the main shopping street of the Alpes-Maritimes holiday destination.

Separate power outages swept across the Iberian Peninsula and parts of southern France on Monday, disrupting critical infrastructure and airport operations. Officials denied foul play.

While Spain and Portugal suffered blackouts last month, the French Basque Country saw brief power outages with interruptions lasting only a few minutes, according to the French electricity transmission network.

The latest outage came just hours before the 78th Cannes Film Festival is due to close on Saturday evening with an award ceremony at the Palais des Festivals.

Despite the power cut, festival organisers said switching to an alternative electricity power supply enabled them to “maintain the events and screenings planned for today in normal conditions, including the closing ceremony”.

After a politically charged two weeks, a jury led by French actor Juliette Binoche is expected to announce the winners among 22 films competing for the Palme d’Or for best film.

This year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza and United States President Donald Trump were the biggest talking points at the festival. More than 900 actors and filmmakers signed an open letter denouncing the genocide in Gaza, according to the organisers.

The A-HyM Hypersonic Air Master is designed to carry 170 passengers and cruise at an altitude of 30,000 metres while travelling at speeds of Mach 7.3

A groundbreaking hypersonic airliner could cut London-New York flight times to a mere 45 minutes.

The revolutionary A-HyM Hypersonic Air Master is set to transform air travel by flying at Mach 7.3-over 5,600 mph (9,000 kph). Designed to carry 170 passengers, it could reduce the transatlantic journey from the usual seven hours, making transatlantic travel quicker than ever before.

In comparison, Concorde typically flew from London to New York in just under three and a half hours, compared to about eight hours on a subsonic flight. Spanish designer Oscar Viñals says the A-HyM would cruise at an altitude of 30,000 metres, far above conventional jets, using advanced heat-resistant materials like titanium and carbon fibre to withstand temperatures up to 1,000°C.

Its innovative Sonic Boom Mitigation System aims to reduce the disruptive noise of breaking the sound barrier, potentially allowing supersonic-and even hypersonic-flights over land without disturbing communities below. Powered by a next-generation hydrogen-fuelled combined-cycle engine, the aircraft would blend turbojet, ramjet, and oblique detonation technologies for both speed and eco-friendliness.

READ MORE: ‘Concorde’s final flight was 20 years ago – the supersonic jet was always doomed’

Inside, passengers would enjoy spacious, comfortable cabins equipped with virtual panoramic windows and advanced entertainment systems designed to handle the unique conditions of hypersonic flight.

Although only a concept at this stage, the A-HyM illustrates how rapid breakthroughs in materials science, propulsion systems, and aerodynamics are making the prospect of ultra-fast and sustainable global travel increasingly plausible.

According to Oscar Viñals: “This aircraft concept would allow its users not only to experience a unique flight at dizzying speeds in excellent conditions, but it would also allow them to “master” time, because a trip, for example, from London to Los Angeles would only take an hour and a half, from boarding at Heathrow international airport to disembarking at LAX (Los Angeles International Airport).”

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The A-HyM aircraft’s developers are far from the only ones perusing the dream of commercial super-sonic flight. In January the Boom supersonic jet – dubbed the ‘new Concorde‘ – officially broken the sound barrier.

The Colorado-based company Boom launched its XB-1 test plane from California‘s Mojave Air and Space Port for a test flight in January, reaching a speed of Mach 1.1, or 844 miles per hour while flying at about 35,000 feet.

A plane is classed as having reached ‘supersonic’ speeds once it passes Mach 1. The Boom XB-1 is the first civil supersonic jet made in the US to break the sound barrier.

The goal of crashing through the sound barrier, and the loud bang that happens when planes do, is part of the reason super-fast air travel proved difficult from a business perspective.

As iconic and beautiful as the Concorde’s curved-delta wing shape was, there had always been a fundamental problem with the plane before it was mothballed for good. Smashing through the sound barrier causes a huge bang that has big consequences of those on the ground. During a 1965 test over Oklahoma city by the US Air Force, hundreds of reports of smashed windows were made.

