Grant

Oct. 31 (UPI) — The Panama Canal Authority plans to move forward with construction and subsequent concession of two new port terminals, with an estimated investment of $2.6 billion.

According to information released by the authority in a press release, the terminals are planned for two strategic areas along the canal, one on the Pacific coast in Corozal and the other on the Atlantic side at Telfers Island.

The goal of both projects is to expand container-handling capacity and strengthen Panama’s position as an interoceanic logistics hub.

With the addition of these two terminals, the goal is to increase container capacity from about 9.5 million (20-foot equivalent units per year to roughly 15 million. The projects also aim to expand port capacity in the interoceanic area, which is operating near its limit.

The Corozal port, on the Pacific coast, would take advantage of its proximity to the canal’s western entrance to capture container traffic using the interoceanic route. The Telfers Island project, on the Atlantic side, would cover the other end of the canal, facilitating both transshipment and cargo transfers between ocean routes.

Together, the two projects would reinforce Panama’s strategy to move beyond a transit route and establish itself as a logistics center, transshipment port and industrial platform for the region.

The authority said it expects to award the concessions by late 2026, allowing the terminals to begin operations in early 2029. It has begun discussions with representatives from about 20 global maritime operators to identify potential partners for the port development.

Representatives from APM Terminals (Denmark), Cosco Shipping Ports (China), CMA Terminals-CMA (France), DP World (United Arab Emirates), Hanseatic Global Terminals (Germany), MOL (Japan), PSA International (Singapore), SSA Marine-Carrix Group (United States) and Terminal Investment Limited (Switzerland) took part in the initial round of talks.

However, in Panama’s public debate, there is discussion over whether the concession model is the most appropriate way to develop the projects or if the authority should operate the terminals.

The discussion follows an audit by the Office of the Comptroller General into Panama Ports Co. — a subsidiary of China’s CK Hutchison that operates key terminals in the country– that found multimillion-dollar shortfalls in payments owed to the state, though the discrepancies were attributed to a “poorly negotiated” initial contract.

The Panama Canal also faces additional challenges in developing the new ports, including the need to secure supporting infrastructure, such as road access, dredging, water supply, logistics services and environmental impact studies required for these large-scale projects.

The initiative comes amid a global context in which container ships continue to grow in size, maritime routes seek greater efficiency and logistics hubs compete fiercely across Latin America.

As part of the Panama Canal’s Vision 2025-2035 plan, container terminals are seen as key components of the supporting infrastructure, second in importance only to the locks and navigation channels. Their development aims to strengthen port capacity and ensure the competitiveness of Panama’s maritime route.

In mid-September, the authority also announced development of a natural gas pipeline. The project aims to create a new overland energy route that would complement the existing canal by linking the Pacific and Atlantic coasts across Panama.

The pipeline would transport liquefied natural gas and other gases, such as propane and butane, from one ocean to the other without ships having to transit the canal. It would extend 47 miles and have the capacity to transfer up to 2.5 million barrels of gas per day.

The authority estimates that the project, which has drawn interest from about 45 energy companies, will cost between $4 billion and $5 billion. It also expects the concession to be awarded in the fourth quarter of 2026.

A controversial plan to kill one owl species to save another cleared a major hurdle.

The full Senate on Wednesday struck down a GOP effort to prevent the cull of up to 450,000 barred owls in the Pacific Northwest over three decades, ending a saga that created strange political bedfellows.

It’s a major win for environmentalists and federal wildlife officials who want to protect northern spotted owls that have been crowded out by their larger, more aggressive cousins. In recent weeks they got an unlikely ally in loggers who said scuttling the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan could hinder timber sales.

But it’s a blow to an equally unusual alliance that includes right-wing politicians and animal rights advocates who argue the cull is too expensive and inhumane. The Trump administration leaned on Republican lawmakers to get out of the way, scrambling partisan lines.

Sen. John Kennedy, a conservative from Louisiana, sought to nix the owl-killing plan via the Congressional Review Act, which can be used to overturn recent rules by federal agencies.

Kennedy said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose portfolio includes timber production, recently called him and told him to abandon the resolution. This month logging advocates said that stopping the cull would jeopardize timber production goals set by the Trump administration.

But Kennedy was not persuaded.

“The secretary needed to call somebody who cared what he thought, because I think he’s wrong,” Kennedy said on the Senate floor. “I think he and the other members of the administrative state at the Department of the Interior decided to play God.”

