funding

Northwestern University has agreed to pay $75 million to the U.S. government in a deal with the Trump administration to end a series of investigations and restore hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research funding.

President Trump’s administration had cut off $790 million in grants in a standoff that contributed to university layoffs and the resignation in September of Northwestern President Michael Schill. The administration said the school had not done enough to fight antisemitism.

Under the agreement announced Friday night, Northwestern will make the payment to the U.S. Treasury over the next three years. Among other commitments it also requires the university to revoke the so-called Deering Meadow agreement, which it signed in April 2024 in exchange for pro-Palestinian protesters ending their tent encampment on campus.

During negotiations with the Trump administration, interim university President Henry Bienen said Northwestern refused to cede control over hiring, admissions or its curriculum. “I would not have signed this agreement without provisions ensuring that is the case,” he said.

The agreement also calls for Northwestern to continue compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws, develop training materials to “socialize international students” with the norms of a campus dedicated to open debate, and uphold a commitment to Title IX by “providing safe and fair opportunities for women, including single-sex housing for any woman, defined on the basis of sex, who requests such accommodations and all-female sports, locker rooms, and showering facilities.”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the deal cements policy changes that will protect people on campus from harassment and discrimination.

“The reforms reflect bold leadership at Northwestern and they are a road map for institutional leaders around the country that will help rebuild public trust in our colleges and universities,” McMahon said.

Trump has leveraged government control of federal research money to push for ideological changes at elite colleges he claims are overrun by “woke” ideology.

The fine agreed to by Northwestern is the second-largest behind Columbia, which agreed in July to pay the government $200 million to resolve a series of investigations and restore its funding. Brown and Cornell also reached agreements with the government to restore funding after antisemitism investigations.

Harvard, the administration’s primary target, remains in negotiations with the federal government over its demands for changes to campus policies and governance. The Ivy League school sued over the administration’s cuts to its grant money and won a court victory in September when a federal judge ordered the government to restore federal funding, saying the Trump administration “used antisemitism as a smokescreen.”

This fall, the White House tried a different approach on higher education, offering preferential treatment for federal funds to several institutions in exchange for adopting policies in line with Trump’s agenda. The administration received a wave of initial rejections from some universities’ leadership, including USC’s, citing concerns that Trump’s higher education compact would suffocate academic freedom.

Nov. 25 (UPI) — A coalition of 19 attorneys general and two state governors sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over changes to funding allocations and conditions at the Department of Housing and Urban Development that they say threaten thousands of formerly homeless people and families with eviction.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island, alleges new restrictions and funding cuts announced by HUD earlier this month to its Continuum of Care program threaten housing stability and disadvantage services for people experiencing homelessness, including those with mental disabilities and substance use disorders.

The Democratic-led states allege that the changes have thrown CoC into “chaos” and that HUD was holding congressionally approved funds and vulnerable people hostage.

“Communities across the country depend on Continuum of Care funds to provide housing and other resources to our most vulnerable neighbors,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.

“These funds help keep tens of thousands of people from sleeping on the streets every night. I will not allow this administration to cut off these funds and put vital housing and support services at risk.”

Founded by Congress in 1987, the CoC program provides states, local governments and nonprofits with funds to provide housing and support services to those experiencing homelessness.

Earlier this month, HUD Secretary Scott Turner criticized the CoC for prioritizing funds for organizations with Housing First policies, which provide housing to individuals without preconditions, such as sobriety or minimum income.

Turner said the policy ran counter to the department’s objective of selecting the most effective and innovative programs, and it would be instituting changes, including requiring that 70% of projects to be selected through competition.

In a statement, HUD said 90% of CoC awards went to support projects with “failed” Housing First ideologies, which the department said “encourages dependence on endless government handouts while neglecting to address the root causes of homelessness, including illicit drugs and mental health.”

Changes to be implemented are to increase competition for grants, advance public safety, focus on self-sufficiency, encourage personal accountability and crack down on gender ideology, use of taxpayer dollars on undocumented migrants and diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

“Our philosophy for addressing the homelessness crisis will now define success not by dollars spent or housing units filled, but by how many people achieve long-term self-sufficiency and recovery,” Turner said.

In their lawsuit, the states allege that the changes mean only 30% of CoC funds may be used for permanent housing, a drop from roughly 90%.

HUD has also revised the scoring system used to grant awards. According to the lawsuit, the previous system encouraged CoCs to address needs of minority groups, such as the LGBTQ+ community, and the new changes arbitrarily disadvantage programs that provide supportive services for mental disabilities and substance use disorder

The policies also bar funding for applicants that acknowledge the existence of transgender and gender-diverse people and penalize homeless-service providers that pursue approaches to homelessness that do not align with the Trump administration.

In total, the changes will threaten housing stability and disadvantage services for people with mental disabilities and substance use disorder, the lawsuit states.

“This program has proven to be effective at getting Americans off the streets, yet the Trump administration is now attempting to illegally slash its funding,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. “Those caring for our unhoused neighbors need the federal government’s continued support. Absent judicial intervention, the Trump administration’s actions would only worsen the homelessness crisis.”

UNAIDS says millions across the world lost access to treatment and preventive care due to financial shortfalls.

The United Nations agency for combating AIDS has announced that global funding disruptions for treatment and prevention programmes are leaving millions of people without access to care.