The potential to cause this kind of disruption meant that Concorde could only fly certain routes at supersonic, meaning no high-speed flights over land. This crushed the business case for the aircraft in the US as cities such as Los Angeles and New York could not be linked up effectively.

Climate scientists also began to express alarm about the impact of the Concorde on the ozone layer, specifically the potentially damaging impact its emissions could have while flying at 60,000 feet – something it needed to do to get into air thin enough.

The relatively small number of passengers onboard coupled with the large amount of fuel required to fly so fast (compared to slower air travel), meant fluctuations in oil price hit the airline hard. At points customers were paying close to $12,000 for a single trip, back in 2003. Operators Air France and British Airways had to have reserve planes made as back-ups, which added to the spiralling bill.

ENERGY bills are set to drop this July, bringing much-needed relief to millions of households.

The energy regulator Ofgem has confirmed the new price cap, which comes into effect on July 1, 2025.

The average gas and electricity bill is set to drop from £1,849 to £1,720, saving the typical household £129 a year.

But bear in mind the exact amount you pay can be higher or lower depending on your usage, and the cap is reviewed every three months.

This is significantly higher than the drop this time last year, when it decreased from £1,690 a year to £1,568.

The savings will still provide relief to millions, as over 22million households on standard variable tariffs are directly affected by the price cap, which is updated every three months.

Experts at Cornwall Insight had rightly predicted the energy price cap would drop to £1,720 in July.

Currently, the price cap sets annual energy costs at around £1,849.

However, many households may still pay more than Ofgem‘s headline figure.

This is because the price cap doesn’t cap total bills but limits the maximum cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of gas and electricity, along with daily standing charges.

Ofgem’s headline figure is based on the assumption that a typical household consumes 2,700 kWh of electricity and 11,500 kWh of gas annually.

So if you use more than a typical households expect to pay more.

However, energy experts say that households could make significant savings by switching to a fixed-rate energy deal now.

By choosing a fixed deal, customers can lock in consistent rates for a set period, potentially avoiding fluctuations in energy prices.

Of course, opting for a fixed energy deal carries the risk that, if energy prices drop further, you might end up paying more than you would on a variable tariff.

However, analysts have long said that households should not anticipate any significant drops in prices this year.

In response, National Energy Action Chief Executive Adam Scorer said: “Any fall in the price of energy is always welcome news, but this is a short fall from a great height. Bills remain punishingly high for low-income households.

“Four years of extraordinarily high energy bills has taken its toll. We hear heart-breaking cases every day.

“The likely expansion in eligibility for the Winter Fuel Payment will be a relief for some, but National Energy Action is calling for deeper energy bill support and a real focus to support households out of debt.”

How can I find the cheapest fixed deals?

To find the best fixed energy deals, start by visiting price comparison websites, which aggregate various offers from different energy suppliers.

The best sites include Uswitch.com and MoneySavingExpert’s Cheap Energy Club.

Enter your postcode and current energy usage details to receive a list of available deals tailored to your needs – it’ll take you less than five minutes.

You’ll then be able to compare the rates, contract lengths, and any additional features or benefits offered by each deal.

Next, visit the websites of individual energy suppliers to check if they have exclusive deals that are not listed on comparison sites.

Sometimes, suppliers offer special promotions or discounts directly to customers.

Compare these offers with those on the comparison websites to ensure you get the best possible rate.

Finally, consider customer service reviews and the overall reputation of the suppliers.

Once you have identified the best deal, follow the instructions to switch your energy provider.

What energy bill help is available?

There’s a number of different ways to get help paying your energy bills if you’re struggling to get by.

If you fall into debt, you can always approach your supplier to see if they can put you on a repayment plan before putting you on a prepayment meter.

This involves paying off what you owe in instalments over a set period.