Flanked by pictures of owls and bumbling cartoon hunter Elmer Fudd, Kennedy praised barred owls for their “soulful eyes” and “incredibly soft” feathers. But he acknowledged they’re better hunters than spotted owls. Barred owls, which moved over from eastern North America, are outcompeting spotted owls for food and shelter in their native territory.

Louisiana Senator John Kennedy spearheaded a resolution to overturn the Biden-era plan to cull barred owls, even after he said the Trump administration told him to back down.

(Senate Banking Committee)

Ultimately the resolution failed 72 to 25, with three lawmakers not voting. Nearly all those who voted in favor of the resolution were Republican, but even more Republicans voted against it. The Fish and Wildlife Service approved the barred owl cull last year under the Biden Administration.

“I feel a lot of relief because this was one of the most major threats to the long-term, continued existence of the northern spotted owl in many years,” said Tom Wheeler, executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center. “We’ve passed this hurdle, which isn’t to say there aren’t other hurdles or road bumps up ahead, but this feels good.”

Wheeler described the failed effort as a “nuclear threat” — if the resolution had passed, the Fish and Wildlife Service would have been blocked from pursuing any similar rule, unless explicitly authorized by Congress.

Now Wheeler said he and his allies will continue to push for the owl cull to be carried out, and for federal funding to support it.

Animal welfare advocates like Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy, are dismayed.

“What this means is that not only are barred owls at extreme risk of large-scale shooting, but spotted owls and old-growth forests are at risk from chainsaws,” Pacelle said of the failed resolution.

Pacelle’s camp vowed to continue the fight. A lawsuit challenging the hunt they filed against the federal government last fall is moving forward. And they’ll try to ensure money doesn’t flow to the program.

In May, federal officials canceled three related grants in California totaling more than $1.1 million, including one study that would have included lethally removing barred owls from more than 192,000 acres in Mendocino and Sonoma counties.

However, there are other projects to kill barred owls in the Golden State, according to Peter Tira, a spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

One $4.3-million grant issued by the state agency will support barred owl removal in the northwestern part of the state, along with other research. Another grant issued by NASA to a university involves killing barred owls in California as well as creating a tool to prioritize areas where the raptors need to be managed.

It’s not clear how or if the government shutdown, now stretching into its 31st day, is affecting the projects, Tira said in an email.

Sydney Roosters prop Lindsay Collins is promoted to the starting line-up in the only personnel change to the team that started at Wembley, with Patrick Carrigan moving into the loose forward role vacated by Yeo.

Lindsay Smith, Yeo’s Penrith Panthers club-mate, steps up to the bench, with Jacob Preston named among the reserves.

“Harry and all of the senior players for that matter stepped up after Isaah’s unfortunate injury last week,” said former Kangaroo half-back Walters.

“While we’d love to have Isaah out there, he’ll still be contributing in many other ways around the group this week. He’s a natural leader, and so too is Harry so we’re in great hands this week.

“I’m really pleased with the way we’ve started the series, but we’re into a new week now and our focus is on preparing well and being at our very best this Saturday.”

Brisbane Broncos superstar Reece Walsh will again play at full-back, having scored two tries and won the man-of-the-match award on his international debut at Wembley.

Saturday’s second Test, and the third at AMT Headingley on 8 November, both kick off at 14:30 GMT and are live on BBC One.

Australia: Reece Walsh, Mark Nawaqanitawase, Kotoni Staggs, Gehamat Shibasaki, Josh Addo-Carr, Cameron Munster, Nathan Cleary, Lindsay Collins, Harry Grant (captain), Tino Fa’asuamaleaui, Angus Crichton, Hudson Young, Patrick Carrigan.

Interchanges: Tom Dearden, Lindsay Smith, Reuben Cotter, Keaon Koloamatangi.

Reserves: Bradman Best, Jacob Preston, Mitchell Moses.

A judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from requiring recipients of federal teen pregnancy prevention grants to comply with the president’s orders aimed at curtailing “radical indoctrination” and “gender ideology.”

The ruling is a victory for three Planned Parenthood affiliates — in California, Iowa and New York — that sued to try to block enforcement of a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services policy document issued in July that they contend contradicts the requirements of the grants as established by Congress.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who was appointed to the bench by former President Obama, blasted the administration’s policy change in her written ruling, saying it was “motivated solely by political concerns, devoid of any considered process or analysis, and ignorant of the statutory emphasis on evidence-based programming.”