In a report released on Tuesday, UNAIDS said the global response to the disease “immediately entered crisis mode” after the United States halted funding when President Donald Trump took office in January.

The Trump administration had suspended all new foreign aid funds on January 25, except for military assistance to Israel and Egypt.

Some of the HIV funding was restored in the second half of the year, but in the wake of Trump’s decision to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID), certain programmes have not resumed.

UNAIDS said the cuts were compounded by “intensifying economic and financial pressures on many low and middle-income countries”.

The funding shortfalls, it added, are having “having profound, lasting effects” on the lives of people across the world.

“People living with HIV have died due to service disruptions, millions of people at high risk of acquiring HIV have lost access to the most effective prevention tools available, over 2 million adolescent girls and young women have been deprived of essential health services, and community-led organizations have been devastated, with many being forced to close their doors,” the report read.

Due to the funding cuts, the number of people using preventive HIV medication, known as PrEP, fell by 64 percent in Burundi, 38 percent in Uganda and 21 percent in Vietnam. Condom distribution in Nigeria dropped by 55 percent.

“The funding crisis has exposed the fragility of the progress we fought so hard to achieve,” said Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAIDS.

“Behind every data point in this report are people … babies missed for HIV screening, young women cut off from prevention support, and communities suddenly left without services and care. We cannot abandon them.”

Despite the financial crisis, UNAIDS said there were some positive trends emerging, including national and regional initiatives to bolster health programmes and treat the disease.

“Communities are rallying to support each other and the AIDS response. Although the most impacted countries are also some of the most indebted, limiting their ability to invest in HIV, governments have taken swift action to increase domestic funding where they can,” the report read.

“As a result, some countries have maintained or even increased the number of people receiving HIV treatment.”

The report recommends restructuring the international debt of lower-income countries and pausing their payments until 2030 to allow them to direct more resources to HIV care and prevention.

It also called for “inspiring innovation with prizes instead of patents, and treating health innovations as global public goods in times of pandemics”.

On top of dwindling funds, the report highlighted another challenge in the fight against AIDS: “a growing human rights crisis”.

“In 2025, for the first time since UNAIDS began monitoring punitive laws in 2008, the number of countries criminalizing same-sex sexual activity and gender expression increased,” it said.

“Globally, anti-gender and anti-rights movements are growing in influence and geographic reach, jeopardizing gains made to date on the rights of women and girls, people living with HIV and LGBTIQ+ people.”

WASHINGTON — House Republican Whip Newt Gingrich, in line to become the next Speaker of the House, dismissed as a “nonsense issue” allegations that his political action committee improperly developed and financed a college course he taught last year.

Gingrich confirmed Saturday that the House Ethics Committee is examining questions about whether the course was educational or constituted political activity aimed at helping GOP candidates. The panel is to hold a hearing on the issue Nov. 29.

“This is the most bizarre thing I’ve been involved in in my career,” Gingrich said on CNN’s “Evans & Novak.” But he said his political action committee, GOPAC, did offer “ideas” on the initial financing of the course.

“In order to make the course available on television and . . . on video takes a fairly large amount of financing,” Gingrich said.

“Now, GOPAC provided some initial ideas on who might be interested in financing the course; that’s all they did.”

Gingrich first offered the course at Kennesaw College, a publicly funded school in his Georgia congressional district.

But he said the state Board of Regents acted to “drive me out” by ruling that elected officials were ineligible to teach at state-funded institutions.

Donors who contributed funds for the course were able to take tax deductions because the money went to the college’s educational foundation, which is forbidden to engage in partisan political activity.

Gingrich has said previously that the aim of the course was to offer intellectual underpinnings for a conservative drive to demolish Great Society social welfare programs and that “liberal” ideas opposed to that course were not welcome.

He asserted that while no nonprofit foundation can contribute to GOPAC or any other political action committee, “there’s nothing at all illegal or inappropriate about any political organization” helping such a foundation.

The original allegations were filed with the ethics committee by Democrat Ben Jones, whom Gingrich defeated in last Tuesday’s election.

“The fact is that every lawyer we’ve talked to says it is a nonsense issue,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich led the Republican drive that led to the resignation in 1989 of then-House Speaker Jim Wright on ethics charges, and he asserted that has inspired politically motivated attacks against him ever since.

Gingrich’s 10-week course, entitled “Renewing American Civilization,” was made available to Republican groups and a few other college campuses by satellite relay. Gingrich now teaches it at Reinhardt College, a private school in Waleska, Ga.

In his complaint, Jones said the Gingrich political action committee raised more than $300,000 to finance and distribute the course, which he said violates House rules.

Twenty-six corporations and individual citizens gave more than $300,000 to pay for the project, with large donors given a chance to help develop the content of the course.

Jones asserted that most of the contributors were simply trying to find a way to further help Gingrich financially.

“The fact they found a way to make their contribution tax-deductible only sweetened the pot,” he said.

WASHINGTON — National Public Radio will receive approximately $36 million in grant money to operate the nation’s public radio interconnection system under the terms of a court settlement with the federal government’s steward of funding for public broadcasting stations.

The settlement, announced Monday, partially resolves a legal dispute in which NPR accused the Corporation for Public Broadcasting of bowing to pressure from President Trump to cut off its funding.

On March 25, Trump said at a news conference that he would “love to” defund NPR and PBS because he believes they are biased in favor of Democrats.