If your supplier offers you a repayment plan you don’t think you can afford, speak to them again to see if you can negotiate a better deal.

Several energy firms have schemes available to customers struggling to cover their bills.

But eligibility criteria vary depending on the supplier and the amount you can get depends on your financial circumstances.

For example, British Gas or Scottish Gas customers struggling to pay their energy bills can get grants worth up to £2,000.

British Gas also offers help via its British Gas Energy Trust and Individuals Family Fund.

You don’t need to be a British Gas customer to apply for the second fund.

EDF, E.ON, Octopus Energy and Scottish Power all offer grants to struggling customers too.

Thousands of vulnerable households are missing out on extra help and protections by not signing up to the Priority Services Register (PSR).

The service helps support vulnerable households, such as those who are elderly or ill.

Some of the perks include being given advance warning of blackouts, free gas safety checks and extra support if you’re struggling.

Get in touch with your energy firm to see if you can apply.

May 22 (UPI) — Walmart has announced plans to lay off 1,500 corporate employees, part of what it calls a restructuring as it weighs plans to raise prices amid Trump administration tariffs.

“We are reshaping some teams in our Global Tech and Walmart U.S. organizations where we have identified opportunities to remove layers and complexity, speed up decision-making, and help associates innovate rapidly,” a memo to employees obtained by The Hill Wednesday said.

The memo said the retail giant is eliminating some jobs and creating new ones aimed at building on business priorities and growth strategy.

While Walmart said the corporate restructure is not directly related to the looming tariffs, it has said it is weighing the options of price increases and trying to absorb the tariffs when they are imposed, as it has done with past levies.

During a corporate earnings call last week, Walmart CEO Doug McMillion said the giant retailer would not be able to absorb all of the tariffs and said it would likely have to pass some costs on to consumers. Walmart said Wednesday it would be raising some prices.

Economists use Walmart as a gauge to consumer spending and have said that given the large percentage of goods the retailer imports, absorbing all of the tariffs would be difficult.

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump posted Walmart should “eat the tariffs” on social media.

“Walmart should stop trying to blame the tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain,” Trump wrote. ” Walmart made billions of dollars last year, far more than expected.”

Walmart CFO John David Rainey countered Thursday that the company is facing unprecedented financial pressure due to the tariffs.

“We have not seen prices increase at this magnitude, in the speed which they’re coming at us before, and so it makes for a challenging environment,” he told CNBC.

WASHINGTON — Landmark legislation that would rewrite the tax code and levy steep cuts to programs providing healthcare and food stamps to the poor passed the House early Thursday, a development that was celebrated by President Trump despite the bill facing an uncertain future among Senate Republicans.

The measure, titled the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” would boost funding for border security and the Defense Department, eliminate taxes on tips and overtime, provide a new tax deduction to seniors and renew the 2017 tax cuts passed during the first Trump administration. To pay for those new funding commitments, the bill proposes eliminating green energy tax benefits passed under President Biden, as well as an estimated $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Even still, the bill would add so much money to the debt that Congress may be forced to execute cuts across the board, including hundreds of billions to Medicare, in a process known as sequestration, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The House vote fell along party lines. By opposing the bill, the Trump administration said that Democrats were supporting the largest tax increase on middle-class Americans in decades, a reference to the upcoming expiration of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts at the end of the year.

Democrats, on the other hand, have accused Republicans of voting for the deepest cuts to healthcare in modern times. By creating new barriers to Medicaid coverage through the introduction of work hour requirements, as well as increasing premiums under the Affordable Care Act, the CBO and other nonpartisan organizations estimate up to 14 million Americans could lose their insurance coverage.

Those drastic changes to the healthcare landscape have given pause to several Republican senators.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has said she is “very wary of cutting Medicaid.” Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said he “can’t support” substantial cuts to Medicaid benefits. And after the vote on Thursday, Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas said that material changes should be expected to the House bill.

