WASHINGTON — Cornell University has agreed to pay $60 million and accept the Trump administration’s interpretation of civil rights laws in order to restore federal funding and end investigations into the Ivy League school.
Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff announced the agreement on Friday, saying it upholds the university’s academic freedom while restoring more than $250 million in research funding that the government withheld amid investigations into alleged civil rights violations.
The university agreed to pay $30 million directly to the U.S. government along with another $30 million toward research that will support U.S. farmers.
Kotlikoff said the agreement revives the campus’ partnership with the federal government “while affirming the university’s commitment to the principles of academic freedom, independence, and institutional autonomy that, from our founding, have been integral to our excellence.”
The six-page agreement is similar to one signed by the University of Virginia last month. It’s shorter and less prescriptive than others signed by Columbia University and Brown University.
It requires Cornell to comply with the government’s interpretation of civil rights laws on issues involving antisemitism, racial discrimination and transgender issues. A Justice Department memo that orders colleges to abandon diversity, equity and inclusion programs and transgender-friendly policies will be used as a training resource for faculty and staff at Cornell.
The campus must also provide a wealth of admissions data that the government has separately sought from campuses to ensure race is no longer being considered as a factor in admissions decisions. President Trump has suggested some campuses are ignoring a 2023 Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in admissions.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon called it a “transformative commitment” that puts a focus on “merit, rigor, and truth-seeking.”
“These reforms are a huge win in the fight to restore excellence to American higher education and make our schools the greatest in the world,” McMahon said on X.
Cornell’s president must personally certify compliance with the agreement each quarter. The deal is effective through the end of 2028.
It appears to split the difference on a contentious issue colleges have grappled with as they negotiate an exit from federal scrutiny: payments made directly to the government. Columbia agreed to pay $200 million directly to the government, while Brown University reached an agreement to pay $50 million to state workforce organizations. Virginia’s deal included no payment at all.
SACRAMENTO — Top California health officials warned that federal cuts will deliver a devastating blow to public health, even as the state grapples with ways to mitigate the damage.
“These changes will impact our emergency departments, rural hospitals, private and public hospitals, community health centers, ambulance providers and the broader health care system that serves every community,” said Michelle Baass, director of the California Department of Health Care Services.
Baass was among several experts who spoke Monday at a briefing about the effects of HR 1, a massive tax and spending bill passed by the Republican-led Congress and signed by President Trump that shifts federal funding away from safety-net programs for the vulnerable and toward tax cuts and immigration enforcement. She said the legislation makes sweeping changes to Medi-Cal, as Medicaid is known in California.
It “will cause widespread harm by making massive reductions in federal funding and potentially cripple the health care safety net,” Baass said. “These changes put tens of billions of dollars of federal funding at risk for California and could result in a loss of coverage for millions of Californians.”
Roughly 15 million Californians — a third of the state — are on Medi-Cal, with some of the highest percentages being in rural counties. More than half of the children in California receive healthcare coverage through Medi-Cal, healthcare coverage provided to eligible, low-income residents, according to the state Department of Health Care Services.
California officials expect the state to lose billions of dollars in federal funding for Medi-Cal and other essential healthcare programs. Given that California is facing an ongoing budget deficit, it is highly unlikely that the state will be able to raise enough money to make up for the loss in funding to continue the current level of services to residents, according to a report by the state Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Baass explained the federal legislation creates new eligibility requirements for Medicaid. Starting in 2027, many individuals ages 19 to 64 will need to work for at least 80 hours a month, or perform 80 hours of community service or be enrolled in an educational program, to qualify. The law allows various exemptions, including pregnancy, disabilities, or caring for children under the age of 19.
She estimated 3 million Medi-Cal recipients could lose coverage as a result.
“This would significantly drive up the uninsured rate that raises cost for hospitals treating uninsured patients,” Baass said.
Baass said HR 1, which Republicans labeled the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” also bans abortion providers from receiving federal Medicaid funding — even for healthcare services they offer that are not related to the procedure — and reduces federal dollars for emergency medical care for undocumented immigrants. It additionally limits state funding mechanisms, such as taxes paid by managed care providers, and establishes federal penalties for improper payments.
CalFresh, the state name for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is expecting cuts of at least $1.7 billion annually, said Jennifer Troia, director of the California Department of Social Services. About 395,000 people could lose their benefits for government food assistance.
SNAP benefits are also being hit by the current government shutdown, with payments halting in November.
At the heart of the shutdown is a political standoff in Washington over the expiring tax credits for people who get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Democrats said they will not vote to reopen the government until Republicans agree to renew the expanded subsidies. Republican leaders refused to negotiate until Democrats vote to reopen the government.
Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace, estimated over the summer that as many as 660,000 of the roughly 2 million people in the program will either be stripped of coverage or drop out because of increased cost and the onerous new mandates to stay enrolled.
Impacts from the new federal cuts and policies are already being felt across the state and nation.
A Planned Parenthood program in Orange and San Bernardino counties announced its imminent closure earlier this month due to being federally defunded. Los Angeles County’s health system has implemented a hiring freeze and is bracing to lose $750 million per year for the county Department of Health Services, which oversees four public hospitals and roughly two dozen clinics. Meanwhile, food banks nationwide are seeking donations and preparing for longer lines.
Kim Johnson, secretary of the state Health and Human Services Agency, discussed how California is fighting back.
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced he is deploying the National Guard and fast-tracking $80 million to support food banks, she said. This came alongside the governor’s decision to allocate $140 million in state funding to Planned Parenthood.
Johnson said Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has filed more than two dozen lawsuits related to HR 1.
“Here in California,” she said, “we will continue to mitigate the harm of these federal changes wherever we can.”
The federal Office for Victims of Crime announced in the summer that millions of dollars approved for domestic violence survivors and other crime victims would be withheld from states that don’t comply with the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
California, 19 other states and the District of Columbia sued, alleging that such preconditions are illegal and would undermine public safety.
The administration then took a different tack, announcing that community organizations that receive such funding from the states — and use it to help people escape violence, access shelter and file for restraining orders against their abusers — generally may not use it to provide services to undocumented immigrants.
California and other states sued again, arguing that the requirements — which the administration says the states must enforce — are similarly illegal and dangerous. Advocates agreed, saying screening immigrant women out of such programs would be cruel.
The repeated lawsuits reflect an increasingly familiar pattern in the growing mountain of litigation between the Trump administration, California and other blue states.
Since President Trump took office in January, his administration has tried to force the states into submission on a host of policy fronts by cutting off federal funding, part of a drive to bypass Congress and vastly expand executive power. Repeatedly when those cuts have been challenged in court, the administration has shifted its approach to go after the same or similar funding from a slightly different angle — prompting more litigation.
The repeated lawsuits have added complexity and volume to an already monumental legal war between the administration and states such as California, one that began almost immediately after Trump took office and is ongoing, as the administration once again threatens major cuts amid the government shutdown.