NPR accused the CPB of violating its 1st Amendment free speech rights when it moved to cut off its access to grant money appropriated by Congress. NPR also claims Trump, a Republican, wants to punish it for the content of its journalism.

On April 2, the CPB’s board initially approved a three-year, roughly $36-million extension of a grant for NPR to operate the “interconnection” satellite system for public radio. NPR has been operating and managing the Public Radio Satellite System since 1985.

But corporation officials reversed course and announced that the federal funds would go to an entity called Public Media Infrastructure. NPR claimed the CPB was under mounting pressure from the Trump administration when the agency redirected the money to PMI, a media coalition that didn’t exist and wasn’t statutorily authorized to receive the funds.

CPB attorneys denied that the agency retaliated against NPR to appease Trump. They had argued that NPR’s claims are factually and legally meritless.

On May 1, Trump issued an executive order that called for federal agencies to stop funding for NPR and PBS. The settlement doesn’t end a lawsuit in which NPR seeks to block any implementation or enforcement of Trump’s executive order. U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss is scheduled to preside over another hearing for the case on Dec. 4.

The settlement says NPR and CPB agree that the executive order is unconstitutional and that CPB won’t enforce it unless a court orders it to do so.

NPR, meanwhile, agreed to drop its request for a court order blocking CPB from disbursing funds to PMI under a separate grant agreement.

Katherine Maher, NPR’s president and CEO, said the settlement is “a victory for editorial independence and a step toward upholding the 1st Amendment rights of NPR and the public media system.”

Patricia Harrison, the corporation’s CEO, said CPB is pleased that the litigation is over “and that our investment in the future through PMI marks an exciting new era for public media.”

On Aug. 1, CPB announced it would take steps toward closing itself down after being defunded by Congress.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

The longest U.S. government shutdown in history is over, but the fallout will continue to hit two groups particularly hard for months to come: federally funded defense lawyers and the people they represent.

Thousands of court-appointed lawyers, known as Criminal Justice Act panel attorneys, along with paralegals, investigators, expert witnesses and interpreters, haven’t been paid since June after federal funding for the Defender Services program fell $130 million short of what the judiciary requested and ran out July 3. They had been told they would receive deferred payment once Congress passed a new budget, but as the government shutdown dragged on, many couldn’t move forward with trials or take on new clients.

Nationally, CJA lawyers handle about 40% of cases in which the defendant cannot afford an attorney. As many cases have ground to a halt, defendants’ lives have been put on hold as they wait for their day in court. Meanwhile, the federal government has continued to arrest and charge people.

“The system’s about to break,” Michael Chernis, a CJA panel attorney in Southern California, said during the shutdown. He hasn’t taken new cases since August and had to take out a loan to make payroll for his law firm.

Unpaid defense team members in several states said they had to dip into their retirement savings or turn to gig work, such as driving for Uber, to support their families.

Panel attorneys should begin receiving payment as early as next week. Judge Robert Conrad, the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, said in a Thursday memo that the resolution Congress passed to fund the government through Jan. 30 provided an extra $114 million for the Defender Services program “to address the backlog of panel attorney payments.”

But the crisis isn’t over. Conrad said a spending bill pending for the 2026 fiscal year is still $196 million short and funding is likely to run out to pay CJA panel attorneys next June.

The problem is particularly severe in the Central District of California, the largest and one of the most complex federal trial courts in the United States. Out of the approximately 100 such lawyers for the district, about 80 have stopped taking on new cases.

Chernis has a client who lives in Sacramento, but neither Chernis nor a court-appointed investigator have been able to cover the cost of travel to meet with him to discuss the case. The expert they need for the trial will also not agree to travel to Los Angeles to work on the case without payment, Chernis said.

In New Mexico, one judge halted a death penalty case, which is costly and labor-intensive to prepare, and at least 40 lawyers have resolved not to take on new cases even after the shutdown ended if the overall funding shortfall is not resolved.

California’s Central District Chief Judge Dolly Gee wrote in an Oct. 30 letter to Sen. Adam Schiff that the situation had become “dire.”

“These attorneys have sought delays in cases when they cannot find investigators and experts who are willing to work without pay, which has added to the court’s backlog of cases, and left defendants languishing in already overcrowded local prison,” Gee said. “Without additional funding, we will soon be unable to appoint counsel for all defendants who are constitutionally entitled to representation.”

She said judges may have to face the prospect of having to dismiss cases for defendants who can’t retain a lawyer.

Just hours before the government shutdown ended, Judge John A. Mendez in the Eastern District of California did, tossing out a criminal case against a man indicted on a charge of distribution of methamphetamine.

“The right to effective assistance of counsel is a bedrock principle of this country and is indisputably necessary for the operation of a fair criminal justice system,” Mendez wrote.

Everyone in the United States has the right to due process — including the right to legal counsel and a fair and speedy trial, guaranteed by the 5th and 6th Amendments.

Critics of the Trump administration have argued that it is chipping away at that right. Immigrant advocacy groups have made the allegation in multiple lawsuits. Most notably, they cite the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran-born man who was living with his family in Maryland when he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador and imprisoned at a notorious prison. He has since returned to the U.S., but he continues to face the threat of deportation as his case moves through the courts.