“We need to go back through that bill with a fine tooth comb and make it better,” Marshall said in an interview with Newsmax. “I think there’s opportunities in Medicaid to make that bill better, to make sure that we strengthen it, that we preserve it for those who need it most.”

Any Senate rollback of cuts to the Medicaid program could face resistance from the House Freedom Caucus during the reconciliation process. Members of that group, which proclaims a commitment to fiscal conservatism, have called for even deeper cuts to the Medicaid program.

Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, voted “present” early Thursday morning, preserving negotiating leverage as the bill makes its way across Capitol Hill.

“I voted to move the bill along in the process for the president,” Harris wrote on social media. “There is still a lot of work to be done in deficit reduction and ending waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicaid program.”

The vote came hours after Trump met with GOP holdouts at the White House. As late as Wednesday afternoon, before meeting with the president, several of those lawmakers were casting doubt on the prospects of the bill’s passage this week, ahead of a Memorial Day deadline set by House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was dismissive of the Freedom Caucus on Thursday, telling CNN that the cuts they are pushing for would barely make a dent in the national debt.

“You had your chance,” Graham said to the caucus. “Some of these cuts are not real. We’re talking about over a decade — you know, if you do $1.5 trillion, that’s like a percent and a half. So let’s don’t get high on our horse here that we’ve somehow made some major advancement of reducing spending, because we didn’t.”

Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota also mocked the caucus, calling it “rich” for its members to lecture Senate Republicans on fiscal conservatism, “and end up with not that conservative a bill.” The CBO estimates the House legislation would result in a $3.8-trillion increase to the deficit.

If passed, the new work requirements to Medicaid would kick in at the end of 2026, right after the midterm elections. Green energy tax credits would phase out for any project that is not already under construction 60 days after the law comes into force.

The cap on the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT, will increase to $40,000 from $10,000, phasing out for individuals and households making more than $500,000. And while the president campaigned on a promise to eliminate taxes on Social Security, a parliamentary rule precluded Republicans from including a full cut. Instead, the bill proposes an enhanced tax deduction for senior citizens of up to $4,000.

On Truth Social, the president’s social media platform, Trump wrote that the bill is “arguably the most significant piece of Legislation that will ever be signed in the History of our Country!”

“There is no time to waste,” he added. Johnson, the speaker, has set a goal of sending the bill to the president’s desk by Independence Day.

Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the president’s team was “suiting up” for negotiations with the Senate now that the bill has passed the House. “We will see how it goes,” she said.

“The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ is named the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ for a reason, because it is a one big beautiful bill that encompasses just about everything this president could want for the American public. It delivers on so many of his core campaign promises. So surely we want to see those campaign promises signed into law,” Leavitt said. “He’s expecting them to get busy on this bill and send it to his desk as soon as possible.”

The two House Republicans who voted against the bill, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio, should face primary challenges for their defiance of the president’s directive, Leavitt added.

“What’s the alternative, I would ask those members of Congress. Did they want to see a tax hike? Did they want to see our country go bankrupt? That’s the alternative by them trying to vote no,” she said. “The president believes that the Republican Party needs to be unified.”

May 21 (UPI) — Education Secretary Linda McMahon, testifying before a House subcommittee on Wednesday, defended a 15.3% leaner budget from last year as part of the department’s “final mission.”

President Donald Trump‘s budget request would cut funding to the Education Department by about $12 billion to wind down the agency. The House bill allocated $30.9 billion and the Senate version $31.9 billion.

She said her top priorities are support for charter schools, which would receive a $60 million funding increase, as well as improving literacy rates and returning education to states. Charters schools are the only ones with a budget funding rise.

“The fiscal year ’26 budget will take a significant step toward that goal,” McMahon told legislators on the House Committee on Appropriations’ education subcommittee. “We seek to shrink federal bureaucracy, save taxpayer money and empower states who best know their local needs to manage education in this country.”