The White House has previously dismissed California’s lawsuits as baseless and defended Trump’s right to enact his policy agenda, including by withholding funds. Asked about its shifting strategies in some of those cases, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said the administration “has won numerous cases regarding spending cuts at the Supreme Court and will continue to cut wasteful spending across the government in a lawful manner.”
Other administration officials have also defended its legal tactics. During a fight over frozen federal funding earlier this year, for instance, Vice President JD Vance wrote on social media that judges “aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power” — sparking concerns about a constitutional crisis.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said the pattern is a result of Trump overstating his power to control federal funding and use it as a weapon against his political opponents, but also of his dangerous disregard for the rule of law and the authority of both Congress and federal judges. His office has sued the administration more than 40 times since January, many times over funding.
“It is not something that you should have to see, that a federal government, a president of the United States, is so contemptuous of the rule of law and is willing to break it and break it again, get told by a court that they’re violating the law, and then have to be told by a court again,” Bonta said.
And yet, such examples abound, he said. For example, the Justice Department’s repeated attempts to strip California of crime victim funding echoed the Department of Homeland Security’s repeated attempts recently to deny the state disaster relief and anti-terrorism funding, Bonta said.
Homeland Security officials first told states that such funding would be conditioned on their complying with immigration enforcement efforts. California and other states sued, and a federal judge rejected such preconditions as unconstitutional.
The administration then notified the states that refused to comply, including California, that they would simply receive less money — to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars — while states that cooperate with immigration enforcement would receive more.
California and other Democratic-led states sued again, arguing this week that the shifting of funds was nothing more than the administration circumventing the court’s earlier ruling against the conditioning of funds outright.
Bonta’s office cited a similar pattern in announcing Thursday that the Trump administration had backed off major cuts to AmeriCorps funding. The win came only after successive rounds of litigation by the state and others, Bonta’s office noted, including an amended complaint accusing the administration of continuing to withhold the funding despite an earlier court order barring it from doing so.
Bonta said such shifting strategies were the work of a “consistently and brazenly lawless and lawbreaking federal administration,” and that his office was “duty-bound” to fight back and will — as many times as it takes.
“It can’t be that you take an action, are held accountable, a court finds that you’ve acted unlawfully, and then you just take another unlawful action to try to restrict or withhold that same funding,” he said.
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley Law, said he agreed with Bonta that there is “a pattern of ignoring court orders or trying to circumvent them” on the part of the Trump administration.
And he provided another example: a case in which he represents University of California faculty and researchers challenging Trump administration cuts to National Science Foundation funding.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought talks to reporters outside the White House on Monday, accompanied by House Speaker Mike Johnson, left, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Vice President JD Vance.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
After a judge blocked the administration from terminating that funding, the Trump administration responded by declaring that the funds were “suspended” instead, Chemerinsky said.
The judge then ruled the administration was violating her order against termination, he said, as “calling them suspensions rather than terminations changed nothing.”
Mitchel Sollenberger, a political science professor at University of Michigan-Dearborn and author of several books on executive powers, said Trump aggressively flexing those powers was expected. Conservative leaders have been trying to restore executive authority ever since Congress reined in the presidency after Watergate, and Trump took an aggressive approach in his first term, too, Sollenberger said.
However, what Trump has done this term has nonetheless been stunning, Sollenberger said — the result of a sophisticated and well-planned strategy that has been given a clear runway by a Supreme Court that clearly shares a belief in an empowered executive branch.
“It’s like watching water run down, and it tries to find cracks,” Sollenberger said. “That’s what the Trump administration is doing. It’s trying to find those cracks where it can widen the gap and exercise more and more executive power.”
Bonta noted that the administration’s targeting of blue state funding began almost immediately after Trump took office, when the Office of Management and Budget issued a memo asserting that vast sums of federal funding for all sorts of programs were being frozen as the administration assessed whether the spending aligned with Trump’s policy goals.
California and other states sued to block that move and won, but the administration wasn’t swayed from the strategy, Bonta said — as evidenced by more recent events.
On Wednesday, as the government shutdown over Congress’ inability to pass a funding measure set in, Russell Vought — head of the Office of Management and Budget and architect of the Trump administration’s purse-string policies — announced on X that $8 billion in funding “to fuel the Left’s climate agenda” was being canceled. He then listed 16 blue states where projects will be cut.
Vought had broadly outlined his ideas for slashing government in Project 2025, the right-wing playbook for Trump’s second term, which Trump vigorously denied any connection to during his campaign but has since broadly implemented.
On Thursday, Trump seemed to relish the opportunity, amid the shutdown, to implement more of the plan.
“I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” Trump posted online. “I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity.”
Bonta said Wednesday that his office had no plans to get involved in the shutdown, which he said was caused by Trump and “for Trump to figure out.” But he said he was watching the battle closely.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) chalked Vought’s latest cuts up to more illegal targeting of blue states such as California that oppose Trump politically, writing, “Our democracy is badly broken when a president can illegally suspend projects for Blue states in order to punish his political enemies.”
Cities and towns have also been pushing back against Trump’s use of federal funding as political leverage. On Wednesday, Los Angeles and other cities announced a lawsuit challenging the cuts to disaster funding.
L.A. City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto said the cuts were part of an “unprecedented weaponization” of federal funding by the Trump administration, and that she was proud to be fighting to “preserve constitutional limits on executive overreach.”
Ever since Elijah Maldonado was born at just 29 months, he has needed specialty treatments that his family could afford only with publicly funded healthcare.
Diagnosed with cerebral palsy as an infant, he spent his first three months at a public hospital where the family lives in Orange County.
Now 7, Elijah receives physical and speech therapy among a host of other services paid for through Medicaid. He relies on a wheelchair funded by the government. An assistant paid for with taxpayer dollars makes sure he’s safe on the bus ride to and from school.
Each month, he receives a $957 disability check that helps to cover his and his family’s living expenses.
Josephine Rios wipes her grandson Elijah’s face.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
Still learning to speak on his own, he uses a Proloquo speech app on an iPad provided by his school to tell his family when he’s hungry, needs to use the restroom or wants to play with his favorite toys.
“It’s his voice — his lifeline,” his aunt and primary caretaker Cassandra Gonzalez says of the app. Her compensation for his in-home care comes from taxpayer dollars too.
Now that lifeline — and much of the government assistance Elijah receives — is at risk of going away.
With hundreds of billions of dollars worth of cuts to Medicaid and food aid kicking in this fall thanks to the passage of the Republican-backed “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — on top of earlier cuts imposed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — a host of federally funded healthcare and nutrition programs that serve low-income Americans will be scaled back, revamped with expanded work requirements and other restrictions or canceled altogether if individual states can’t find alternate funding sources.
The budget reduces federal spending on Medicaid alone by about $1 trillion over the next 10 years nationwide, with initial reductions taking effect in the coming weeks.
Gov. Gavin Newsom responded by accusing the Trump administration of “ripping care from cancer patients, meals from children and money from working families — just to give tax breaks to the ultra-rich.”