President Trump has been circumspect about his duties to uphold due process rights laid out in the Constitution, saying in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” in May that he does not know whether U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike deserve that guarantee.

The funding upheaval has delayed Christian Cerna-Camacho’s trial by at least three months. His lawyer said in court filings that one investigator, who has spent hours poring over body-camera recordings, news reports and social media content, was unable to do more work until he is paid.

Cerna-Camacho was arrested in June and is accused of punching a federal officer during a June 7 protest in Paramount against Trump’s immigration raids. He is out on bond but cannot find a construction job while he wears an ankle monitor because it poses a safety risk at the site, his attorney Scott Tenley wrote in a recent court filing.

David Kaloynides, a CJA panel attorney in Los Angeles, couldn’t even communicate with some of his clients during the shutdown because they speak only Spanish, and interpreters were not being paid. His caseload is full to the point where he’s scheduling trials in 2027, while many clients wait in jail, he said.

“We don’t do this appointed work because of the money; we do it because we’re dedicated,” Kaloynides said. “But we also can’t do it for free.”

Ding writes for the Associated Press.

SEATTLE — First-term Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell conceded his reelection fight to progressive activist Katie Wilson on Thursday, handing another victory to leftist Democrats around the country frustrated with unaffordability, homelessness, public safety and the actions of President Trump’s administration.

Harrell, a centrist Democrat who previously served three terms on the City Council, led in early results. But Washington conducts all-mail elections, with ballots postmarked by Election Day. Later-arriving votes, which historically trend more liberal, broke heavily in Wilson’s favor, adding to a progressive shift to the left nationally.

In a concession speech at City Hall on Thursday afternoon, Harrell said he had congratulated Wilson in a “delightful” call.

“I feel very good about the future of this country and this city still,” he said.

Wilson, 43, is a democratic socialist who has never held elected office. She told a news conference later Thursday that it was hard for her to believe she had been elected mayor, considering that at the beginning of this year she had no intention of running, and she acknowledged concerns about her lack of experience: “No one saw this coming.”

But she also spoke to the resonance of her volunteer-driven campaign among voters concerned about affordability and public safety in a city where the cost of living has soared as Amazon and other tech companies proliferated. Universal child care, better mass transit, better public safety and stable, affordable housing are among her priorities, and she said she would take office with a strong mandate to pursue them, though she acknowledged the city also faces a significant budget shortfall.

Wilson called herself a coalition builder and community organizer, and said she would also work with those who questioned her qualifications to lead a city with more than 13,000 employees and a budget of nearly $9 billion: “This is your city too.”

“When I say this is your city, that means you have a right to be here and to live a dignified life — whatever your background, whatever your income,” Wilson said. “But it also means that we all have a collective responsibility for this city and for each other. … We cannot tackle the major challenges facing our city unless we do it together.”

She will be working with a relatively new City Council: Only two of the seven council members have served more than one term.

Harrell was elected mayor in 2021 following the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic and racial justice protests over George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police. With crime falling, more police being hired, less visible drug use and many homeless encampments removed from city parks, the business-backed Harrell once seemed likely to cruise to reelection.

But Trump’s return to office — and his efforts to send in federal agents or cut funding for blue cities — helped reawaken Seattle’s progressive voters. The lesser-known Wilson, a democratic socialist, ran a campaign that echoed some of the themes of progressive mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in New York. She trounced Harrell by nearly 10 percentage points in the August primary and quickly became favored to win the mayor’s office.

Wilson studied at an Oxford University college in England but did not graduate. She founded the small nonprofit Transit Riders Union in 2011 and has led campaigns for better public transportation, higher minimum wages, stronger renter protections and more affordable housing. She herself is a renter, living in a one-bedroom apartment in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, and says that has shaped her understanding of Seattle’s affordability crisis.

Wilson criticized Harrell as doing too little to provide more shelter and said his encampment sweeps have been cosmetic, merely pushing unhoused people around the city. Wilson also painted him as a City Hall fixture who bore responsibility for the status quo.

Harrell, 67, played on the Rose Bowl champion University of Washington football team in 1978 before going to law school. His father, who was Black, came to Seattle from the segregated Jim Crow South, and his mother, a Japanese American, was incarcerated at an internment camp in Minidoka, Idaho, during World War II after officials seized her family’s Seattle flower shop — experiences that fostered his understanding of the importance of civil rights and inclusivity.

Both candidates touted plans for affordable housing, combating crime and attempting to Trump-proof the city, which receives about $150 million a year in federal funding. Both want to protect Seattle’s sanctuary city status.

Wilson has proposed a city-level capital gains tax to help offset federal funding the city might lose and to pay for housing. Harrell says that idea is ineffective because a city capital gains tax could easily be avoided by those who would be required to pay it.

Johnson writes for the Associated Press.

Nov. 12 (UPI) — President Donald Trump late Wednesday signed legislation to reopen the federal government, resuming programs and again paying millions of workers, blaming Democrats for the longest shutdown in history at 43 days.

The new stopgap bill will fund the government through Jan. 30, and provide a full year of funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and veterans programs. Furloughed employees are expected to return to report on Thursday.

The U.S. House, convening for the first time in two months, approved legislation sent two days earlier by the Senate. Most Democrats and Republicans have been on opposite sides on enhanced health insurance subsidies through the Affordable Care Act.

