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.
At his final rally on Monday New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani vowed to resist US President Donald Trump’s threat to withhold federal funds if the 34-year-old wins, framing the vote as a stand against intimidation and political bullying.
Two federal judges told the U.S. Department of Agriculture in separate rulings Friday that it must begin using billions of dollars in contingency funding to provide federal food assistance to poor American families despite the federal shutdown, but gave the agency until Monday to decide how to do so.
Both Obama-appointed judges rejected Trump administration arguments that more than $5 billion in USDA contingency funds could not legally be tapped to continue Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for nearly 42 million Americans while the federal government remains closed. But both also left unclear how exactly the relief should be provided, or when it will arrive for millions of families set to lose benefits starting Saturday.
The two rulings came almost simultaneously Friday.
In Massachusetts, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani stopped short of granting California and a coalition of 24 other Democrat-led states a temporary restraining order they had requested. But she ruled that the states were likely to succeed in their arguments that the USDA’s total shutoff of SNAP benefits — despite having billions in emergency contingency funds on hand — was unlawful.
Talwani gave USDA until Monday to tell her whether they would authorize “only reduced SNAP benefits” using the contingency funding — which would not cover the total $8.5 billion to $9 billion needed for all November benefits, according to the USDA — or would authorize “full SNAP benefits using both the Contingency Funds and additional available funds.”
Separately, in Rhode Island, U.S. District Judge John McConnell granted a temporary restraining order requested by nonprofit organizations, ruling from the bench that SNAP must be funded with at least the contingency funds, and requesting an update on progress by Monday.
The White House referred questions about the ruling to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not immediately clear if the administration would appeal the rulings.
The Massachusetts order was a win for California and the other Democrat-led states, which sued over the interruption to SNAP benefits — which were previously known as food stamps — as Republicans and Democrats continue to squabble over reopening the government in Washington.
However, it will not mean that all of the nation’s SNAP recipients — including 5.5 million Californians — will be spared a lapse in their food aid, state officials stressed, as state and local food banks continued scrambling to prepare for a deluge of need starting Saturday.
Asked Thursday if a ruling in the states’ favor would mean SNAP funds would be immediately loaded onto CalFresh and other benefits cards, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta — whose office helped bring the states’ lawsuit — said “the answer is no, unfortunately.”
“Our best estimates are that [SNAP benefit] cards could be loaded and used in about a week,” he said, calling that lag “problematic.”
“There could be about a week where people are hungry and need food,” he said. For new applicants to the program, he said, it could take even longer.
The rulings came as the now monthlong shutdown continued Friday with no immediate end in sight. The Senate adjourned Thursday with no plans to meet again until Monday.
It also came after President Trump called Thursday for the Senate to end the shutdown by first ending the filibuster, a longstanding rule that requires 60 votes to overcome objections to legislation. The rule has traditionally been favored by lawmakers as a means of blocking particularly partisan measures, and is currently being used by Democrats to resist the will of the current 53-seat Republican majority.
“It is now time for the Republicans to play their ‘TRUMP CARD,’ and go for what is called the Nuclear Option — Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Los Angeles Regional Food Bank Chief Executive Michael Flood, standing alongside Bonta as members of the California National Guard worked behind them stuffing food boxes, said his organization was preparing for massive lines come Saturday, the first of the month.
He said he expected long lines of families in need of food appearing outside food distribution locations throughout the region, just as they did during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is a disaster type of situation for us here in Los Angeles County, throughout the state of California and throughout the country,” Flood said.
“5.5 million Californians, 1.5 million children and adults in L.A. County alone, will be left high and dry — illegally so, unnecessarily so, in a way that is morally bankrupt,” Bonta said.
Bonta blamed the shutdown on Trump and his administration, and said the USDA has billions of dollars in contingency funds designed to ensure SNAP benefits continue during emergencies and broke the law by not tapping those funds in the current situation.
Bonta said SNAP benefits have never been disrupted during previous federal government shutdowns, and should never have been disrupted during this shutdown, either.
“That was avoidable,” he said. “Trump created this problem.”
The Trump administration has blamed the shutdown and the looming disruption to SNAP benefits entirely on Democrats in Congress, who have blocked short-term spending measures to restart the government and fund SNAP. Democrats are holding out to pressure Republicans into rescinding massive cuts to subsidies that help millions of Americans afford health insurance.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, previously told The Times that Democrats should be the ones getting asked “when the shutdown will end,” because “they are the ones who have decided to shut down the government so they can use working Americans and SNAP benefits as ‘leverage’ to pursue their radical left wing agenda.”
“Americans are suffering because of Democrats,” Jackson said.
In their opposition to the states’ request for a temporary restraining order requiring the disbursement of funds, attorneys for the USDA argued that using emergency funds to cover November SNAP benefits would deplete funds meant to provide “critical support in the event of natural disasters and other uncontrollable catastrophes,” and could actually cause more disruption to benefits down the line.
They wrote that SNAP requires between $8.5 billion and $9 billion each month, and the USDA’s contingency fund has only about $5.25 billion, meaning it could not fully fund November benefits even if it did release contingency funding. Meanwhile, “a partial payment has never been made — and for good reason,” because it would force every state to recalculate benefits for recipients and then recalibrate their systems to provide the new amounts, they wrote.
That “would take weeks, if it can be done at all,” and would then have to be undone in order to issue December benefits at normal levels, assuming the shutdown would have lifted by then, they wrote. “The disruption this would entail, with each State required to repeatedly reprogram its systems, would lead to chaos and uncertainty for the following months, even after a lapse concludes,” they wrote.
Simply pausing the benefits to immediately be reissued whenever the shutdown ends is the smarter and less disruptive course of action, they argued.
During a Thursday hearing in the states’ case, Talwani had suggested that existing rules required action by the government to prevent the sort of suffering that a total disruption to food assistance would cause, regardless of whatever political showdown is occurring between the parties in Washington.
“If you don’t have money, you tighten your belt,” she said in court. “You are not going to make everyone drop dead because it’s a political game someplace.”
In addition to suing the administration, California and its leaders have been rushing to ensure that hungry families have something to eat in coming days. Gov. Gavin Newsom directed $80 million to food banks to stock up on provisions, and activated the National Guard to help package food for those who need it.
Counties have also been working to offset the need, including by directing additional funding to food banks and other resource centers and asking partners in the private sector to assist.
Dozens of organizations in California have written to Newsom calling on him to use state funds to fully cover the missing federal benefits, in order to prevent “a crisis of unthinkable magnitude,” but Newsom has suggested that is not possible given the scale of funding withheld.
According to the USDA, about 41.7 million Americans were served through SNAP per month in fiscal 2024, at an annual cost of nearly $100 billion. Of the 5.5 million Californian recipients, children and older people account for more than 63%.
This article includes reporting by the Associated Press.