L.A. public health officials called the cuts devastating for a county where nearly 40% of the population is enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program. L.A. County’s Department of Health Services, which oversees four public hospitals and about two dozen clinics, projects a budget reduction amounting to $750 million a year, and federal funding for the Department of Public Health, which inspects food, provides substance-use treatment and tracks disease outbreaks, will drop by an estimated $200 million a year. Spending cuts have prompted hiring freezes and projections of ballooning budget deficits, county health officials said.
Spending reductions, combined with recent changes to the Affordable Care Act and Medicare, could leave an additional 1.7 million people in California uninsured by 2034, according to an analysis by the nonprofit healthcare research organization KFF.
It’s not just that the cuts to these programs are massive by historical standards.
The new rules and restrictions are confusing and states have been given little guidance from the federal agencies that oversee health and nutrition programs on how, or even when, to implement them, experts at the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities wrote in a recent report.
What’s clear, the CBPP said, is that millions of children, older adults, people with disabilities and veterans stand to lose not just Medicaid coverage but federal aid to access the type of healthy foods that could prevent illness and chronic conditions.
More than 5 million California households receive food aid through the state’s CalFresh program and 97% percent of them will see their benefits either slashed or eliminated because of federal spending cuts, changes to eligibility requirements or financial constraints at the state level, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan California Budget Policy Center.
Elijah plays with toy cars outside his aunt’s home in Tustin.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
In Orange County, where Elijah’s family lives, public health officials were already reeling from federal spending cuts in the months before the budget bill passed, said Dr. Veronica Kelley, director of the OC Health Care Agency. For example, there was the $13.2-million cut to funding for family planning services in the county, and the $4-million reduction in funding to Women, Infants and Children nutrition (WIC).
The agency has worked to prevent mass layoffs by moving public-health workers in canceled programs to other departments or leaving some positions unfilled in order to save jobs elsewhere, and it has sought out nonprofit social service organizations and philanthropies to either take over programs or help fund them, Kelley said.
Now, Kelley is preparing for possible cuts to programs to combat obesity, maintain community gardens, help seniors make better healthcare decisions and reduce the use of tobacco. The agency also has to figure out how to make up for a $4.8-million reduction in federal funds for the county’s SNAP program that takes effect on Wednesday — another casualty of the federal spending bill.
The measures that the agency has leaned on to get through the year are not sustainable, Kelley said. “We can only do that for so long,” she said. “It’s chaotic. In terms of healthcare, it’s devastating… It feels like we’re taking so many steps backward.”
The looming cuts and changes have also set off alarm bells at Kaiser Permanente, California’s largest private healthcare provider with 9.5 million members statewide, 1.1 million of whom are enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program.
“Without the ability to pay, newly uninsured people will find themselves having to delay care, leading to more serious and complex health conditions, increasing the use of emergency services and more intensive medical services,” Kaiser Permanente Southern California Regional spokeswoman Candice Lee said in a statement to The Times.
“This will affect all of us as the cost of this uncompensated care leads hospitals and care providers to charge paying customers more to cover their costs. Some hospitals and providers, especially those in rural and underserved areas, will be unable to make up for these unreimbursed costs, and will be financially threatened by these changes.”
Standing in front of her sister Cassandra’s town home in Tustin, a quiet suburban city of 80,000 about 10 miles south of Disneyland, Elijah’s mother, Samantha Rios; grandmother Josephine Rios; and Aunt Cassandra are filled with worry.
Elijah points to a command on his Proloquo speech app, which he uses to communicate his needs.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
Josephine, a nursing assistant who works at a Kaiser hospital in Orange County, said she hears the panic in patients’ voices when they describe rushing to schedule needed medical procedures in anticipation of losing their Medicaid benefits.
Earlier this year, Josephine joined delegations of unionized California healthcare workers who traveled to Washington with the aim of pressing lawmakers to oppose spending cuts.
Rep. Young Kim, the Republican who represents the Rios family’s district in Congress, was receptive to the delegation’s pleas to vote no on the budget bill, Josephine recalls. The congresswoman ultimately voted for the bill, saying on her official webpage the legislation was good for Californians because it would relieve the tax burden on families, ensure that government dollars are used effectively and “strengthen Medicaid and SNAP for our most vulnerable citizens who truly need it.”
Elijah’s Aunt Cassandra and grandmother Josephine look over his shoulder as he watches a TV show.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
Now, Josephine looked on as Elijah, seated in his wheelchair, played on his iPad and watched a Disney program on his phone. He can press a tab on the touchscreen to make the tablet say “My name’s Elijah” if he’s feeling unsafe away from home, another to tell his family he needs space when upset.
Watching Elijah enjoy himself, the women said they feel awkward broadcasting their woes to strangers when all they desire is what’s best for him. They don’t need the public’s pity.
The family wants lawmakers and the public to understand how seemingly abstract healthcare decisions involving billions of dollars, and made 2,000-plus miles away in Washington, have brought new financial turmoil to a family that’s already on the edge financially.
Samantha, a single mom, works full time to provide a home for Elijah and his two sisters, ages 10 and 8. A subscription to the Proloquo speech app alone would cost $300 a year out-of-pocket — more than she can afford on her shoestring budget.
Due to changes in household income requirements, Samantha had already lost Medicaid coverage for herself and her two girls, she said, as well as her SNAP food assistance, leaving her at a loss for how to fill the gap. She now pays about $760 a month to cover her daughters and herself through her employer-based health plan.
The cut to food aid has forced her to compensate by getting free vegetables, milk, eggs and chicken from the food pantry at a local school, a reality that she said she was at first too ashamed to disclose even to relatives.
Then came the bad news Samantha recently received about Elijah’s monthly Social Security Insurance for his disability. She was stunned to hear that because of stricter income cut-offs for that type of aid, Elijah would no longer receive those checks as of Oct. 1.
“Before, he was getting $957 a month — obviously that’s grocery money for me,” Samantha said. The money also went to buy baby wipes, as well as knee pads to help him move more comfortably on the floor when not using his wheelchair.
“I don’t get food stamps. I don’t get Medi-Cal for my girls. I don’t get any of that,” Samantha said. “As of Oct. 1, now I’ve got to figure out how am I going to pay my rent? How am I going to buy groceries?”
Luckily, the sisters said, the physical, speech and behavioral-health therapies that Elijah receives are safe — for now.
And the women know they can lean on each other in tough times. The sisters and Josephine all live within minutes of each other in Tustin, close enough for Samantha’s children to eat at someone’s home when their own cupboards are bare.
Every few months, Samantha said, Elijah experiences severe seizures that can last up to 90 minutes and require hospitalization.
Cassandra and Josephine like that they can run over to help if Elijah has a medical emergency. Another sister who lives farther away is on hand when needed too.
“What’s going to happen to other families who don’t have that support system?” Samantha said.
Given the potential for further cuts to programs that pay for home-based healthcare and assistants for people with disabilities, Cassandra wonders what will happen to her own family if she can no longer work as Elijah’s caregiver.
Where would the family get the money to pay a new caregiver who is qualified enough to work with a special-needs child who can speak a few words thanks to speech therapy but who cannot eat, walk or use the restroom without supervision? What if funding is eliminated for the assistant who travels with Elijah to school?