The policy requiring changes to the pregnancy prevention program was part of the fallout from a series of executive orders Trump signed starting in his first day back in the White House aimed at rolling back recognition of LGBTQ+ people and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

In the policy, the administration objected to teaching that promotes same-sex marriage and that “normalizes, or promotes sexual activity for minors.”

The Planned Parenthood affiliates argued that the new directives were at odds with the requirements of the program — and that they were so vague it wasn’t clear what needed to be done to follow them.

Howell agreed.

The decision applies not only to the handful of Planned Parenthood groups among the dozens of recipients of the funding, but also to nonprofit groups, city and county health departments, Native American tribes and universities that received grants.

The Health and Human Services Department, which oversees the program, declined to comment on Tuesday’s ruling. It previously said the guidance for the program “ensures that taxpayer dollars no longer support content that undermines parental rights, promotes radical gender ideology, or exposes children to sexually explicit material under the banner of public health.”

Mulvihill writes for the Associated Press.

Protesters are angry over bills that could grant Bolsonaro amnesty after a coup attempt and give lawmakers immunity.

Thousands of Brazilians have taken to the streets to protest against moves by the National Congress to boost lawmakers’ immunity and push for an amnesty that could include far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison on charges related to an attempted military coup.

Protesters in rallies in more than a dozen cities accused the conservative-majority Congress of putting its own interests above social and economic issues. Music legends Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque and Gilberto Gil – who defied censorship during the military dictatorship of the 1960s – reunited in Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana neighbourhood to perform a protest concert.

Aline Borges, a 34-year-old environmentalist who attended the protest in the capital, Brasilia, expressed her frustration at the political establishment. “We are here to protest this Congress, which is made up of criminals and corrupt people dressed as politicians, who are pushing for a law that protects them,” she told the AFP.

Calls for demonstrations grew after the lower house of parliament passed a constitutional amendment that would make it harder to arrest or launch criminal proceedings against lawmakers. Under the so-called “Shielding Bill”, lawmakers voting in a secret ballot must give the go-ahead for one of their own to be charged or arrested.

The following day, the lower house voted to fast-track a bill backed by right-wing opposition lawmakers – dubbed by critics as the “Bandit’s Bill” –  that could grant amnesty to Bolsonaro, his closest allies and hundreds of supporters convicted for their roles in the January 2023 uprising.

Both bills face an uphill battle in the Senate. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he would veto the amnesty bill.

Ahead of Bolsonaro’s Supreme Court trial on September 11, thousands of his supporters had rallied in his defence. The former president, who has denied any wrongdoing, is the first to be convicted of trying to overturn an election in Latin America’s largest economy.

Polls show the country remains deeply divided over his fate. According to a recent Datafolha poll, 50 percent of 2,005 respondents said Bolsonaro should be jailed, while 43 percent disagreed and 7 percent declined to answer.

Currently under house arrest, Bolsonaro faces up to 40 years in prison after being found guilty on five charges, including leading a “criminal organisation” to conspire to overthrow Lula. A detailed operational plan called “Green and Yellow Dagger” was identified, which included a plan to assassinate Lula.

Bolsonaro has maintained he will run for president in 2026, despite Brazil’s top electoral court barring him from running in elections until 2030 for spreading unfounded claims about Brazil’s electronic voting system.

A federal judge Thursday said she was “inclined to extend” an earlier ruling and order the Trump administration to restore an additional $500 million in UCLA medical research grants that were frozen in response to the university’s alleged campus antisemitism violations.

Although she did not issue a formal ruling late Thursday, U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin indicated she is leaning toward reversing — for now — the vast majority of funding freezes that University of California leaders say have endangered the future of the 10-campus, multi-hospital system.

Lin, a judge in the Northern District of California, said she was prepared to add UCLA’s National Institutes of Health grant recipients to an ongoing class-action lawsuit that has already led to the reversal of tens of millions of dollars in grants from the National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Endowment for the Humanities and other federal agencies to UC campuses.

The judge’s reasoning: The UCLA grants were suspended by form letters that were unspecific to the research, a likely violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, which regulates executive branch rulemaking.

Though Lin said she had a “lot of homework to do” on the matter, she indicated that reversing the grant cuts was “likely where I will land” and she would issue an order “shortly.”

Lin said the Trump administration had undertaken a “fundamental sin” in its “un-reasoned mass terminations” of the grants using “letters that don’t go through the required factors that the agency is supposed to consider.”

The possible preliminary injunction would be in place as the case proceeds through the courts. But in saying she leaned toward broadening the case, Lin suggested she believed there would be irreparable harm if the suspensions were not immediately reversed.