Russell T Davies has spoken out after Disney+ ended its partnership with Doctor Who and jokingly suggested some festive titles for the upcoming Christmas special
22:00, 28 Oct 2025Updated 22:06, 28 Oct 2025
Doctor Who boss Russell T Davies has spoken out on the news regarding the sci-fi show(Image: Getty Images)
Russell T Davies has spoken out after Disney+ ended its partnership with Doctor Who. The showrunner, 62, took to social media in the hours after it was announced that his sci-fi programme would be solely produced by the BBC going forward after two years under the global streaming service.
Earlier in the day, Lindsay Salt, director of drama at the BBC, said Disney+ had been “terrific global partners and collaborators over the past two seasons”, before confirming that a Christmas special is on the way. She added: “The BBC remains fully committed to Doctor Who, which continues to be one of our most loved dramas, and we are delighted that Russell T Davies has agreed to write us another spectacular Christmas special for 2026.
“We can assure fans, the Doctor is not going anywhere, and we will be announcing plans for the next series in due course which will ensure the TARDIS remains at the heart of the BBC.”
In the hours that followed, Russell posted an image of the famous TARDIS onto his Instagram page, where he jokingly asked fans what they thought of some potential titles for the festive special. He wrote: “Here we go. Away in a Danger? Jungle Hells? Silent Night? Hark the Weeping Angels Sing? O Come All Ye…um, Nimon?”
Following the news that the show was no longer part of Disney, fans instantly flooded social media with their reactions, with many praising show bosses for the move to step away from the media corporation. One wrote: “Maybe without Disney’s sanitized grip, Doctor Who can return to its roots, weird, dark, brilliant storytelling that doesn’t need a corporate logo to feel epic.”
Another said: “Time for Doctor Who to feel British again, not branded,” whilst a third joked of the streaming service: “this app is literally screaming at us all month to end our memberships.” Another fan simply said: “Good tbh. The Disney era was kinda meh!”
At the end of the last series, viewers were shocked to see Ncuti Gatwa’s doctor seemingly regenerate into the likeness of Billie Piper, who starred as Rose Tyler alongside Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant following the programme’s initial revival in 2005. A comeback for her has not been confirmed, and some fans seem to think that Ncuti could be stepping back into the role after all.
One said: “Ncuti walking out of the Tardis on Christmas 2026 and pretending like nothing happened,” and another said: “billie is gonna go find 14 and then ‘fuse’ with him which will cause an ACTUAL regeneration and its just Ncuti again lmao.” A third agreed, writing: “I would LOVE for Ncuti Gatwa to be back!”
This festive season will be the first to not have a Doctor Who special for 20 years. The BBC said that the announcement about the 2026 Christmas episode had been prompted by Disney+ confirming that it would not be partnering on the next season of the sci-fi show – as widely anticipated – after international viewing figures proved disappointing.
In a statement yesterday, the BBC said that it remained “fully committed to the show and will announce plans for the next series in due course to ensure the Doctor’s adventures continue”.
At the end of this year, Doctor Who spin-off The War Between The Land and the Sea will air, as well as a brand-new animation series for CBeebies.
United States President Donald Trump has begun construction of a $300m ballroom on the site of what was the White House’s East Wing.
The construction, which began on Monday, is the first major structural change to the complex since 1948. It involves tearing down the existing East Wing, which had housed the first lady’s offices and was used for ceremonies.
The work is being funded via private donations from individuals, corporations and tech companies, including Google and Amazon, raising uncomfortable questions about the level of access this might give donors to the most powerful man in the country.
A pledge form seen by CBS News indicated that donors may qualify for “recognition” of their contributions. Further details of this have not emerged, however.
How much will the new ballroom cost?
The estimated cost of building Trump’s ornate, 8,360sq-metre (90,0000sq-ft) ballroom, which he says will accommodate 999 people, has varied since plans were announced earlier this year.
In a statement made in August, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt indicated the cost would be about $200m. However, this week, Trump raised that to $300m.
Construction began during a US government shutdown and, therefore, without the approval of the National Capital Planning Commission, the federal agency responsible for overseeing these operations, which is closed.
US President Donald Trump holds up a rendering of the planned ballroom in the Oval Office of the White House on October 22, 2025 [Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images]
Who is funding the ballroom?
On Monday, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “For more than 150 years, every President has dreamt about having a Ballroom at the White House to accommodate people for grand parties, State Visits, etc. I am honored to be the first President to finally get this much-needed project underway – with zero cost to the American Taxpayer!”
He added that he himself will also be contributing to the bill: “The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly.”
However, it seems that at least some of the donations are being made as part of deals struck with Trump over other issues.
YouTube will pay $22m towards the ballroom construction as part of a legal settlement with Trump pertaining to a lawsuit he brought in 2021 over the suspension of his account after the Capitol riot that year when his supporters stormed the seat of Congress on January 6 in a bid to prevent the transfer of the presidency to Joe Biden. YouTube and Google have the same parent company, Alphabet.
The White House did not disclose how much donors would contribute. Other prominent donors – some of which have had recent legal wrangles in the US – were on a list the White House provided to the media. They include:
Amazon
Last month, the Federal Trade Commission reached a settlement with Amazon over allegations that the multinational tech company founded by Jeff Bezos had enrolled millions of consumers to its streaming platform, Prime, without their consent and made it difficult to cancel the subscriptions.
Under the settlement, Amazon will pay $2.5bn in penalties and refunds, fix its subscription process and undergo compliance monitoring.
Apple
US-based multinational Apple – which produces the iPhone, iPad and MacBook – is headed by CEO Tim Cook.
On Tuesday, Apple asked a US appeals court to overturn a federal judge’s ruling in April that prevents it from collecting commissions on certain app purchases.
Coinbase
Coinbase is the largest US cryptocurrency exchange. It is led by CEO Brian Armstrong.
On September 30, a US federal judge ruled that shareholders could pursue a narrowed lawsuit accusing the company of hiding key business risks, including the risk of a lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the risk of losing assets in bankruptcy.
Google
Last month, the US Department of Justice won a major antitrust case against Google. A federal court ruled that the tech giant illegally monopolised online search and search advertising.
Lockheed Martin
Aerospace and defence manufacturer Lockheed Martin is headed by President and CEO Jim Taiclet.
In February, Lockheed Martin agreed to pay $29.74m to resolve federal allegations that the company had overcharged the US government by submitting inflated cost data for contracts of F-35 fighter jets from 2013 to 2015.
Microsoft
The CEO of the tech group is Satya Nadella, who earned a record $96.5m in fiscal year 2025.
Lutnick family
The Lutnick family is associated with businessman Howard Lutnick, who is also Trump’s commerce secretary.
Lutnick is the CEO of the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald. His company Cantor Gaming has previously been accused of repeatedly violating state and federal laws, Politico reported in February.
Winklevoss twins
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are listed as separate donors.
The brothers are US investors and entrepreneurs, known for cofounding the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini and Winklevoss Capital.
Last month, the SEC agreed to settle a lawsuit over Gemini’s unregistered cryptocurrency-lending programme offered to retail investors.