“People think that cutting Medi-Cal, cutting food stamps or whatever isn’t going to affect that many people,” Cassandra said. “It’s affecting my nephew and nieces. It’s affecting my sister. But it’s not just affecting her household. It’s affecting my household.”
“We’re not saying we’re going to Disneyland or going out to eat every day,” Cassandra said. “This is just living. We can’t even live at this point, with things being cut.”
The women offered up principles they feel are in short supply lately in the discourse over the government’s role in public health — among them “morals” and “empathy.” Samantha adds one more word to the list.
Los Angeles classical music station KUSC-FM (91.5) has laid off employees after Republicans cut federal funding from the Corp. for Public Broadcasting.
James A. Muhammad, president of Classical California, the entity that operates the nonprofit KUSC and its sister station, KDFC in San Francisco, confirmed the workforce reduction in a note sent Thursday to its listeners.
“Despite our best efforts, the fact is that Classical California has experienced a reduction of $1.1 million in support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” Muhammad wrote. “This, along with other impacts, requires us to make difficult decisions across KUSC-FM and KDFC-FM.”
A representative for Classical California did not respond to questions on the number of employees cut. A person briefed on the move who was not authorized to comment publicly said it was eight positions, including two department managers, all based in Los Angeles.
None of the announcers at the two stations were included in the cuts.
Classical California is among the many public media outlets that are scrambling to fill the budget gaps caused by the decision by the Trump White House and the Republican Congress to claw back the $1.1 billion in federal money allocated to the Corp. for Public Broadcasting.
The nonprofit entity administered the funds for public radio and TV stations, mostly affiliates of NPR and PBS.
Conservatives and libertarians have long called for the end of public funds supporting media organizations, especially ones they view as politically left-leaning. Trump has called NPR and PBS government-funded “left-wing propaganda.”
The Corp. for Public Broadcasting was also a vital revenue source for cultural and fine arts programming that often struggles to sustain itself in the commercial media marketplace.
Both KUSC and KDFC, which are owned and operated by the University of Southern California, play classical music 24 hours a day and are not NPR affiliates. They are the most-listened-to classical radio stations in the U.S.
Muhammad’s note to listeners included a plea for contributions to make up for the shortfall caused by the cuts.
“We remain committed to continuing to be your home for classical music,” Muhammad said. “As a listener-supported station, we need your support of KUSC and KDFC, now more than ever.”
In a letter sent to Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Tuesday, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chair James Comer (R-KY) requested a staff briefing and all communications and records about federal funding for the high-speed rail project and any analysis over the train’s viability.
“The Authority’s apparent repeated use of misleading ridership projections, despite longstanding warnings from experts, raises serious questions about whether funds were allocated under false pretenses,” Comer wrote.
Comer’s letter copied Congressman Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee who has also voiced skepticism about the project. Garcia, whose districts represent communities in Southern California, was not immediately available for comment.
An authority spokesperson called the House committee’s investigation “another baseless attempt to manufacture controversy around America’s largest and most complex infrastructure project,” and added that the project’s chief executive Ian Choudri previously addressed the claims and called them “cherrypicked and out-of-date, and therefore misleading.”
Last month, the Trump administration pulled $4 billion in federal funding from the project meant for construction in the Central Valley. After a months-long review, prompted by calls from Republican lawmakers, the administration found “no viable path” forward for the fast train, which is billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. The administration also questioned whether the authority’s projected ridership counts were intentionally misrepresented.
California leaders called the move “illegal” and sued the Trump administration for declaratory and injunctive relief. Gov. Gavin Newsom said it was “a political stunt” and a “heartless attack on the Central Valley.”
The bullet train was proposed decades ago as a way to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco in less than three hours by 2020. While the entire line has cleared environmental reviews, no stretch of the route has been completed. Construction has been limited to the Central Valley, where authority leaders have said a segment between Merced and Bakersfield will open by 2033. The project is also about $100 billion over its original budget of $33 billion.
Even before the White House pulled federal funding, authority leaders and advisers repeatedly raised concerns over the project’s long-term financial sustainability.
Roughly $13 billion has been spent so far — the bulk of which was supplied by the state, which has proposed $1 billion per year towards the project. But Choudri, who started at the authority last year, has said the project needs to find new sources of funding and has turned focus toward establishing public-private partnerships to supplement costs.
Public media outlets around the country were preparing for the worst. Early Thursday morning, the worst arrived.
The U.S. Senate voted to approve the Trump White House’s proposal to claw back $9 billion in federal funding previously allocated for foreign aid and public broadcasting. The 51-48 Senate vote means that the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which administers the funds for NPR radio stations and PBS TV affiliates, is on track to lose $1.1 billion that had been budgeted for the next two years.
The House of Representatives is expected to give final approval for the Trump administration’s request later Thursday.
The reaction from NPR was swift. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit has two major affiliates serving the Los Angeles area: LAist, or KPCC-FM (89.3), and KCRW-FM (89.9).
In a statement after the vote, NPR Chief Executive Katherine Maher warned of dire consequences for smaller communities that depend on public broadcasting outlets. “Nearly 3-in-4 Americans say they rely on their public radio stations for alerts and news for their public safety,” she said.”We call on the House of Representatives to reject this elimination of public media funding, which directly harms their communities and constituents, and could very well place lives at risk.”
PBS leaders sounded a similar alarm.
“These cuts will significantly impact all of our stations, but will be especially devastating to smaller stations and those serving large rural areas,” PBS President Paula Kerger said in a statement. “Many of our stations which provide access to free unique local programming and emergency alerts will now be forced to make hard decisions in the weeks and months ahead.”
PBS and NPR have both filed suit against President Trump and other administration officials over the president’s May executive order calling for the funding cutbacks. They say the order is a case of “viewpoint discrimination” driven by the White House’s unhappiness with the content of public media. Trump has called NPR and PBS government-funded “left-wing propaganda.” Republicans have for decades called for cuts to public broadcasting because of the perceived liberal slant of its programming.
Public media outlets in Southern California’s urban areas are less dependent on federal funding than stations in smaller, rural markets, which don’t get the same kinds of donations from wealthy locals, for example. But they will feel an immediate impact as the money TV and radio stations expected from Corp. for Public Broadcasting in October is now on the verge of disappearing.
Connie Leyva, executive director of KVCR Public Media in San Bernardino, which operates PBS and NPR affiliates, said earlier this week that the Senate action will mean losing $540,000, about 6% of its operating budget. Thus, she has to consider cutting five positions on an already lean staff.
In addition to serving the Inland Empire, KVCR operates a service called First Nations Experience (FNX), which produces programming for and about Native Americans and world Indigenous cultures. Such initiatives are endangered by the funding cuts.
“We just created an app, which is free to download and get Indigenous material wherever you are,” Leyva said. “But without funding, how do we continue to keep that relevant and fresh?”
Leyva said KVCR will likely have to reduce its block of PBS children’s TV programming that reaches her community through over-the-air antennas. “I heard one senator say, ‘You can have Disney or Nickelodeon,’” she said. “He doesn’t understand you have to purchase that. All of our programming is free, and these cuts harm our poor communities.”