At 8:21 p.m., the House voted 222-209 to send the stopgap funding bill to the president. The outcome wasn’t strictly along party lines with six Democrats voting yes and two Republicans voting no. There were two not voting and two vacancies.

Two hours later, Trump appeared in the Oval Office with U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune — both Republicans — as well as other House members. Also, financial industry leaders, whom he dined with earlier at the White House, watched the signing.

“I just want to tell the American people, you should not forget this when we come up to midterms and other things,” Trump said about elections in 2026 for the House and Senate. “Don’t forget what they’ve done to our country.”

In the public ceremony, Trump blasted the Affordable Care Act as “Obama madness,” bragged about the record-high stock market and spoke about gas prices around $2.50 a gallon. He didn’t take any questions from reporters.

Trump wants Obamacare to be scrapped.

“We’ll work on something having to do with healthcare,” said Trump, who hasn’t been able to find a replacement since first being president in 2017. “We can do a lot better.”

He has proposed bypassing providers with direct payment to users, who then could purchase their own plans.

“I’m calling today for insurance companies not to be paid,” Trump said, “but for this massive amount of money to be given directly to the people.” Basic Medicare is administered by the government rather than companies.

The House had been out of session since Sept. 19, when it passed the first version of a continuing resolution to temporarily fund the government. The Senate held 14 votes on the same legislation, but failed to reach the 60-vote supermajority needed to pass it.

The House originally approved the spending bill on a majority vote, but the Senate needed 60 votes and approval was held up in finding enough Democrats to agree to legislation that doesn’t guarantee enhanced health insurance subsidies starting Jan. 1.

The GOP holds a 53-47 edge.

Trump again on Wednesday night called for an end to the filibuster, saying “if we had the filibuster terminated, this would never happen again.”

Most Republicans have opposed this “nuclear option,” because Democrats could use it when they are in power.

After the House Rules Committee advanced the Senate bill Tuesday night, the full chamber convened at 4:08 p.m., and began debate for one hour at 4:36 p.m. The bill advanced 213-209.

The GOP has a 219-214 advantage, with Democrat Adelita Grijalvi having been sworn in when the House convened. She was elected Sept. 23. There are two vacancies.

Government reopens

At least 670,000 federal employees furloughed will return to work and roughly 730,000 essential workers, including air traffic control workers, will be paid, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget furloughed workers will return on Thursday.

“Agencies should take all necessary steps to ensure that offices open in a prompt and orderly manner on November 13, 2025,” the memorandum released Wednesday night reads.

Essential workers had to work without pay, including air traffic control personnel. This resulted in several thousand flights being canceled.

Government programs also will resume, including 42 million people receiving monthly payments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. For the first time in history, November money wasn’t sent electronically.

“For 40 days, hardworking Americans have endured flight cancellations, missed paychecks and empty dinner tables – all because Democrats closed the government,” Johnson posted on X with a video before the vote.

“It was foolish, pointless, cruel and entirely avoidable. Republicans have been working every day to get the government reopened for the American people, and today we should finally be able to overcome the Democrats and accomplish our mission.”

Divided on insurance subsidies

The program, which became known as Obamacare, was approved in 2010 during Barack Obama’s presidency. A record 25 million were enrolled this year.

The credits were enhanced in 2021 by the American Rescue Plan Act during the pandemic and extended one year later through 2015. They increased the amount of financial assistance, expanded eligibility and capped the percentage of household income for the benchmark silver plan.

Eight senators who caucus with the Democrats voted Monday in favor of the new bill on Tuesday night, allowing the chamber to pass it with a vote of 60-40.

The Senate broke the impasse over the weekend after Republicans agreed to hold a separate vote on ACA tax credits in December.

On Wednesday night, Johnson told reporters that Republicans are “pulling together the best ideas that we think can, in the quickest fashion, bring premiums down.”

And that includes working with Democrats.

“I sent a note to Hakeem Jeffries and I said, ‘Look, we would love to do this in a bipartisan fashion,’ you know, and he and I exchanged texts yesterday about that.”

Democrats focus on healthcare

Jeffries unsuccessfully attempted a three-year extension of Obamacare by a discharge petition. There would be a vote if the minority party can secure support for a majority of the chamber — a total of 218 signatures. But there are only 214 Democrats and there wasn’t sufficient GOP backing.

“Affordable Care Act tax credits were extended by three years in the Inflation Reduction Act,” Jeffries said outside the Capitol before the House convened. “The legislation that we will introduce in the context of the discharge petition will provide that level of certainty to working-class Americans who are on the verge of seeing their premiums, copays and deductibles skyrocket in some cases, experiencing increases of $1,000 or $2,000 per year.”

Jeffries said Democrats will continue to fight on healthcae.

“We’ll continue to fight for the principle that in this great country, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, healthcare can’t simply be a privilege available only to the well-off, the wealthy and the well-connected.

“Healthcare must be a right available to every single American. And that’s the fight that House Democrats will continue to wage for the American people.”

Colorado Rep. Jeff Hurd said he wanted to extend the enhanced premium tax credits for time to work on “the underlying drivers that are pushing up those health care costs to begin with.”

Workers union wants healthcare addresses

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, with 1.4 million members, called on Congress to help Americans afford health insurance.

“AFSCME members have been clear from the start of this shutdown: we need to lower health care costs and fund public services,” AFSCME President Lee Saunders said in a statement to UPI.