Who else is on the list?
Other companies, conglomerates and individuals on the list include:
Altria Group
Booz Allen Hamilton
Caterpillar
Comcast
J Pepe and Emilia Fanjul
Hard Rock International
HP
Meta Platforms
Micron Technology
NextEra Energy
Palantir Technologies
Ripple
Reynolds American
T-Mobile
Tether America
Union Pacific
Adelson Family Foundation
Stefan E Brodie
Betty Wold Johnson Foundation
Charles and Marissa Cascarilla
Edward and Shari Glazer
Harold Hamm
Benjamin Leon Jr
Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Foundation
Stephen A Schwarzman
Konstantin Sokolov
Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecher
Paolo Tiramani
Is the private funding of Trump’s ballroom ethical?
Constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein told Al Jazeera that the private funding violates the Anti-Deficiency Act.
The Anti-Deficiency Act is a US federal law that decrees the executive branch of government cannot accept goods or services from private parties to conduct official government functions unless Congress has specifically signed off on the funds.
The act protects the “congressional power of the purse”, Fein said.
“Think of this analogy: Congress refuses to fund a wall with Mexico. Could Trump go ahead and build the wall Congress refused to fund with money provided by Elon Musk or other billionaire pals of Trump?”
Fein added: “Trump is completely transactional. Funders of the ballroom will be rewarded with regulatory favours or appointments or given pardons for federal crimes.”
Oct. 16 (UPI) — The Senate failed for the 10th time to approve a temporary funding bill to reopen the federal government and voted down a Defense Department appropriations bill on Thursday.
The Senate voted 51-45 in favor of a funding resolution to reopen the federal government, but the vote total was less than the 60 needed for approval.
Two Senate Democrats, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, and independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, voted in favor of the temporary government funding measure, according to CNN.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the lone GOP member to vote against the measure.
The Senate later in the day voted 50-44 on a year-long appropriations bill to fund the Defense Department as the government enters the 16th day of its shutdown over a stopgap funding bill.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., opposed considering the Defense Department spending bill without also considering the Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill, The Hill reported.
Like the government funding measure, the defense budget needs 60 votes to pass. It also would have given a raise for military personnel.
Senate Democrats have voted consistently with no change during the 10 votes to reopen the federal government, as have GOP senators, including Paul in his funding opposition.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., responded to the legislative stalemate by offering to hold floor debates on respective spending bills to fund federal agencies for the 2026 fiscal year, Politico reported.
Thune also suggested Senate Democrats, who have proposed an alternative temporary funding measure, might have some caucus members vote for the House-approved funding resolution due to the effects of an extended government shutdown.
The House already approved the measure favored by the GOP, which simply extends the 2025 funding through Nov. 21 while continuing negotiations on a full-year funding bill.
Senate Democrats have proposed an alternative measure that would fund the federal government through Oct. 31 and extend Affordable Care Act tax credits on insurance premiums and expand Medicaid access.
Schumer blamed the GOP for the budget impasse by refusing to negotiate a proposed $1.5 trillion in additional spending over the next decade that Senate Democrats want to include in the stopgap funding.
“The Trump shutdown drags on because Republicans refuse to work with or even negotiate with Democrats in a serious way to fix the healthcare crisis in America,” Schumer said, as reported by Politico.
Thune in an interview that aired on MSNBC on Thursday morning said Senate Republicans will not negotiate the ACA tax credits until the government is open again, according to ABC News.
The fiscal year started on Oct. 1, which is the first day of the government shutdown due to a lack of funding.
Thune said his party plans to attach additional funding bills to the Pentagon measure, though it’s unclear if Democrats support the idea, CBS News reported.
The additional bills would seek to fund the Departments of Health and Human Services and Labor.
In an analysis published in September, the Urban Institute said the number of uninsured people between the ages of 19 and 34 would increase by 25% if the subsidies expire in the new year.
There would be a 14% increase among children. In all, 4.8 million people would lose health insurance coverage.
The Trump administration has said it’s against extending the ACA subsidies, and has accused Democrats at the state level of using federal tax dollars to provide undocumented immigrants with healthcare services, which Democrats have denied.
Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for health insurance under the ACA, the federal healthcare.gov website states.
In an appearance on MSNBC on Wednesday night, Thune said he told Democratic leaders he’d be willing to hold a vote on the subsidies in exchange for their help reopening the government.
“We can guarantee you a vote by a date certain,” he said. “At some point, Democrats have to take ‘yes’ for an answer.
“I can’t guarantee it’s going to pass. I can guarantee you that there will be a process and you will get a vote.”
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are poised for the 10th time Thursday to reject a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government, insisting they won’t back away from demands that Congress take up healthcare benefits.
The repetition of votes on the funding bill has become a daily drumbeat in Congress, underscoring how intractable the situation has become. It has been at times the only item on the agenda for the Senate floor, while House Republicans have left Washington altogether. The standoff has lasted over two weeks, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed, even more without a guaranteed payday and Congress essentially paralyzed.
“Every day that goes by, there are more and more Americans who are getting smaller and smaller paychecks,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, adding that there have been thousands of flight delays across the country as well.
Thune, a South Dakota Republican, again and again has tried to pressure Democrats to break from their strategy of voting against the stopgap funding bill. It hasn’t worked. And while some bipartisan talks have been ongoing about potential compromises on healthcare, they haven’t produced any meaningful progress toward reopening the government. Thune has also offered to hold a later vote on extending subsidies for health plans offered under Affordable Care Act marketplaces, but said he would not “guarantee a result or an outcome.”
Democrats say they won’t budge until they get a guarantee on extending the tax credits for the health plans. They warn that millions of Americans who buy their own health insurance — such as small business owners, farmers and contractors — will see large increases when premium prices go out in the coming weeks. Looking ahead to a Nov. 1 deadline in most states, they think voters will demand that Republicans enter into serious negotiations.
“The ACA crisis is looming over everyone’s head, and yet Republicans seem ready to let people’s premiums spike,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer in a floor speech.
Still, Thune was also trying a different tack Thursday with a vote to proceed to appropriations bills — a move that could grease the Senate’s gears into some action or just deepen the divide between the two parties.
A deadline for subsidies on health plans
Democrats have rallied around their priorities on healthcare as they hold out against voting for a Republican bill that would reopen the government. Yet they also warn that the time to strike a deal to prevent large increases for many health plans is drawing short.
When they controlled Congress during the pandemic, Democrats boosted subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans. It pushed enrollment under President Obama’s signature healthcare law to new levels and drove the rate of uninsured people to a historic low. Nearly 24 million people currently get their health insurance from subsidized marketplaces, according to healthcare research nonprofit KFF.
Democrats — and some Republicans — are worried that many of those people will forgo insurance if the price rises dramatically. While the tax credits don’t expire until next year, health insurers will soon send out notices of the price increases. In most states, they go out Nov. 1.
Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she has heard from “families who are absolutely panicking about their premiums that are doubling.”
“They are small business owners who are having to think about abandoning the job they love to get employer-sponsored healthcare elsewhere or just forgoing coverage altogether,” she added.
Murray also said that if many people decide to leave their health plan, it could have an effect across medical insurance because the pool of people under health plans will shrink. That could result in higher prices across the board, she said.
Some Republicans have acknowledged that the expiration of the tax credits could be a problem and floated potential compromises to address it, but there is hardly a consensus among the GOP.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) this week called the COVID-era subsidies a “boondoggle,” adding that “when you subsidize the healthcare system and you pay insurance companies more, the prices increase.”
President Trump has said he would “like to see a deal done for great healthcare,” but has not meaningfully weighed in on the debate. And Thune has insisted that Democrats first vote to reopen the government before entering any negotiations on healthcare.
If Congress were to engage in negotiations on significant changes to healthcare, it would likely take weeks, if not longer, to work out a compromise.
Votes on appropriations bills
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are setting up a vote Thursday to proceed to a bill to fund the Defense Department and several other areas of government. This would turn the Senate to Thune’s priority of working through spending bills and potentially pave the way to paying salaries for troops, though the House would eventually need to come back to Washington to vote for a final bill negotiated between the two chambers.
It could also put a crack in Democrats’ resolve. Thune said Thursday, “If they want to stop the defense bill, I don’t think it’s very good optics for them.”
It wasn’t clear whether Democrats would give the support needed to advance the bills. They discussed the idea at their luncheon Wednesday and emerged saying they wanted to review the Republican proposal and make sure it included appropriations that are priorities for them.
While the votes will not bring the Senate any closer to an immediate fix for the government shutdown, it could at least turn their attention to issues where there is some bipartisan agreement.
Still, there was a growing sense on Capitol Hill that an end to the stasis is nowhere in sight.
“So many of you have asked all of us, how will it end?” said House Speaker Johnson. “We have no idea.”
Groves and Jalonick write for the Associated Press.
The White House says it will release a list of programmes to be cut on Friday after earlier eliminating 4,200 positions at a range of government departments.
Published On 15 Oct 202515 Oct 2025
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President Donald Trump has renewed his threat to cut “Democrat programmes” as the United States government shutdown heads into its fifteenth day without resolution.
“The Democrats are getting killed on the shutdown because we’re closing up programmes that are Democrat programmes that we were opposed to… and they’re never going to come back in many cases,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, according to ABC News.
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Trump said a list of programmes may be released as soon as Friday, although he did not provide further details in his remarks. He said that “Republican programmes” would be safe.
Trump has already used the government shutdown to pause or cut $28bn in federal funding for infrastructure and energy projects in Democrat-leaning states like California, Illinois and New York.
The White House has also started making cuts to the federal workforce. About 4,200 employees from eight government departments and agencies received “reduction-in-force notices” on Friday, according to CNBC.
Major cuts were made at the Treasury Department, the Health and Human Services Department, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some programmes on the chopping block included those historically supported by Republicans as well as Democrats. They included the entire staff of the Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which works with low-income communities, according to CNBC.
There are about 2.25 million civilian federal employees, according to the Congressional Budget Office, of whom some 60 percent work in the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security.
Approximately 750,000 federal employees have been on furlough since the shutdown began two weeks ago, while “essential” workers have continued working without pay until they can be reimbursed when the shutdown ends.
The White House says it will take the unusual move of reallocating $8bn in existing funds to keep paying military and coastguard personnel throughout the shutdown, although historically, they also work without pay.
The Senate remains deadlocked over a government spending bill needed to end the shutdown.
A Republican-backed spending bill, which would have extended government funding to November 21, on Monday failed in a vote of 49 to 45, broadly down party lines.
The bill needs 60 votes to pass, but Republicans have failed to sway more Democrats to their side after gaining the support of a few individual legislators. Democrats are blocking the bill to force Republicans to negotiate on healthcare subsidies.
Oct. 14 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate on Tuesday failed for the eighth time to pass legislation that would end the government shutdown that is now two weeks old.
A Republican-backed bill that would temporarily fund the government through Nov. 21 failed on a 49-45 vote, requiring 60 votes to advance under Senate rules.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote against the bill. On the other side of the aisle, Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Angus King of Maine voted in favor of the bill.
The vote means that the shutdown will extend into its 15th day on Wednesday with no clear offramp.
Democrats have demanded that extensions of health insurance subsidies be included in any funding deal. Tens of millions of Americans are expected to see their health insurance premiums skyrocket after the subsidies expire at the end of the year.
“This Argentina bailout is a slap in the face to farmers and working families worried about keeping healthcare,” he said. “If this administration has $20 billion to spare for a MAGA-friendly foreign government, they can’t turn around to say we don’t have the money to lower health care costs here at home.”
During a press availability earlier that day, Senate majority leader John Thune, R-S.D., blamed any pain from the shutdown on Democrats, demanding that they agree to fund the government before negotiating on healthcare subsidies.
“This is outrageous what they are doing,” he said. “They ought to be ashamed.”
Thune called Schumer “checked out” and said the end will come from working with enough “reasonable Senate Democrats.”
Senators last voted on funding legislation on Thursday before heading into a long break coinciding with Monday’s bank holiday. With no action on the issue in several days, lawmakers in both chambers — and within the Trump administration — have used the time to trade criticisms over who’s to blame for the shutdown, which has left about 750,000 federal workers furloughed or working without pay.
In addition to furloughs, the Trump administration has begun carrying out mass firings, including 1,446 employees at the Justice Department and another 1,200 at the Department of Health and Human Services, USA Today reported.
The Trump administration said it’s working to make sure active-duty military service members receive their next paychecks Friday by repurposing about $8 billion Congress had appropriated for other areas of the Defense Department. President Donald Trump took to Truth Social over the weekend to announce he ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th.”
Johnson held a news conference Tuesday morning at the Capitol and said Trump had “every right” to repurpose the funds.
“If the Democrats want to go to court and challenge troops being paid, bring it,” Johnson said.
Romina Boccia, the director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute, told The Hill on Monday that it is legal for Congress to repurpose un-obligated funds, but for the administration to do so unilaterally “is likely illegal.”
“An un-obligated balance does not give the administration the right to use the money as it wishes,” Boccia said. “If Congress wants to ensure that America’s troops will be paid during the ongoing government shutdown, Congress should pass a bill that authorizes funding to pay the troops.”
Doing so would require a vote by the House, which is on recess for the rest of the week. Johnson has said he will not call House members back to Washington, D.C., early.
At the heart of the deadlock are subsidies for Affordable Care Act premiums set to expire in the new year.
Schumer has said Senate Democrats wouldn’t support the stopgap legislation unless Republicans back extending the subsidies.
The Trump administration has said it’s against extending the ACA subsidies, falsely claiming undocumented immigrants are benefitting from it. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for health insurance under the ACA, the federal healthcare.gov website states.