LAist, based in Pasadena, was set to receive $1.7 million, about 4% of its annual budget. Alejandra Santamaria, president and chief executive of LAist, said the money is equivalent to 13 journalist positions at the local news operation.
“We have to make some tough choices,” Santamaria said.
Santamaria said the station has already reached out to donors to cover the expected shortfall. “We may not ever again get federal funding, so you have to fundraise the money to fill that gap in perpetuity,” she said.
Classical California, which operates radio stations KUSC-FM (91.5) in Los Angeles and KDFC-FM (90.3) in San Francisco, receive around $1 million annually in government funding. KCRW in Santa Monica, which produces tastemaking noncommercial music programs as well as news content, was expecting $264,000 from the CPB.
NPR is receiving a highly symbolic financial boost days before Congress is expected to vote on the fate of federal funding that supports the news and culture nonprofit.
Ann Philbin, former director and current director emeritus of the Hammer Museum at UCLA, has been named this year’s Getty Prize recipient. The honor comes with a $500,000 grant for a nonprofit of the winner’s choice, and Philbin has selected NPR and its Los Angeles member stations, KCRW and LAist.
The prize is considered the Getty’s highest honor and recognizes what the institution calls “cultural leaders whose work expands human understanding and appreciation of arts and culture.” Previous awardees include Frank Gehry, Mark Bradford, Ed Ruscha, Yo-Yo Ma and Thelma Golden.
“I wanted to shine a light on one of the most pressing issues of our day,” Philbin said in a phone interview. “And that’s freedom of speech and freedom of the press.”
Philbin said she requested that half of the Getty grant go to NPR and the other half to be split between KCRW and LAist.
“Those two radio stations for me — and I think for so many Angelenos who spend so much time in their cars — are constant companions,” Philbin said. “We listen to them all the time, and they’re precious to us. To even think about the fact that they might not exist is unbearable.”
NPR Chief Executive Katherine Maher in May filed a lawsuit against President Trump after he issued an executive order directing the Corp. for Public Broadcasting to freeze all funding to NPR and PBS. She said Philbin’s decision to split the donation between NPR and its local affiliates showed a level of understanding about the interdependency of the local and national radio platforms not often mirrored in the national conversation.
“It is an extraordinary gift at an extraordinary time with real, material impact for the stations,” Maher said.
Congress has until the end of the week to vote on a White House proposal known as the rescission bill that would claw back $9 billion in foreign aid and more than $500 million per year in federal funding already approved for the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which funnels financial support to NPR and PBS as well as local public radio and TV stations across the country.
Trump has been adamant that his allies vote in favor of the rescission package, writing on Truth Social last week that he will withhold support and endorsements from any Republican who doesn’t vote in its favor. He called the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, NPR and PBS “a monstrosity.”
The proposed cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would total $1.1 billion over the next two years. Federal funding accounts for about 15% of PBS’ budget and 1% of NPR’s budget, according to NPR, but local stations would be the hardest hit and some may not survive, Maher said. If they vanished, she added, they would take with them the kind of hyper-local, community-based reporting that helps forge and maintain a sense of place, identity and purpose, particularly in rural communities.
“That impact is something that is hard to conceptualize, even when you are a member of Congress who represents some of these communities,” Maher said. “Because you spend so much time living with one foot in the world of places like Washington, D.C., and very little time in the areas of the country where broadband services are not reliable or easily available, and cellphone service is not necessarily consistent and universal.”
Philbin noted that NPR’s mission statement is to create a more informed public and to celebrate the diversity of the human experience, and that those values are being challenged by a storm of misinformation.
The Getty Prize was founded in 2013 as the Getty Medal. It was initially given to several individuals each year, but last year it transformed into its current incarnation, honoring a single person who chooses the “pay-it-forward” grant recipient.
Last year’s honoree was Mark Bradford, who chose to steer the grant money to the Arts for Healing and Justice Network, which brings arts programming to minors in the juvenile justice system.
After she was assaulted by her romantic partner in 2000 while living in Los Angeles County, Maria Gutierrez Saragon turned to a family friend who said he could help her secure immigration papers.
Because she had been the victim of a crime, the friend said, he could help her obtain authorization to stay in the U.S.
While it’s true that immigrant crime victims qualify for special benefits in some instances, the promise to get Gutierrez Saragon citizenship within three months at a discount dragged on for more than a decade. A housekeeper with a modest income, she was slowly bled for more than $100,000 through a mix of false assurances and threats.
“I had to give him all my money instead of being able to buy my children what they need,” she said between sobs in an interview. “It was like torture. Every time the phone rang or every time a paper arrived for me, they were asking for more money.”
She was a victim of so-called notario fraud, in which scammers acting as lawyers extract large sums from vulnerable immigrants.
The swindle is not a new one. But despite longstanding campaigns to raise awareness, advocates and law enforcement officials say they are concerned about a resurgence under the second Trump administration. Sweeps by federal agents and the deployment of troops to Los Angeles, they say, have created a climate of fear ripe for exploitation.
The hundreds caught up in the recent raids will be seeking affordable legal help as they fight to keep the lives they have built in the United States. Compounding matters, attorneys who specialize in immigration law say there is a shortage of qualified people working in the field. Unless separately appearing in state or federal court on criminal charges, people in civil immigration proceedings are typically not entitled to a court-appointed lawyer.
The scam that bilked Gutierrez Saragon, a native of Mexico, hinges on confusion over what a notary public does in the U.S., and how it differs from Latin America and elsewhere, where “notarios” have far more legal standing.
A notary public in the U.S. serves as an impartial witness when important documents are signed. But in other parts of the world, the term refers to an attorney with special credentials who has received the equivalent of a law license and who is authorized to represent others before the government, according to Victor D. Lopez, a professor of legal studies at Hofstra University.
The type of fraud can vary. Some victims pay money to notarios who promise to represent them in hearings with immigration officials and never show up. Others see valid asylum claims end with deportation orders because the information submitted was false, bearing no resemblance to the harrowing experiences that forced them out of their home countries.
“It’s the type of crime that preys upon the most needy and desperate people,” Lopez said, adding that few places outside of Colorado have taken meaningful steps to crack down on immigration-related abuses.
Because of underreporting, he and others said, there is little reliable data on how many fraud victims there are each year. Many who have suffered losses are afraid to contact law enforcement because of their immigration status.
Gutierrez Saragon recounted in Spanish how she was duped by her notario, whom she and an attorney she found to help unravel the scheme identified as Fidel Marquez Cortes.
It started small, Gutierrez Saragon recalled: A few hundred dollars to process her fingerprints. Several hundred more for background checks. Trips to New York and Washington, D.C., which he claimed he needed to take to collect her passport. Each time, she gave him money to pay for the flight, hotel, rental car and gas, she said, but he always came back with an excuse for why he needed more time and cash.
Whenever she pushed back, she claimed, Marquez Cortes warned that she’d lose her chance at citizenship. She recalled how he would show her official-looking documents that he claimed were from a law firm in Orange County — all written in English and full of legal jargon she didn’t understand.