“Unfortunately, this administration and the Project 2025 ideologues in Congress refused to come to the table to address the healthcare crisis gripping families across the country. We applaud all of the leaders in Congress who stood up and sounded the alarm about the massive insurance premium hikes affecting millions of Americans.

“The fight to protect families from these increases is far from over. Now that the government is reopening, we’re calling on members of Congress to keep their promise and hold a vote to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Working families cannot afford to wait any longer to lower health care costs.”

Provision on suing DOJ

The legislation includes funds for eight senators to sue the Department of Justice for obtaining their phone records during an investigation when Joe Biden was president.

Rather than removing the provision and returning it to the Senate, Johnson said he plans to have separate legislation next week.

“I was very angry about it,” Johnson said. “I was, and a lot of my members called me and said, ‘Did you know about it?’ We had no idea. That was dropped in at the last minute. And I did not appreciate that, nor did most of the House members. Many of them were very – are very angry about that.”

Democrats also opposed the provision.

“What makes this corruption so staggering is that the payout is specifically designed to go to eight senators whose phone records were lawfully subpoenaed under due process by the Department of Justice,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations panel, wrote in a statement.

She accused the senators of voting “to shove taxpayer dollars into their own pockets — $500,000 for each time their records were inspected.”

Daniel Haynes contributed to this report.

Nov. 12 (UPI) — The U.S. House, convening for the first time in two months on Wednesday, approved legislation sent two days earlier by the Senate to reopen the federal government, resuming programs and paying millions of workers.

President Donald Trump plans to sign the legislation, ending the longest shutdown in history at 43 days.

The House originally approved a spending bill in September on a majority vote, but the Senate needed 60 days and approval was held up in finding enough Democrats to agree to legislation that doesn’t guarantee enhanced health insurance subsidies starting Jan. 1.

At 8:21 p.m., the House voted 222-209 to send the stopgap funding bill to the president. The outcome wasn’t strictly along party lines with six Democrats voting yes and two Republicans voting no. There were two not voting and two vacancies.

The White House said Trump would sign the legislation on camera at 9:45 p.m. from the Oval Office. He earlier attended a private dinner at the White House with financial industry leaders.

“I’ll abide by the deal,” he said earlier Monday. “The deal is very good.”

His signature means at least 670,000 federal employees furloughed will return to work and roughly 730,000 essential workers, including air traffic control workers, will be paid, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Government programs will resume, including 42 million people receiving monthly payments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. For the first time in history, November money wasn’t sent electronically.

After the House Rules Committee advanced the Senate bill Tuesday night, the full chamber convened at 4:08 p.m., and began debate for one hour at 4:36 p.m.

The bill advanced 213-209.

The GOP has a 219-214 advantage, with Democrat Adelita Grijalvi having been sworn in when the House convened. She was elected Sept. 23.

“For 40 days, hardworking Americans have endured flight cancellations, missed paychecks and empty dinner tables – all because Democrats closed the government,” Johnson posted on X with a video before the vote.

“It was foolish, pointless, cruel and entirely avoidable. Republicans have been working every day to get the government reopened for the American people, and today we should finally be able to overcome the Democrats and accomplish our mission.”

A provision was stripped from the House version regarding funds for eight senators to sue the Department of Justice for obtaining their phone records during an investigation when Joe Biden was president.

“House Republicans are introducing standalone legislation to repeal this provision that was included by the Senate in the government funding bill,” Johnson posted on X on Wednesday afternoon. “We are putting this legislation on the fast-track suspension calendar in the House for next week.”

Democrats have opposed the provision.

“What makes this corruption so staggering is that the payout is specifically designed to go to eight senators whose phone records were lawfully subpoenaed under due process by the Department of Justice,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations panel, wrote in a statement.
She accused the senators of voting “to shove taxpayer dollars into their own pockets — $500,000 for each time their records were inspected.”

The House had been out of session since Sept. 19, when it passed the first version of a continuing resolution to temporarily fund the government. The Senate held 14 votes on the same legislation, but failed to reach the 60-vote supermajority needed to pass it.

A majority of Democrats in the Senate voted against the legislation, seeking to tie the funding bill to a renewal of enhanced Affordable Care Act tax subsidies set to expire in the new year.

The Senate broke the impasse over the weekend after Republicans agreed to hold a separate vote on ACA tax credits. Unnamed sources told ABC News that Republicans promised to hold a vote on the issue in December, though House Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to commit to voting on any ACA measure passed by the Senate.

The credits were enhanced in 2021 by the American Rescue Plan Act during the pandemic and extended one year later through 2015. They increased the amount of financial assistance, expanded eligibility and capped the percentage of household income for the benchmark silver plan.

Eight senators who caucus with the Democrats voted Monday in favor of the new bill on Tuesday night, allowing the chamber to pass it with a vote of 60-40.

The new stopgap bill will fund the government through Jan. 30, provide a full year of funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and veterans programs.

Democrats criticized the bill.

“As Democrats, we’re committed to addressing this affordability crisis. That’s what this fight has been all about,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said outside the Capitol before the House convened. “We’ll continue this fight to fix our broken healthcare system.

“We’ll continue to fight for the principle that in this great country, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, healthcare can’t simply be a privilege available only to the well-off, the wealthy and the well-connected.