WASHINGTON — President Trump is making this government shutdown unlike any the country has ever seen, enabling his budget office a rare authority to pick winners and losers — who gets paid or fired — in an unprecedented restructuring across the federal workforce.
As the shutdown enters its third week, the Office and Management and Budget said Tuesday it’s preparing to “batten down the hatches” with more reductions in force to come. The president calls budget chief Russ Vought the “grim reaper” who’s seized on the opportunity to fund Trump’s priorities, paying the military while slashing employees in health, education, the sciences and other areas with actions that have been criticized as illegal and are facing court challenges.
“Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs, and wait,” OMB said in a social media post.
With Congress at a standstill — the Republican-led House refusing to return to session and the Senate stuck in a loop of failed votes to reopen government as Democrats demand health care funds — the White House’s budget office quickly filled the void.
From Project 2025 to the White House
Vought, a chief architect of the conservative Project 2025 policy book, is reshaping the size and scope of federal government in ways similar to those envisioned in the blueprint. It is exactly what certain lawmakers, particularly Democrats, feared if Congress failed to fund the government.
Trump’s priorities — supporting the military and pursuing his mass deportation agenda — have been kept largely uninterrupted, despite the closures. But employees in health, education, the sciences and other federal departments are among those being laid off. As many as 750,000 workers are being furloughed.
“Donald Trump and Russ Vought and all of their cronies are using this moment to terrorize these patriots,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., standing with federal workers Tuesday outside the White House budget office.
Van Hollen said it’s “a big fat lie” when Trump and his budget director say that the shutdown is making them fire federal workers. “It is also illegal and we will see them in court,” Van Hollen said.
Shutdown grinds into a third week
Now on its 14th day, the federal closure is quickly becoming among the longest government shutdowns. Congress failed to meet the Oct. 1 deadline to pass the annual appropriations bills needed to fund the government as the Democrats demanded a deal to preserve expiring health care funds that provide subsidies for people to purchase insurance through the Affordable Care Act.
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday said he has nothing to negotiate with the Democrats until they vote to reopen the government.
The Republican speaker welcomed OMB’s latest actions to pay some workers and fire others.
“They have every right to move the funds around,” Johnson said at a press conference at the Capitol. If the Democrats want to challenge the Trump administration in court, Johnson said, “bring it.”
Typically, federal workers are furloughed during a lapse in funding, traditionally with back pay once government funding is restored. But Vought’s budget office announced late last week the reductions in forces had begun. More than 4,000 workers received layoff notices over the weekend.
Military pay, deportations on track
At the same time, Trump instructed the military to find money to ensure service personnel wouldn’t miss paychecks this week. The Pentagon said over the weekend it was able to tap $8 billion in unused research and development funds to make payroll.
On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said her agency was relying on Trump’s big tax cuts law for funding to make sure members of the Coast Guard, which falls under the department, are also paid.
“We at DHS worked out an innovative solution to make sure that didn’t happen,” Noem said in a statement. Thanks to “the One Big Beautiful Bill,” she said, “the brave men and women of the US Coast Guard will not miss a paycheck this week.”
In past shutdowns, the Office of Management and Budget has overseen agency plans during the lapse in federal fundings, ensuring which workers are essential and remain on the job. Vought, however, has taken his role further by speaking openly about his plans to go after the federal workforce.
As agencies started making their shutdown plans, Vought’s OMB encouraged department heads to consider reductions in force, an unheard of action. The budget office’s general counsel, Mark Paoletta suggested in a draft memo that the workforce may not be automatically eligible for back pay once government reopens.
‘Grim reaper’ replaces Elon Musk’s chainsaw
Trump posted an AI-generated video last week that portrayed Vought dressed with cloak and dagger, against the backdrop of the classic rock staple “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.”
“Every authoritarian leader has had his grim reaper. Russell Vought is Donald Trump’s,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer, the senior Democrat from Maryland.
Hoyer compared the budget chief to billionaire Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw earlier this year as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s slashing of the workforce “Vought swings his scythe through the federal government as thoughtlessly,” he said.
In many ways, the “Big, Beautiful Bill, Act” as the law is commonly called, gives the White House a vast new allotment of federal funding for its priority projects, separate from the regular appropriations process in Congress.
The package unleashed some $175 billion for the Pentagon, including for the Golden Dome missile shield and other priority projects, and another $175 million to Homeland Security largely for Trump’s mass deportation agenda. It also included extra funds for Vought’s work at OMB.
Trump’s big bill provides billions
Certain funds from the “big bill” are available to be used during the shutdown, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
“The Administration also could decide to use mandatory funding provided in the 2025 reconciliation act or other sources of mandatory funding to continue activities financed by those direct appropriations at various agencies,” according to CBO.
The CBO cited the Department of Defense, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of Management and Budget as among those that received eligible funds under the law..
Mascaro writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
In the last few weeks, USC has found itself caught in a political tug-of-war that could potentially change campus life permanently.
Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened on Oct. 2 to cut “billions” in state funding, including the popular Cal Grants that many students rely upon, if California schools bowed to pressure from the Trump administration.
Newsom’s messaging came in response to a White House directive that asked USC and eight other major national universities to commit to President Trump’s views on gender identity, admissions, diversity and free speech in exchange for priority access to federal dollars.
USC and other universities were asked to sign a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which commits them to adopt the White House’s conservative vision for America’s campuses.
The Oct. 1 letter also suggests colleges should align with Trump’s views on student discipline, college affordability and the importance of hard sciences over liberal arts.
The compact asks universities to accept the government’s definition of gender — excluding transgender people — and apply it to campus bathrooms, locker rooms and women’s sports teams.
But the White House letter to USC and other campuses is more stick than carrot.
The government says it will dole out new federal money and give preference to the universities that accept the deal over those that do not agree to the terms.
Signing on would give universities priority access to some federal grants, but White House officials say the government money would not be limited solely to those schools.
How Trump wants to cut back on international students
The federal compact would also severely restrict international student enrollment to 15% of a college’s entire undergraduate student body. Plus, no more than 5% could come from a single country.
That provision would hit USC hard, where 26% of the fall 2025 freshman class is international. Half of those students hail from either China or India.
Cutting into that rate would be a financial blow to USC, where full-fee tuition from international students is a major source of revenue. The university has already endured hundreds of layoffs this year amid budget troubles.
How Newsom is responding
Newsom wrote that “if any California university signs this radical agreement, they’ll lose billions in state funding — including Cal Grants — instantly.”
He added, “California will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and surrender academic freedom.”
Students become eligible for Cal Grants through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or California Dream Act Application. In 2024-25, $2.5 billion in Cal Grants were doled out to California students.
What is USC doing?
The school’s faculty members strongly denounced Trump’s offer at a meeting Monday, calling it “antithetical to principles of academic freedom.”
But interim President Beong-Soo Kim told the roughly 500 attendees that the university “has not made any kind of final decision.”