The suit was filed in June by UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley professors fighting a separate, earlier round of Trump administration grant clawbacks. The University of California is not a party in the case.

A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer, Jason Altabet, said Thursday that instead of a federal district court lawsuit filed by professors, the proper venue would be the U.S. Court of Federal Claims filed by UC. Altabet based his arguments on a recent Supreme Court ruling that upheld the government’s suspension of $783 million in NIH grants — to universities and research centers throughout the country — in part because the issue, the high court said, was not properly within the jurisdiction of a lower federal court.

Altabet said the administration was “fully embracing the principles in the Supreme Court’s recent opinions.”

The hundreds of NIH grants on hold at UCLA look into Parkinson’s disease treatment, cancer recovery, cell regeneration in nerves and other areas that campus leaders argue are pivotal for improving the health of Americans.

The Trump administration has proposed a roughly $1.2-billion fine and demanded campus changes over admission of international students and protest rules. Federal officials have also called for UCLA to release detailed admission data, ban gender-affirming healthcare for minors and give the government deep access to UCLA internal campus data, among other demands, in exchange for restoring $584 million in funding to the university.

In addition to allegations that the university has not seriously dealt with complaints of antisemitism on campus, the government also said it slashed UCLA funding in response to its findings that the campus illegally considers race in admissions and “discriminates against and endangers women” by recognizing the identities of transgender people.

UCLA has said it has made changes to improve campus climate for Jewish communities and does not use race in admissions. Its chancellor, Julio Frenk, has said that defunding medical research “does nothing” to address discrimination allegations. The university displays websites and policies that recognize different gender identities and maintains services for LGBTQ+ communities.

UC leaders said they will not pay the $1.2-billion fine and are negotiating with the Trump administration over its other demands. They have told The Times that many settlement proposals cross the university’s red lines.

“Recent federal cuts to research funding threaten lifesaving biomedical research, hobble U.S. economic competitiveness and jeopardize the health of Americans who depend on cutting-edge medical science and innovation,” a UC spokesperson said in a statement Thursday. “While the University of California is not a party to this suit, the UC system is engaged in numerous legal and advocacy efforts to restore funding to vital research programs across the humanities, social sciences and STEM fields.”

A ruling Lin issued in the case last month resulted in $81 million in NSF grants restored to UCLA. If the UCLA NIH grants are reinstated, it would leave about $3 million from the July suspensions — all Department of Energy grants — still frozen at UCLA.

Lin also said she leaned toward adding Transportation and Defense department grants to the case, which run in the millions of dollars but are small compared with UC’s NIH grants.

The hearing was closely watched by researchers at the Westwood campus, who have cut back on lab hours, reduced operations and considered layoffs as the crisis at UCLA moves toward the two-month mark.

In interviews, they said they were hopeful grants would be reinstated but remain concerned over the instability of their work under the recent federal actions.

Lydia Daboussi, a UCLA assistant professor of neurobiology whose $1-million grant researching nerve injury is suspended, observed the hearing online.

Aftewards, Daboussi said she was “cautiously optimistic” about her grant being reinstated.

“I would really like this to be the relief that my lab needs to get our research back online,” said Daboussi, who is employed at the David Geffen School of Medicine. “If the preliminary injunction is granted, that is a wonderful step in the right direction.”

Grant funding, she said, “was how we bought the antibodies we needed for experiments, how we purchased our reagents and our consumable supplies.” The lab consists of nine other people, including two PhD students and one senior scientist.

So far, none of Daboussi’s lab members have departed. But, she said, if “this goes on for too much longer, at some point, people’s hours will have to be reduced.”

“I do find myself having to pay more attention to volatilities outside of our lab space,” she said. “I’ve now become acquainted with our legal system in ways that I didn’t know would be necessary for my job.”

Elle Rathbun, a sixth-year neuroscience PhD candidate at UCLA, lost a roughly $160,000 NIH grant that funded her study of stroke recovery treatment.

“If there is a chance that these suspensions are lifted, that is phenomenal news,” said Rathbun, who presented at UCLA’s “Science Fair for Suspended Research” this month.

“Lifting these suspensions would then allow us to continue these really critical projects that have already been determined to be important for American health and the future of American health,” she said.

Rathbun’s research is focused on a potential treatment that would be injected into the brain to help rebuild it after a stroke. Since the suspension of her grant, Rathbun, who works out of a lab at UCLA’s neurology department, has been seeking other funding sources.