As Republicans supported her plans, Democrats blasted her.

“By recklessly incapacitating the department you lead, you are usurping Congress’ authority and infringing on Congress’ power of the purse,” Rosa DeLauro, of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the appropriations committee, said.

She decried cuts for higher education.

“Your visions for students aspiring to access and pay for college is particularly grim,” DeLauro said. “Some families do not need financial assistance to go to college, but that’s not true for the rest.”

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, of New Jersey, also blasted states gaining greater authority.

“I’m asking you, do you realize that to send authority back to the states, to eliminate your oversight, to eliminate your accountability, to eliminate your determination as to resources going to schools that are teaching public schools that are teaching underserved communities, this will result in the very reason that we had to get the involvement of our government in this, and that’s a yes or no,” she said.

“It isn’t a yes or no, but I will not respond to any questions based on the theory that this administration doesn’t care anything about the law and operates outside it,” McMahon responded.

Coleman said: “From the president of the United States conducting himself in a corrupt manner to his family enriching him and himself corruptly … I’m telling you, the Department of Education is one of the most important departments in this country and you should feel shameful [to] be engaged with an administration that doesn’t give a damn.”

McMahon said she is not trying to remove 8% to 10% that goes to states, and instead moving programs to other departments.

She described her agency as a federal funding “pass-through mechanism” and other agencies could take over the job of distributing allocations from Congress.

“Whether the channels of that funding are through HHS [Health and Human Services], or whether they’re funneled through the DOJ (Department of Jusrtice], or whether they’re funneled through the Treasury or SBA [Smal Business Administration] or other departments, the work is going to continue to get done,” McMahon said.

Plans are to move the student loan programs to the SBA, which McMahon was the administrator during the first Trump administration.

The reductions include eliminating two federal programs designed at improving college access for disadvantaged, TRIO, and low-income students, Gear Up, at a cost of $1.6 billion. Also, the federal Work-Study Program would shift responsibility to states, and funding would be eliminated for Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants to undergraduate students.

And funding would be reduced 35%, or about $49 million, for the already-scaled back Office for Civil Rights, which investigates harassment and discrimination on college campuses and in K-12 schools.

The budget shifts funding from programs supporting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

She said full funding would remain for Title I-A, which allocates funds to schools with the highest percentages of children from low-income families, and those with the Disabilities Education Act for free public education and support services for children with disabilities.

“Here we are today with a Department of Education that was really stood up in 1980 by President Carter,” McMahon said. “We’ve spent over $3 trillion during that time, and every year we have seen our scores continue to either stagnate or fall. It is clear that we are not doing something right.”

On March 20,, Trump signed an executive order directing McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education.”

Six days earlier, the agency announced a workforce reduction that would cut nearly 50% of employees, 1,315.

The department, already the smallest Cabinet-level agency before the recent layoffs, distributed roughly $242 billion to students, K-12 schools and universities in the 2024 fiscal year. The fiscal year ends Sept. 30.

WASHINGTON — President Trump implored House Republicans at the Capitol to drop their fights over his big tax-cut bill and get it done, using encouraging words but also the hardened language of politics over the multitrillion-dollar package that is at risk of collapsing before planned votes this week.

During the more than hourlong session Tuesday, Trump warned Republicans to not touch Medicaid with cuts, and he told New York lawmakers to end their fight for a bigger local tax deduction, reversing his own campaign promise. The president, heading into the meeting, called himself a “cheerleader” for the Republican Party and praised Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). But he also criticized at least one of the GOP holdouts as a “grandstander” and warned that anyone who doesn’t support the bill would be a “fool.”

“We have unbelievable unity,” Trump said as he exited. “I think we’re going to get everything we want.”

The president arrived at a pivotal moment. Negotiations are slogging along and it’s not at all clear the package, with its sweeping tax breaks and cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and green energy programs, has the support needed from the House’s slim Republican majority. Lawmakers are also being asked to add some $350 billion to Trump’s border security, deportation and defense agenda.