Kaleem, one of the Times reporters on this story, noted that universities throughout Southern California, including USC, UCLA and others in the UC or Cal State systems, find themselves under siege from the White House, whether they were offered Trump’s proposal or not.
“Grants for funding and research are being held up because of investigations into antisemitism or diversity or other issues,” he said. “There are very few universities untouched by the push from Trump on higher education.”
Kaleem spoke with several politically active students and professors at USC who see Newsom’s gesture as a blessing in disguise.
“They felt the governor’s threat to take away money actually gives the USC campus cover to resist Trump more forcefully,” Kaleem said.
Now USC administrators could defy the White House under the guise of trying to avoid losing funding from the state, according to those who spoke with Kaleem.
“They could say they can’t be blamed because they’re being forced to resist Trump,” he said. “It’s an interesting potential strategy.”
Part of the debate over the ongoing federal government shutdown focuses on funding for the treatment of undocumented immigrants at hospital emergency rooms.
(Ashley Landis / Associated Press)
Trump claims Democrats want to use federal funds to give undocumented residents healthcare. That’s misleading
President Trump claimed recently that Democrats “want to have illegal aliens come into our country and get massive healthcare at the cost to everybody else.”
Democrats called Trump’s assertion an absolute lie, accusing Republicans of wanting to slash federal healthcare benefits to Americans in need to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy.
Beutner launches bid for L.A. mayor, vowing to fight ‘injustices’ under Trump
Former L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner kicked off his campaign for mayor on Monday with a video message that hits not just Mayor Karen Bass but also President Trump and his immigration crackdown.
Beutner vowed to counter Trump’s “assault on our values,” while also criticizing City Hall over homelessness, housing costs and rising city fees.
Three more L.A. County deaths tied to synthetic kratom
The deaths have been linked to kratom, a compound that is being synthetically reproduced and sold over the counter as a cure-all for a host of ailments, the county Department of Public Health announced Friday.
The compound was found to be a contributing cause of death in three residents who were between the ages of 18 and 40, according to the county health department.
That brings the total number of recent overdose deaths related to kratom in L.A. County to six.
What else is going on
Commentary and opinions
This morning’s must read
Other must reads
For your downtime
The Griselda’s Revenge cocktail from the Black Lagoon pop-up bar.
(Black Lagoon)
Going out
Staying in
A question for you: What frustrates you the most about parking in L.A.?
Karen writes: “My frustration is that the city started making people pay to park along the road up to the Griffith Observatory. That was the one free and delightful place to get both some sight-seeing and some good walking in after the hunt for a spot. It felt very unfair and opportunistic of the city to limit access to city parks by charging that fee.”
Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.
And finally … your photo of the day
Theatergoers take their seats to see “Les Miserables” on Oct. 8 in Los Angeles.
Have a great week, from the Essential California team
Jim Rainey, staff writer Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor Andrew J. Campa, reporter Hugo Martín, assistant editor Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Oct. 6 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate is expected to hold a vote on a stopgap funding bill Monday evening as the government enters the sixth day of a shutdown.
The upper chamber is scheduled to hold its first vote on reopening the government at 5:30 p.m. EDT, according to ABC News.
Lawmakers must reach a supermajority, or 60 votes, to pass a continuing resolution that would fund the government. The Senate’s 53 Republicans need the votes of seven Democrats to reach that supermajority.
At issue are subsidies for Affordable Care Act premiums set to expire in the new year. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said his party wouldn’t support the stopgap legislation unless Republicans provisions extending the ADA subsidies.
The Trump administration has said it’s against extending the ADA subsidies, falsely claiming undocumented immigrants are taking advantage of it. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for health insurance under the ADA, according to the federal healthcare.gov website.
Speaking Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation, Schumer said Republicans must negotiate with Democrats on the short-term funding bill.
“We ought to be talking about the real issue here, which is that we have a healthcare crisis in America caused by Republicans,” he said. “They’ve … barreled us towards a shutdown because they don’t want to deal with that crisis. Plain and simple.
Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, warned the president will “start taking sharp measures” Monday.
“You know, my friends over at the Council of Economic Advisors gave ma report at the end of the week that said that it costs the U.S. GDP about $15 billion a week for a shutdown, or about a 10th of a percent of GDP,” Hassett said on an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Monday.
“And so, if the shutdown continues for a long time, then there’s going to be a lot of things that don’t happen, and it will show up at the GDP number.”
The Trump administration this week escalated its efforts against renewable energy when it announced the cancellation of $7.56 billion in funding for projects in 16 states, including California.
The U.S. Department of Energy said the 223 canceled projects — all of which are in states that favored Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election — were terminated because they “did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.”
But while the cuts took aim at blue states, they will affect Trump’s base as well: The terminated projects span districts represented by 108 Democratic members of Congress and 28 Republicans. In California, that includes large swaths of the Central Valley and Inland Empire, which largely leaned toward Trump in 2024.
Russell Vought, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget and a top Trump administration official, said in a post on X that the canceled projects were using “Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda.”
The biggest cut was $1.2 billion for California’s ambitious project to develop clean hydrogen known as the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems, or ARCHES. It was awarded by the Biden administration as part of a competitive nationwide effort to develop hydrogen projects. The idea is that the hydrogen, which burns at a very high temperature, will be able to replace planet-warming fossil fuels in some industry and transportation uses.
The ARCHES project is a public-private partnership that would create at least 10 hydrogen production sites around the state, primarily in the Central Valley. It would also help transition two large gas-fired power plants — Scattergood in Los Angeles and the Lodi Energy Center in San Joaquin County — to 100% renewable hydrogen, and develop more than 60 hydrogen fueling stations in areas including Fresno, Riverside, Orange and San Joaquin counties.
In all, it would deliver an estimated 220,000 jobs, including 130,000 construction jobs and 90,000 permanent jobs, according to the state. California is pursuing hydrogen in addition to renewables such as offshore wind, solar power and geothermal energy to help diversify its supply, meet growing demand driven by artificial intelligence data centers, and reach its target of 100% carbon neutrality by 2045.
The Trump administration said terminating the clean energy projects will save taxpayers money.
One district with a project that’s been cut is the northern San Joaquin Valley, represented by Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove). McClintock said he strongly supports the Energy Department’s decision.
“$7.5 billion comes out to about $60 taken from the average earnings of every family in America,” McClintock said. “Call me old fashioned, but I think that companies should make their money by pleasing their customers and not by using government to take money that families have earned.”
The Times also reached out to Reps. Vince Fong (R-Bakersfield), Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale), Keven Kiley (R-Rocklin), Ken Calvert (R-Corona), Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills) and Jay Obernolte (R-Big Bear Lake), whose districts are touched by the ARCHES hub and other terminated projects.
A representative for Fong said his office was dealing with issues related to the U.S. government shutdown and so was unable to comment. None of the others responded.