“Healthcare must be a right available to every single American. And that’s the fight that House Democrats will continue to wage for the American people.”

Jeffries unsuccessfully attempted a three-year extension of Obamacare by a discharge petition. There would be a vote if the minority party can secure support for a majority of the chamber — a total of 218 signatures. But there are only 214 Democrats and there wasn’t sufficient GOP backing.

“Affordable Care Act tax credits were extended by three years in the Inflation Reduction Act,” Jeffries said. “The legislation that we will introduce in the context of the discharge petition will provide that level of certainty to working-class Americans who are on the verge of seeing their premiums, copays and deductibles skyrocket in some cases, experiencing increases of $1,000 or $2,000 per year.”

Colorado Rep. Jeff Hurd said he wanted to extend the enhanced premium tax credits for time to work on “the underlying drivers that are pushing up those health care costs to begin with.”

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, with 1.4 million members, called on Congress to help Americans afford health insurance.

“AFSCME members have been clear from the start of this shutdown: we need to lower health care costs and fund public services,” AFSCME President Lee Saunders said in a statement to UPI.

“Unfortunately, this administration and the Project 2025 ideologues in Congress refused to come to the table to address the healthcare crisis gripping families across the country. We applaud all of the leaders in Congress who stood up and sounded the alarm about the massive insurance premium hikes affecting millions of Americans.

“The fight to protect families from these increases is far from over. Now that the government is reopening, we’re calling on members of Congress to keep their promise and hold a vote to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Working families cannot afford to wait any longer to lower health care costs.”

Oanaminthe, Haiti – It’s a Monday afternoon at the Foi et Joie school in rural northeast Haiti, and the grounds are a swirl of khaki and blue uniforms, as hundreds of children run around after lunch.

In front of the headmaster’s office, a tall man in a baseball cap stands in the shade of a mango tree.

Antoine Nelson, 43, is the father of five children in the school. He’s also one of the small-scale farmers growing the beans, plantains, okra, papaya and other produce served for lunch here, and he has arrived to help deliver food.

“I sell what the school serves,” Nelson explained. “It’s an advantage for me as a parent.”

Nelson is among the more than 32,000 farmers across Haiti whose produce goes to the World Food Programme, a United Nations agency, for distribution to local schools.

Together, the farmers feed an estimated 600,000 students each day.

Their work is part of a shift in how the World Food Programme operates in Haiti, the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere.

Rather than solely importing food to crisis-ravaged regions, the UN organisation has also worked to increase its collaborations with local farmers around the world.

But in Haiti, this change has been particularly swift. Over the last decade, the World Food Programme went from sourcing no school meals from within Haiti to procuring approximately 72 percent locally. It aims to reach 100 percent by 2030.

The organisation’s local procurement of emergency food aid also increased significantly during the same period.

This year, however, has brought new hurdles. In the first months of President Donald Trump’s second term, the United States has slashed funding for the World Food Programme.

The agency announced in October it faces a financial shortfall of $44m in Haiti alone over the next six months.

And the need for assistance continues to grow. Gang violence has shuttered public services, choked off roadways, and displaced more than a million people.

A record 5.7 million Haitians are facing “acute levels of hunger” as of October — more than the World Food Programme is able to reach.

“Needs continue to outpace resources,” Wanja Kaaria, the programme’s director in Haiti, said in a recent statement. “We simply don’t have the resources to meet all the growing needs.”

But for Nelson, outreach efforts like the school lunch programme have been a lifeline.

Before his involvement, he remembers days when he could not afford to feed his children breakfast or give them lunch money for school.

“They wouldn’t take in what the teacher was saying because they were hungry,” he said. “But now, when the school gives food, they retain whatever the teacher says. It helps the children advance in school.”

Now, experts warn some food assistance programmes could disappear if funding continues to dwindle — potentially turning back the clock on efforts to empower Haitian farmers.

SACRAMENTO — A November initiative could dramatically transform California politics, raising taxes to pay for publicly financed campaigns, strictly limiting private giving and taking particular aim at ballot measure spending.

If voters approve Proposition 89 and it withstands court challenges, California will become the first state to restrict spending on ballot measures, though the limits would not apply to two of the biggest players in state politics: trial lawyers and Indian tribes that own casinos.

The initiative’s restrictions apply to corporations. Many trial lawyer firms are limited liability partnerships; Indian tribes are governments.

An unlikely coalition has formed to beat the measure. Led by the California Chamber of Commerce, the foes include the California Republican Party, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and groups that in other instances are their fierce rivals: some of the state’s most influential unions, including the 300,000-member California Teachers Assn.

The initiative’s sponsor is itself a union, albeit a maverick, the California Nurses Assn. The measure’s backers include Treasurer Phil Angelides, Schwarzenegger’s Democratic challenger; Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.); and California Common Cause. Out of deference to Angelides, the Democratic Party is neutral, though Chairman Art Torres said the party might challenge one or more aspects of the initiative if it wins.

The 70,000-member nurses union contends that big-spending healthcare companies have stymied its goal of providing broader medical coverage. The union decided to press its proposal after drug companies spent more than $80 million last year to block a labor-backed initiative to curb prescription drug prices.

“When patients get diagnosed and can’t afford the prescriptions, there is something wrong,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the nurses union.

Dubbed the Clean Money and Fair Elections Act of 2006, Proposition 89 is a highly complex measure of more than 50 pages. It would raise corporate and banking taxes by $200 million a year to create public financing for candidates for state office.