Only later did she learn that he had created a fake letterhead for the law firm, and was using the money she gave him to pay for his back taxes, child support and even a speeding ticket, she said.
Eventually, in February 2011, Gutierrez Saragon found a lifeline in the Immigrants Rights Project, a Los Angeles nonprofit that offers pro bono services for people seeking a path to citizenship or permanent residency. She came into their office terrified that it was her last day in the country, attorney Gina Amato Lough recalled.
“She was trembling,” Lough said.
Her new client’s first words, Lough said, suggested she thought she was turning herself in to the authorities rather than seeking free legal counsel: “I know that you’re the immigration service and you have the power to deport me. But the day has come where I just have to know what’s happened to my case.”
Lough encouraged her to file a police report the following day at Olympic Division station. But an officer at the front desk turned her away, saying it wasn’t a crime and that she needed to go to a courthouse to file a civil complaint. Lough accompanied her the following day and was told by another officer that they didn’t take reports for such cases “because it’s so common in L.A. that we couldn’t possibly prosecute it.”
After Lough protested, police agreed to take a report and eventually, the man was charged with grand theft and convicted.
Despite what Lough described as “a lack of reputable immigration attorneys” to help people through the labyrinthine U.S. immigration process, her group fought against a proposal by the state bar association to help bridge the justice gap by creating a paraprofessional classification, which would lower the bar to entry in the field.
Lough worried such a change would create more confusion and lead to more fraud. She called for local authorities to take seriously an issue that is often overlooked.
Most district attorneys are reluctant to prosecute unless there are “multiple cases and hundreds of dollars in losses,” she said. “There is a huge lack of enforcement within L.A. County.”
Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis echoed that sentiment.
Solis said she has fought for stronger regulations for a problem that isn’t confined to the Latino community, pointing to recent cases in the county involving immigrants from Asian and European countries.
“How do you deter the behavior if there is no teeth in the law?” Solis asked.
Some attorneys who practice immigration law say they are coming across scams that play out entirely online, allowing perpetrators to vanish before authorities even have a chance to investigate.
Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said she recently had a client arrive saying they were expecting to collect a green card after sending money to someone they had been communicating with on WhatsApp.
The person on WhatsApp told the client they could pick up the proof of permanent residency status with Toczylowski’s organization, which was a lie.
“Essentially that person was masquerading as a nonprofit organization,” Toczylowski said, adding that her group is preparing a public service announcement to warn about the scam.
Other times, immigration consultants aren’t out to defraud their clients, but still sometimes “make promises that they can’t keep,” she said.
Toczylowski’s center relies on local, state and federal funding, the latter of which has been threatened — a troubling development that comedian John Oliver highlighted on his show “Last Week Tonight.” After the episode aired, Toczylowski said the center received a flood of online donations, but not nearly enough to offset potential cuts to federal funding.
The center is also a plaintiff in an ongoing federal lawsuit out of Northern California against the Department of Human Services over slashed funding, she said.
When the case involving Marquez Cortes, the man who defrauded Gutierrez Saragon, finally went to trial, he was found guilty and a superior court judge ordered him to pay three installments totaling $66,000 in restitution or face a two-year prison sentence.
He eventually fled to Mexico, where a bail bondsman tracked him down and he was arrested by local police, according to Lough.
Lough said she pushed for the man to be extradited back to the U.S. to serve out his sentence, but to this day she’s not sure what his fate was. Gutierrez Saragon hasn’t recovered her losses.
“She’s never seen a dime,” Lough said. “And he’s never spent not a day in jail.”
Like many of his predecessors, President Trump has affirmed the importance of historically Black colleges and universities, hailing them as a pathway to careers and a better life for students in the U.S.
The schools have not faced cuts to federal grants of the kind that have rocked Ivy League schools Trump has blasted as hotbeds of “wokeness” and antisemitism, and the president has said HBCUs’ core federal funding is not at risk.
But that is not to say it’s a comfortable time for HBCUs’ leaders. As the Trump administration cracks down elsewhere on programs to support underrepresented students, the colleges have been expressing gratitude for the administration’s recognition while mostly keeping quiet on its sweeping attacks against diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
“HBCUs, in general, I don’t believe are in a position to be adamantly and vociferously opposed to these attacks, but deep down we all know what’s going on,” said Deron Snyder, an alumnus of and professor at Howard University. “It’s just how much can you actually say without fear of retribution.”
An executive order signed by Trump in April recognizes HBCUs and pledges his administration’s support. It calls for an annual White House conference, private-sector partnerships and an advisory board with the Education Department, but it does not guarantee any new federal funding.
The order won praise from some Black universities, including Howard University and Morgan State University, as well as organizations that work with HBCUs. Harry Williams, president of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, said the order should serve as a call to action for corporations, foundations and lawmakers to redouble support for HBCUs and their students.
But the colleges’ leaders have said little on other administration actions that are out of line with the mission of HBCUs, which were founded to educate formerly enslaved people.
The administration’s campaign against DEI has encouraged restrictions on classroom discussions around racism and led to cuts in federal research grants. As it threatens to cut federal funding from schools, some colleges have closed diversity offices and ended other programs to support students of color.
For HBCUs, the moment is reminiscent of the era decades ago when Black colleges were compelled to argue that school segregation was wrong but also needed to maintain government support for their institutions, said Marybeth Gasman, a Rutgers University professor who has studied the history of HBCUs.
Black college leaders “don’t want HBCUs to be under the umbrella of DEI, but I don’t know any HBCU president who would agree with the way that Donald Trump is dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion efforts,” she said.
The Trump administration has cut federal research grants for several universities, pressuring them to comply with his agenda. Since Harvard University refused the administration’s demands for changes to its policies and leadership, the government has slashed $2.6 billion in funding, which the Ivy League school has described as retaliation.
In an interview in April, Trump told NewsNation that Black colleges and universities should not be concerned about losing their funding.
U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), vice chair of the House HBCU caucus, said there has long been bipartisan support for the colleges. But she said there will be new vigilance of their federal support in light of the administration’s record on programs serving minorities.
Sewell said it is also alarming to see the administration move to dismantle the Education Department.
“We’ll be pushing back fiercely against that and do all that we can to make sure that our HBCUs get the money that they deserve,” Sewell said. She said the Congressional Black Caucus has been paying close attention to the Republicans’ funding plan for a program that supports 19 HBCUs through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Williams, of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, said HBCUs have exceeded all expectations of the opportunities they have provided for underrepresented students. He said he is grateful for the administration’s support, but when asked about its actions toward diversity initiatives, he said the administration has challenges it is working through.
“Hard work pays off and education pays off. That’s why these institutions are so critical to this country,” he said. “The realities of those other challenges that we’re grappling with right now in terms of what the administration is dealing with as it relates to their priorities, we were just pleased to know that they recognize the importance of what these institutions have done for the country will continue to do in a very deliberate way.”
Mumphrey writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Collin Binkley and Matt Brown in Washington contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump announced Friday that he is firing Kim Sajet, the longtime director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, for being “a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI.”