Jesse Lee, senior advisor with the nonprofit group Climate Power, said the cancellations may not save taxpayers money, but cost them. The administration this year has canceled a $7 billion program to help low-income households install solar panels on their homes and halted the development of off-shore wind projects, among other efforts.
“Having these projects come to fruition is really the only chance we have at insulating people from skyrocketing utility bills year after year,” Lee said — particularly in the face of energy-thirsty AI. “The only way to have a prayer of meeting that demand is through these kinds of clean energy projects.”
Lee believes the actions could come back to haunt the party in the midterm elections. Since Trump took office in January, at least 142 clean energy projects have been canceled affecting what his group estimates is at least 80,500 jobs — not including the latest round of cuts announced this week. About 47% of those jobs were in congressional districts represented by Republicans, according to Clean Power’s energy project tracker.
Democratic officials in California said the Energy Department’s latest cuts amount to political retaliation. They were announced on the first day of the shutdown, which the administration blames on Democrats.
“The cancellation of ARCHES is vindictive, shortsighted, and proof that this Administration is not serious about American energy dominance,” California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla wrote in a joint letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright dated Thursday, in which they urged him to restore its funding.
“The cancellation of this award threatens the future promise of hydrogen energy, leaving us behind the rest of the world,” the senators said. “The ARCHES hub is a key strategic investment into American energy dominance, energy technology prominence, manufacturing job growth, and lowering energy costs for American families.”
The cuts come as the Trump administrations eases the path for production of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal, including this week’s announcement that it will open 13 million acres of federal lands for coal mining and provide $625 million to recommission or modernize coal-fired power plants. Coal has become increasingly uncompetitive with either natural gas or solar power.
Large-scale renewable energy and carbon capture projects in red states such as Wyoming, Ohio, Texas, Louisiana and North Dakota that received funding from the Energy Department were not subject to the cuts.
Other canceled awards in California include $630 million to the California Energy Commission for grid resilience upgrades; $500 million to the National Cement Company of California for a carbon-neutral cement production facility; $87 million to Redwood Coast Energy Authority for grid updates benefiting tribal communities; $50 million to Southern California Edison for a battery energy storage project; and $18 million to the Imperial Irrigation District to modernize its electrical grid, bolster resiliency against power outages and catalyze renewable energy usage.
“We are disappointed as we did a great deal of work to win the $18.3 million matching grant from the DOE to help modernize our electrical grid and enhance reliability for our customers,” said Robert Schettler, a spokesman for the Imperial Irrigation District located in southeastern California. “Despite this setback, we will reevaluate the scope as the project is a necessity.”
Officials with ARCHES called the administration’s decision a “short-sighted move that abandons America’s opportunity to lead the global clean energy transition.” They said they hope to keep the project moving forward even without the federal grant; ARCHES has also secured more than $10 billion in private funding agreements.
“Despite the loss of federal funding, we will press forward with our state, private, and international partners to build the infrastructure, train the workforce, and establish the supply chains that will power a modern, resilient energy economy,” ARCHES board chair Theresa Maldonado said in a statement.
A US judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) of providing funding that enabled Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border raid on Israel, The New York Times reported, Anadolu reports.
Judge Analisa Torres of the Federal District Court in Manhattan ruled that the UN agency is protected by immunity as part of the United Nations, the Times said on Thursday.
According to the report, the suit, filed on behalf of roughly 100 Israeli plaintiffs, including survivors of the attack, the estates of those killed, and at least one hostage, alleged that the UNRWA allowed Palestinian resistance group Hamas to divert funds for its own use.
The Trump administration argued in April that the UN agency and certain officials named in the suit, including Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, should not enjoy immunity. In a letter to the court, the Justice Department claimed the agency and its officers “must answer these allegations in American courts.”
Last year, the previous Joe Biden administration maintained in court papers that the agency is immune from lawsuits. The judge’s ruling sided with that view.
The plaintiffs claimed UNRWA paid local employees in cash and required them to convert it through Hamas-affiliated money changers, generating millions of dollars in additional revenue for the group.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday, nor did a spokeswoman for the agency, the report said.
The agency has faced repeated allegations by Israel of links between its staff and “militant groups,” claims it has consistently denied, citing a lack of evidence.
Citing the allegations, though they were not substantiated, some Western politicians and countries called for defunding the UNRWA, despite the vital work it has done for decades for Palestinian refugees.
For the claims, Israel provided a list of 100 alleged “militants” but gave no substantiation despite the UNRWA’s repeated requests.
“Agency has requested on numerous occasions for cooperation from the Government of Israel by providing information and evidence to substantiate the accusations made against UNRWA,” the agency said in a document responding to Israel’s allegations.
“To date, UNRWA has not received any response, nor has the Government of Israel shared any evidence.”
Last year, at the request of the UN secretary-general, an independent investigation was launched by the highest investigative body in the United Nations, the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS).
In the document, titled “Facts Versus Claims,” the UNRWA said the OIOS probe found no evidence in one case and insufficient evidence in nine others.
In the remaining nine cases, “the evidence obtained by OIOS – if authenticated and corroborated – might indicate that the staff members may have been involved, and their employment was terminated in the interest of UNRWA,” the document said.
Oct. 3 (UPI) — The President Donald Trump administration is withholding billions of dollars in funding from Chicago and New York transportation infrastructure funding.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought announced on X that $2.1 billion was being frozen that had been allocated to Chicago for its Red and Purple (train lines) Modernization Project “to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation Friday morning said, “This week, USDOT issued an interim final rule barring race- and sex-based contracting requirements from federal grants.”
“To continue implementation of this rule, USDOT today sent letters to the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) to inform them that two projects – the CTA Red Line Extension and the CTA Red and Purple Modernization Program – are also under administrative review to determine whether any unconstitutional practices are occurring,” the DOT said. “The remaining federal funding for both projects total $2.1 billion.”
Vought also announced Wednesday that the administration is freezing about $18 billion for infrastructure in New York City. The Hudson Tunnel Project is the main project suffering a funding freeze. The project helps connect New Jersey and New York, and the Second Avenue subway.
Later, the administration announced it was canceling $7.5 billion in funding for energy projects in states that voted for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
On Thursday, Trump said on Truth Social that he would meet with Vought to determine which “Democrat agencies” to cut.
“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 wrote.
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.”
The congressional setback arrives as Milei’s political party faces slumping popularity headed into a midterm election.
Published On 2 Oct 20252 Oct 2025
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Argentina’s struggling President Javier Milei has suffered a new setback as Congress overturned his vetoes of laws increasing funding for public universities and for paediatric care.
On Thursday, senators invalidated both vetoes, which had already been rejected by the Chamber of Deputies, bringing to three the number of laws upheld by Congress despite vehement opposition from the budget-slashing Milei.
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Milei, who has implemented deep austerity policies to reduce the size of government, had said the new spending would jeopardise Argentina’s fiscal balance.
The Senate’s vote comes as the United States-backed Milei struggles to end a run on the national currency, the Argentinian peso, in the run-up to the crucial October 26 midterm elections.