Inside, he spoke privately in what one lawmaker called the president’s “weaving” style, and took questions.

The president also made it clear he’s losing patience with the various holdout factions of the House Republicans, according to a senior White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting.

But Trump disputed that notion as well as reports that he used an expletive in warning against cutting Medicaid. Instead, he said afterward, “That was a meeting of love.” He received several standing ovations, Republicans said.

Yet it was not at all clear that Trump, who was brought in to seal the deal, changed minds.

“We’re still a long ways away,” said Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the chair of the House Freedom Caucus.

Conservatives are insisting on quicker, steeper cuts to federal programs to offset the costs of the trillions of dollars in lost tax revenue. At the same time, a core group of lawmakers from New York and other high-tax states wants bigger tax breaks for their voters back home. Worries about piling onto the nation’s $36-trillion debt are stark.

With House Democrats lined up against the package, calling it a giveaway to the wealthy at the expense of safety net programs, GOP leaders have almost no votes to spare. A key committee hearing is set for the middle of the night Tuesday in hopes of a House floor vote by Wednesday afternoon.

“They literally are trying to take healthcare away from millions of Americans at this very moment in the dead of night,” said House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

Trump has been pushing hard for Republicans to unite behind the bill, the president’s signature domestic policy initiative in Congress.

Asked about one of the conservative Republicans, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Trump lashed out.

“I think he is a grandstander, frankly,” the president continued. “I think he should be voted out of office.”

But Massie, a renegade who wears a clock lapel pin that tallies the nation’s debt load, said afterward he’s still a no vote.

Also unmoved was Rep. Mike Lawler, one of the New York Republicans leading the fight for a bigger state and local tax deduction, known as SALT: “As it stands right now, I do not support the bill. Period.”

The sprawling 1,116-page package carries Trump’s title, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” as well as his campaign promises to extend the tax breaks approved during his first term while adding new ones, including no taxes on tips, automobile loan interest and Social Security.

Yet, the price tag is rising and lawmakers are wary of the votes ahead, particularly as the economy teeters with uncertainty.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group, estimates that the House bill is shaping up to add roughly $3.3 trillion to the debt over the next decade.

Republicans criticizing the measure argued that the bill’s new spending and tax cuts are front-loaded, while the measures to offset the cost are back-loaded.

In particular, the conservative Republicans are looking to speed up the new work requirements that Republicans want to enact for able-bodied participants in Medicaid. They had been proposed to start Jan. 1, 2029, but Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said on CNBC that work requirements for some Medicaid beneficiaries would begin in early 2027.

At least 7.6 million fewer people are expected to have health insurance under the initial Medicaid changes, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said last week.

Republican holdouts are also looking to more quickly halt green energy tax breaks, which had been approved as part of the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, and are now being used for renewable energy projects across the nation.

But for every change Johnson considers to appease the hard-right conservatives, he risks losing support from more traditional and centrist Republicans. Many have signed letters protesting deep cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs and the rolling back of clean energy tax credits.

At its core, the sprawling legislative package permanently extends the existing income tax cuts and bolsters the standard deduction, increasing it to $32,000 for joint filers, and the child tax credit to $2,500.

The New Yorkers are fighting for a larger state and local tax deduction beyond the bill’s proposal. As it stands, the bill would triple what’s currently a $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction, increasing it to $30,000 for joint filers with incomes up to $400,000 a year. They have proposed a deduction of $62,000 for single filers and $124,000 for joint filers.

Trump, who had campaigned on fully reinstating the unlimited SALT deduction, now appears to be satisfied with the proposed compromise, arguing it only benefits “all the Democratic” states.

If the bill passes the House this week, it would move to the Senate, where Republicans are also eyeing changes.

Mascaro, Freking, Askarinam and Cappelletti write for the Associated Press. AP writers Darlene Superville and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.