The announcement, made on Truth Social, comes as Trump pushes to remake some of the highest profile national arts institutions so they align with his political agenda. In February, he dismissed much of the Kennedy Center board in order to have himself appointed chairman. In March, he targeted the Smithsonian Institution by issuing an executive order demanding an end to federal funding for exhibitions and programs based on racial themes that “divide Americans.”
The National Portrait Gallery did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. It is unclear, as with many of Trump’s social media decrees, if the organization was expecting the latest action.
Sajet was appointed director in 2013 by Wayne Clough, then the secretary of the Smithsonian. Sajet, the first woman to serve in the role, had come from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, where she was president and chief executive. Sajet, a Dutch national, was born in Nigeria and raised in Australia.
In his Truth Social post, Trump said he was terminating Sajet “upon the request and recommendation of many people.” He said her support of diversity and inclusion was “totally inappropriate for her position.” He promised to name her replacement soon.
The National Portrait Gallery was founded by Congress in 1962 and houses more than 26,000 objects, including portraits of all the nation’s presidents. It shares a building with the Smithsonian American Art Museum and attracts about 1 million visitors a year.
The gallery contains a photo portrait of Trump taken in 2017 by Matt McClain, with a caption that reads, in part, “Impeached twice, on charges of abuse of power and incitement of insurrection after supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, he was acquitted by the Senate in both trials. After losing to Joe Biden in 2020, Trump mounted a historic comeback in the 2024 election. He is the only president aside from Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) to have won a nonconsecutive second term.”
California on Wednesday joined 15 other states filing suit against the National Science Foundation and its acting director, alleging the agency has illegally terminated millions of dollars in grants and imposed new fees that have ended or crippled research vital to health, the economy and the advancement of knowledge.
The Trump administration has defended its actions as both legal and necessary to align the NSF with the president’s priorities.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York, specifically targets the science foundation for “terminating grants for scientific research that seeks to promote and understand diversity in higher education and the workforce,” according to a statement from California Atty. General Rob Bonta.
The suit alleges that the NSF’s actions are illegally arbitrary and capricious and violate federal law on the management and use of federal funding.
Bonta’s office asserted that between 1995 and 2017, the number of women in science and engineering occupations, or with science or engineering degrees, doubled with help from federal support; minorities, meanwhile, went from representing about 15% in the occupations to about 35%.
The suit also seeks to overturn the Trump administration’s 15% cap on indirect costs related to research, which universities say are critical to carrying out their work. Such indirect costs include maintaining lab space, keeping the temperature controlled and the proper handling and disposal of biological, chemical and biochemical materials.
Like other key federal agencies, the National Science Foundation has been in turmoil since Trump took office in January — undergoing across-the-board funding cuts, layoffs and reorganization as well as apparent ideological litmus tests for research, sweeping grant terminations and a funding freeze on grant applications.
The Trump administration has fired back at critics.
Earlier this month Michael Kratsios, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, criticized diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in federally funded research, calling them “close-minded” in a speech before the National Academy of Sciences in Washington.
Kratsios also called for a reduction of “red tape” in scientific research, the online news site FedScoop reported. He said there is a “crisis of confidence in scientists” that comes from fears that political biases are impacting research.
Trump officials also have repeatedly maintained that the federal government is rife with waste and fraud.
The federal actions have come at extreme cost, according to Bonta.
“President Trump wants to make America’s universities second tier with his backwards efforts to slash research funding that has kept us on the cutting edge of science and innovation,” Bonta said. “For more than 50 years, Congress has expressly authorized the National Science Foundation to train up the next generation of talent and invest in the infrastructure necessary to keep our position as a global leader” in science, technology, engineering and math.
“With President Trump’s latest round of indiscriminate funding cuts, America is poised to fall behind its competitors at a critical moment in the global technology race. We’re suing to stop him,” Bonta said.
In California, billions of dollars are at risk across the California State University, University of California and public community college systems.
“Many innovations — like the internet, GPS, and MRI technology — trace their origins to research initially funded by NSF. Without NSF funding, many California colleges and universities will be forced to substantially reduce or stop altogether potentially groundbreaking programs and research projects,” according to Bonta’s office.
Terminated NSF grants, for instance, include a five-year, $3-million project, “Computational Research for Equity in the Legal System.” This study examined crime data for patterns of racial bias while also looking at police misconduct and eviction policies, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Canceled UC Berkeley grants included projects on electoral systems and two on environmental science education.
The NSF has also told staff to screen grant proposals for “topics or activities that may not be in alignment with agency priorities” that had shifted under the Trump administration, the journal Nature reported.
The lawsuit lays out a wide range of benefits and goals of the federal funding.
“From developing AI technology that predicts weather patterns to protect communities, to developing sustainable solutions for environmental and economic challenges, to making power grids more sustainable, NSF-funded research at American universities ensures this nation’s status as a global leader in scientific innovation,” according to the lawsuit.
The other states involved in the litigation are Hawaii, New York, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Washington.
The pattern of federal cuts and turmoil related to research also is playing out with the National Institutes of Health. And California also is party to a lawsuit over cuts to these grants.
Tara Kerin, a project scientist who works in pediatric infectious disease research at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, said that the funding cuts at the National Science Foundation echoed similar ones made at the National Institutes of Health.
That, she said, makes her “very nervous about the future of science and research.”
Kerin, whose work has partly focused on HIV prevention and detection in young adults, was funded by NIH grants — until they were cut this spring.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to cut federal funding to California if the state continues allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports.
Trump blasted Gov. Gavin Newsom in an early morning post on Truth Social saying the state under his leadership “continues to ILLEGALLY allow MEN TO PLAY IN WOMEN’S SPORTS.”
“I will speak to him today to find out which way he wants to go???” Trump said of Newsom. “In the meantime I am ordering local authorities, if necessary, to not allow the transitioned person to compete in the State Finals. This is a totally ridiculous situation!!!”
The president’s post appeared to reference a California high school junior who won the women’s long jump and triple jump during the California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section Masters Meet over the weekend.
California is the second state to enter Trump’s cross-hairs over transgender athletes participation in youth sports. Last month, Trump began the process of stripping Maine of federal education dollars in a battle over the issue between the president and Maine Gov. Janet Mills. The dispute immediately landed in court.
Unlike the governor of Maine, Newsom recently said it was “deeply unfair” for people born as biological men to compete in women’s sports. He has not responded to Trump’s post.
When asked at a press conference in April if California should adopt a law restricting transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports, the governor said he’s open to the discussion.
“You’re talking about a very small number of people, a very small number of athletes, and my responsibility is to address the pressing issues of our time,” Newsom said, before adding that the conversation has been weaponized by conservatives.
“And to the extent that someone could find that right balance, I would embrace those conversations and the dignity that hopefully presents themselves in that conversation, meaning the humanity around that conversation, not the politics around that conversation.”
This isn’t the first time Trump has threatened to cut funding, particularly education dollars, to California.