The 54-year-old right-winger, in power since December 2023, has been on the ropes since his party’s trouncing by the centre-left in Buenos Aires provincial polls last month.
Those elections, seen as a bellwether ahead of the midterms, shredded his aura of political invincibility and sent markets into a tailspin.
“There’s a sensation of disenchantment and anger with the impact of the cutbacks,” said Sebastian Halperin, a political consultant in Buenos Aires.
He added that Milei had failed to build alliances with governors who influence how their province’s legislators vote in Congress.
Last week, the US government announced it was in talks with Argentina on a $20bn swap line aimed at shoring up the peso.
US President Donald Trump sought to buoy his close ally at talks in New York last week, saying: “He’s doing a fantastic job.”
The two are expected to meet in October as Milei seeks to secure a credit swap line from the US.
Analysts say, however, the president still needs a strong result in the midterms to avoid compromising the progress he has made in steadying Argentina’s economy.
After rallying briefly, the peso slumped again this week over market uncertainty about the amount and extent of the US financial help on offer.
A top Trump administration official on Wednesday said the U.S. Department of Energy will cut billions of dollars in funding for energy projects in Democratic states.
“Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being canceled,” said Russell Vought, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, in a post on X.
“The projects are in the following states: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA,” Vought said.
All 16 states listed did not vote for Trump in the 2024 election.
Vought said more information about the cuts would come from the U.S. Department of Energy, which also announced this week that it will open 13 million acres of federal lands for coal mining and provide $625 million to recommission or modernize coal-fired power plants.
In a news release, the department confirmed that it had terminated more than 300 financial awards associated with 223 projects, amounting to $7.56 billion. The department did not specify the project names or locations, but said the awards had been issued by multiple offices, including the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations and the Office Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
According to the DOE, the projects were canceled following a review that found they did not “adequately advance the nation’s energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.” About a quarter of the awards had been issued by the Biden administration between election day in November and Trump’s inauguration in January, the agency said.
California Senator Adam Schiff said Vought’s post amounts to political retaliation.
“Our democracy is badly broken when a president can illegally suspend projects for Blue states in order to punish his political enemies,” Schiff wrote on X. “They continue to break the law, and expect us to go along. Hell no.”
Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro described the move as “purely vindictive” and said it will result in higher energy prices across the country.
“Terminating critical energy projects in Democratic states weaponizes policy for political revenge and will only drive energy bills higher, increase unemployment, and eliminate jobs,” DeLauro said in a statement. “It is reckless and betrays both common sense and public trust.”
California and other states on Vought’s list have been working to advance clean energy projects such as solar power and offshore wind. Republican states working on similar efforts — such as Texas, the largest producer of wind energy in the U.S. — were not among Vought’s list of cuts, despite also receiving funding from the Department of Energy.
Vought, one of the authors of the conservative platform document Project 2025, has been actively involved in reshaping the federal government during the second Trump administration. Vought on Wednesday also announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation was freezing $18 million for two infrastructure projects in New York City “to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion] principles.” The projects include a train tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey and a subway line running along Second Avenue in New York City.
The recipients of the canceled awards will have 30 days to appeal the termination decisions, according to the DOE, which said some of the projects included in the announcement have already begun that process.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Wednesday that it was putting a hold on roughly $18 billion to fund a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey and the city’s expanded Second Avenue subway project because of the government shutdown.
The White House budget director, Russ Vought, said on a post on X that the step was taken due to the Republican administration’s belief that the money was “based on unconstitutional DEI principles,” a reference to diversity, equity and inclusion.
But an administration official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and insisted on anonymity to discuss the hold, said the government shutdown that started at midnight meant that the Transportation Department employees responsible for reimbursing workers on the projects had been furloughed, so the money was being withheld.
The suspension of funds is likely meant to target Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer of New York, whom the White House is blaming for the shutdown.
In a 2023 interview with the Associated Press, Schumer said he and then-President Biden were both “giddy” over the rail tunnel project, adding that it was all they talked about in the presidential limousine as they rode to the site.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, reacting to the news at a news conference about the federal government shutdown, told reporters, “The bad news just keeps coming” and that “they’re trying to make culture wars be the reason why.”
“That’s what a partnership with Washington looks like as we’re standing here. We’ve done our part, we’re ready to build, it’s underway,” she said. “And now we realize that they’ve decided to put their own interpretation of proper culture ahead of our needs, the needs of a nation.”
The Hudson River rail tunnel is a long-delayed project whose path toward construction has been full of political and funding switchbacks. It’s intended to ease the strain on a 110-year-old tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey. Hundreds of Amtrak and commuter trains carry hundreds of thousands of passengers per day through the tunnel, and delays can ripple up and down the East Coast between Boston and Washington
The Second Avenue subway was first envisioned in the 1920s. The subway line along Manhattan’s Second Avenue was an on-again, off-again grail until the first section opened on Jan. 1, 2017. The state-controlled Metropolitan Transportation Authority is working toward starting construction on the line’s second phase of the line, which is to extend into East Harlem.
Boak writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, N.Y., and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.
Sept. 30 (UPI) — A lot of federal government employees might be laid off after the Senate votes on a continuing resolution to keep the government open while working on a new budget.
The Senate has scheduled a 5 p.m. EDT vote on the continuing resolution that would fund the government for another month while working on a Fiscal Year 2026 budget.
Democrats and Republicans each have introduced resolutions to keep the government open, but neither is expected to pass as the 2025 fiscal year ends at the end of the day on Tuesday, according to The Hill.
When asked how many federal government workers might be laid off, President Donald Trump told reporters: “We may do a lot, and that’s only because of the Democrats.”
“They want to be able to take care of people who come into our country illegally, and no system can handle that,” Trump said.
“They want to give them full health care benefits, [and] they want to open the wall again,” the president added. “They don’t change.”
Senate Democrats are proposing to keep the government open through Oct. 31 with a continuing resolution that would extend Affordable Care Act subsidies for health insurance premiums that are scheduled to expire at the end of the year.
They also want to restore $1 trillion in Medicaid reductions that the president said would provide health care for non-citizens, including those who illegally entered the United States.
Schumer said any short-term funding deal must include extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits and that he and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., refuse to negotiate an extension separately from a continuing resolution that would keep the government open.
“When they say later, they mean never,” Schumer said of the GOP’s offer to negotiate an extension. “Now is the time we can get it done.”
Senate Republicans favor a “clean” resolution that was approved in the House of Representatives and would keep the government open another seven weeks while Congress continues working on a fiscal year 2026 budget bill.
Either resolution would require 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and pass in the Senate.
The House already approved the GOP-proposed continuing resolution that only received 47 votes for versus 45 against in the Senate on Sept. 19.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Thune, R-S.D., intends to hold another vote on the GOP resolution as it was presented on Sept. 19. A vote also is expected on the Democrats’ proposal.