It would cap donations to legislative candidates at $500 and to statewide candidates at $1,000; restrict fundraising by the Republican and Democratic parties; and limit single donors to spending no more than $15,000 a year on candidate-related campaigns.

Current law says donors can give $3,300 to a legislative candidate and $22,300 to a candidate for governor per election, but contributors have no overall cap on the money they can give.

All that might be a big enough bite for a single initiative. But the proposed statute goes further. In one of its most far-reaching provisions, Proposition 89 would rein in spending on ballot measures, a dramatic step that even its backers say could be unconstitutional. The backers hope to overturn past court rulings on such limits.

In any election year, propositions consume the most campaign money. Already, more than $100 million has been raised for and against two initiatives on the November ballot, one that would raise oil taxes and another that would raise tobacco taxes.

Proposition 89 would limit direct corporate donations to $10,000 per ballot measure. The limit would extend from public companies such as Chevron to family farms and large private developers such as the Irvine Co. Chevron has spent more than $16.5 million to defeat the oil tax initiative, Proposition 87, on the November ballot.

Union foes contend that labor groups also would be barred from giving more than $10,000 to a ballot measure campaign if they have side businesses, including printing shops and credit unions. The nurses association says unions would not be subject to the limit. Any affected group or business could give more by establishing political action committees and soliciting donations from executives, stockholders and others.

Individuals still could spend unlimited sums on ballot measures. This year, Hollywood producer Stephen L. Bing, scion of a real estate magnate, promoted the oil tax initiative with at least $39 million of his own money.

At least two other major sources of campaign cash — attorneys who represent plaintiffs and wealthy Indian tribes — could continue spending unlimited amounts for and against propositions.

“It amounts to unilateral disarmament,” said John Sullivan of the corporate-funded group Californians for Civil Justice Reform, which seeks to limit litigation against business and is a rival of the trial attorneys lobby.

Chamber President Allan Zaremberg denounced Proposition 89 as a “virtual ban on corporate participation in the political process.” Democratic consultant Gale Kaufman, who represents the California Teachers Assn., criticized it as “totally gratuitous.”

Insurance companies, which often clash with trial attorneys in Sacramento, account for more than half of the $1.3 million raised so far against Proposition 89. The nurses union is Proposition 89’s biggest financial supporter, having spent $1.4 million to qualify it for the November ballot and $822,000 on the campaign.

Executives in the nurses union say there was no intention to exempt attorneys or tribes. Rather, their attorneys went as far as they thought they could without clearly violating the Constitution, DeMoro said.

“We don’t have a hidden agenda,” she said.

Most trial lawyer firms are set up as limited liability partnerships, as are many accountancy and venture capital firms and at least one oil company that is siding with Chevron in opposing the oil tax initiative. Such partnerships would not be bound by restrictions on corporate giving to ballot measures, the initiative’s promoters say.

Trial law firms and their organization, the Consumer Attorneys of California, regularly donate more than $1 million a year to state campaigns. The group has not taken a stand on the initiative. But trial lawyers and the California Nurses Assn. have been allies in past campaigns.

In 2004, for example, the two groups fought Proposition 64, which limits lawsuits; it won voter approval. In the June primary, lawyers and nurses also formed an alliance to help fund an $870,000 independent campaign to support and oppose legislative candidates.

Also among the state’s biggest spenders on ballot measures are Indian tribes. They have shelled out more than $150 million on propositions since 1998. Like individuals, they could continue to spend unlimited sums on ballot measures, backers of the initiative say.

“Constitutionally, we cannot restrict tribes’ spending on ballot measures,” said Santa Monica attorney Fredric Woocher, who helped write the initiative.

The U.S. Supreme Court, he noted, has ruled that donors cannot be barred from giving “just because they spend a lot of money.”

Woocher’s firm has represented the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, which owns two casinos in the Palm Springs area and has spent more than $27 million on state campaigns since 1998. However, Woocher said he wasn’t thinking of tribes when he was working on the measure.

Much of Proposition 89 is similar to “clean money” laws in Arizona and Maine. But no other state regulates contributions to ballot measures, in part because the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down past attempts to restrict ballot measure spending.

In addition to hiring Woocher, the nurses retained Richard L. Hasen, a Loyola Law School professor who last year wrote a law review article opining that the issue was “ripe for reexamination in light of the Supreme Court’s new-found deference to campaign finance regulation.”

“Just look at the amount of money. Corporations have an unlimited playground,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of the California Clean Money Campaign, a nonprofit group that is helping to promote Proposition 89.

As some foes see it, the corporate restrictions represent the flip side of initiatives defeated in 2005 and 1998 that attempted to limit union donations. Major unions and California business reached a truce last year, agreeing not to pursue restrictions. Nurses were not a party to that pact.

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[email protected]

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Begin text of infobox

Contribution limits

Proposition 89 would curb donations for state races and ballot issues. Some proposed changes:

Individual, group and corporate giving caps

Assembly:

Current — $3,300

Proposition 89 — $500

Senate:

Current — $3,300

Proposition 89 — $500

Statewide officials:

Current — $5,600

Proposition 89 — $1,000

Governor:

Current — $22,300

Proposition 89 — $1,000

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.

Binkley writes for the Associated Press.

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.