In an April letter to Newsom, the Trump-appointed head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture conditioned its aid to abiding by Trump directives — and cited a federal investigation into a state law that prohibits schools from automatically notifying families about student gender-identity changes and shields teachers from retaliation for supporting transgender student rights.
California also joined other states in April when it defied a Trump administration order to certify that the state’s 1,000 school districts have ended all diversity, equity and inclusion programs. That Trump order, too, arrived with federal threats to cut billions of dollars in education funding if the state did not comply.
One uncertainty in Trump’s latest social media post was whether he was referring to education funding alone or additional federal support for California — which could include, for example, disaster relief, food aid for the poor and dollars to support low-income housing.
California has long sent more money to Washington, D.C. in federal tax revenue than it receives in federal support, according to Newsom. Regardless, the funding that California relies on is significant.
While it’s difficult to calculate the total dollar amount California receives from the federal government in education funding, some tallies have put the annual figure at $16.3 billion — or about $2,750 per K-12 student. That money includes funding for school meals, students with disabilities and early education Head Start programs.
The state also receives more than $2.1 billion in Title I grants to counteract the effects of poverty — more than any other state — with about $417 million provided to Los Angeles Unified, according to the California Department of Education.
As the Trump administration cut billions of dollars in federal funding to scientific research, thousands of scientists in the U.S. lost their jobs or grants — and governments and universities around the world spotted an opportunity.
The Canada Leads program, launched in April, hopes to foster the next generation of innovators by bringing early-career biomedical researchers north of the border.
Aix-Marseille University in France started the Safe Place for Science program in March, pledging to welcome U.S.-based scientists who “may feel threatened or hindered in their research.”
Australia’s Global Talent Attraction Program, announced in April, promises competitive salaries and relocation packages.
“In response to what is happening in the U.S.,” said Anna-Maria Arabia, head of the Australian Academy of Science, “we see an unparalleled opportunity to attract some of the smartest minds here.”
Since World War II, the U.S. has invested huge amounts of money in scientific research conducted at independent universities and federal agencies. That funding helped the U.S. to become the world’s leading scientific power — and has led to the invention of cellphones and the internet as well as new ways to treat cancer, heart disease and strokes, noted Holden Thorp, editor in chief of the journal Science.
But today that system is being shaken.
Since President Trump took office in January, his administration has pointed to what it calls waste and inefficiency in federal science spending and made major cuts to staff levels and grant funding at the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, NASA and other agencies, while slashing research dollars that flow to some private universities.
The White House budget proposal for next year aims to cut the NIH budget by roughly 40% and the National Science Foundation budget by 55%.
“The Trump administration is spending its first few months reviewing the previous administration’s projects, identifying waste, and realigning our research spending to match the American people’s priorities and continue our innovative dominance,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.
Already, several universities have announced hiring freezes, laid off staff or stopped admitting new graduate students. On Thursday, the Trump administration revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, though a judge put that on hold.
Research institutions abroad are watching with concern for collaborations that depend on colleagues in the U.S. — but they also see opportunities to poach talent.
“There are threats to science … south of the border,” said Brad Wouters of University Health Network, Canada’s leading hospital and medical research center, which launched the Canada Leads recruitment drive. “There’s a whole pool of talent, a whole cohort that is being affected by this moment.”
Academic freedom
Universities worldwide are always trying to recruit from one another, just as tech companies and businesses in other fields do. What’s unusual about the current moment is that many global recruiters are targeting researchers by promising something that seems newly threatened: academic freedom.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said this month that the European Union intends “to enshrine freedom of scientific research into law.” She spoke at the launch of the bloc’s Choose Europe for Science initiative, which was in the works before the Trump administration cuts but has sought to capitalize on the moment.
Eric Berton, president of Aix-Marseille University, expressed a similar sentiment after launching the institution’s Safe Place for Science program.
“Our American research colleagues are not particularly interested by money,” he said of applicants. “What they want above all is to be able to continue their research and that their academic freedom be preserved.”
Imminent ‘brain drain’?
It’s too early to say how many scientists will choose to leave the U.S. It will take months for universities to review applications and dole out funding, and longer for researchers to uproot their lives.
Plus, the American lead in funding research and development is enormous — and even significant cuts may leave crucial programs standing. The U.S. has been the world’s leading funder of research and development — including government, university and private investment — for decades. In 2023, the country funded 29% of the world’s R&D, according to the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science.
But some institutions abroad are reporting significant early interest from researchers in the U.S. Nearly half of the applications to Safe Place for Science — 139 out of 300 total — came from U.S.-based scientists, including AI researchers and astrophysicists.
U.S.-based applicants in this year’s recruitment round for France’s Institute of Genetics, Molecular and Cellular Biology roughly doubled over last year.
At the Max Planck Society in Germany, the Lise Meitner Excellence Program — aimed at young female researchers — drew triple the number of applications from U.S.-based scientists this year as last year.
Recruiters who work with companies and nonprofits say they see a similar trend.
Natalie Derry, a U.K.-based managing partner of the Global Emerging Sciences Practice at recruiter WittKieffer, said her team has seen a 25% to 35% increase in applicants from the U.S. cold-calling about open positions. When they reach out to scientists currently based in the U.S., “we are getting a much higher hit rate of people showing interest.”
Still, there are practical hurdles to overcome for would-be continent-hoppers, she said. That can include language hurdles, arranging child care or elder care, and significant differences in national pension or retirement programs.
Brandon Coventry never thought he would consider a scientific career outside the United States. But federal funding cuts and questions over whether new grants will materialize have left him unsure. While reluctant to leave his family and friends, he’s applied to faculty positions in Canada and France.
“I’ve never wanted to necessarily leave the United States, but this is a serious contender for me,” said Coventry, who is a postdoctoral fellow studying neural implants at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
But it’s not easy to pick up and move a scientific career — let alone a life.
Marianna Zhang was studying how children develop race and gender stereotypes as a postdoctoral fellow at New York University when her National Science Foundation grant was canceled. She said it felt like “America as a country was no longer interested in studying questions like mine.”
Still, she wasn’t sure of her next move. “It’s no easy solution, just fleeing and escaping to another country,” she said.
The recruitment programs range in ambition, from those trying to attract a dozen researchers to a single university to the continent-wide Choose Europe for Science initiative.
But it’s unclear whether the total amount of funding and new positions offered could match what’s being shed in the United States.
A global vacuum
Even as universities and institutes think about recruiting talent from the U.S., there’s more apprehension than glee at the funding cuts.
“Science is a global endeavor,” said Patrick Cramer, head of the Max Planck Society, noting that datasets and discoveries are often shared among international collaborators.
One aim of recruitment drives is “to help prevent the loss of talent to the global scientific community,” he said.
Researchers worldwide will suffer if collaborations are shut down and databases taken offline, scientists say.
“The U.S. was always an example, in both science and education,” said Patrick Schultz, president of France’s Institute of Genetics, Molecular and Cellular Biology. So the cuts and policies were “very frightening also for us because it was an example for the whole world.”
Larson, Ramakrishnan and Keaten write for the Associated Press.