“Applying to grants takes a lot of time,” she said. “So that really slowed down my progress in my project.”

SACRAMENTO — State lawmakers on Friday advanced a plan that would allow California colleges to offer preferential admission to students who are descended from enslaved people, part of an ongoing effort by Democrats to address the legacy of slavery in the United States.

The legislation, Assembly Bill 7, would allow — but not require — the University of California, Cal State and private colleges to give admissions preference to applicants who can prove they are directly related to someone who was enslaved in America before 1900.

If signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the effort could put the Golden State on yet another collision course with the Trump administration, which has diversity initiatives and universities in its crosshairs.

“While we like to pretend access to institutions of higher learning is fair and merit-based and equal, we know that it is not,” said Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles), who authored the bill, before the final vote Friday. “If you are the relative or the descendant of somebody who is rich or powerful or well connected, or an alumni of one of these illustrious institutions, you got priority consideration.”

But, Bryan said, “There’s a legacy that we don’t ever acknowledge in education … the legacy of exclusion, of harm.”

The bill is a top priority of the Legislative Black Caucus, which introduced 15 bills this year aimed at addressing the lingering effects of slavery and systemic racism in California.

Although California entered the Union as a “free state” in 1850, slavery continued in the Golden State after the state Constitution outlawed it in 1849. Slavery was abolished nationwide by the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865 after the Civil War.

California voters barred colleges from considering race, sex, ethnicity or national origin in admissions nearly three decades ago by passing Proposition 209. Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court found that affirmative action in university admissions violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Bryan and other backers stressed that the language of the bill had been narrowly tailored to comply with Proposition 209 by focusing on lineage, rather than race. Being a descendant of a slave is not a proxy for race, they said, because not all enslaved people were Black, and not all Black Americans are descended from slaves.

“The story of our country is such that people who look like me and people who do not look like me could be descendants of American chattel slavery,” said Bryan, who is Black, during a July debate over the bill.

Supporters of the measure say that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas noted in his concurrence in the 2023 affirmative action case that refugees and formerly enslaved people who received benefits from the government after the Civil War were a “race-neutral category, not blacks writ large,” and that the term “freedman” was a “decidedly underinclusive proxy for race.”

Andrew Quinio, an attorney for the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, told lawmakers during earlier debates on the bill that lineage is, in fact, a proxy for race because being a descendant of an American slave is “so closely intertwined” with being Black.

Instead, he said, the bill could give colleges a green light to give preference to “victims of racial discrimination in public education, regardless of race,” which would treat students as individuals, rather than relying on “stereotypes about their circumstances based on their race and ancestry.”

Were California “confident in the overlap of students who have experienced present discrimination and students who are descendants of slaves, then giving preference based on whether a student has experienced present discrimination would not exclude descendants of slaves,” he said.

Earlier this week, the Democratic-led Legislature also passed Senate Bill 518, which would create a new office called the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery. That bureau would create a process to determine whether someone is the descendant of a slave and to certify someone’s claim to help them access benefits.

The legislature also approved Assembly Bill 57, by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Hawthorne), which would help descendants of slavery build generational wealth by becoming homeowners.

The bill would set aside 10% of the loans from a popular program called California Dream for All, which offers first-time home buyers a loan worth up to 20% of the purchase price of a house or condo, capped at $150,000.

The loans don’t accrue interest or require monthly payments. Instead, when the mortgage is refinanced or the house is sold, the borrower pays back the original loan, plus 20% of its increase in value.

McKinnor said during debates over the bill that the legacy of slavery and racism has created stark disparities in home ownership rates, with descendants of slaves about 30 percentage points behind white households.

The Legislature also passed McKinnor’s AB 67, which sets up a process for people who said they or their families lost property to the government through “racially motivated eminent domain” to seek to have the property returned or to be paid.

Nonpartisan legislative analysts said that the bill could create costs “in the tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars,” depending on the number of claims submitted, the value of the properties and the associated legal costs.

California became the first state government in the country to study reparations after the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer sparked a national conversation on racial justice.

Newsom and state lawmakers passed a law to create a “first in the nation” task force to study and propose remedies to help atone for the legacy of slavery. That panel spent years working on a 1,080-page report on the effects of slavery and the discriminatory policies sanctioned by the government after slavery was abolished.

The report recommended more than 100 policies to help address persistent racial disparities, including reforms to the criminal justice system and the housing market, the first of which were taken up last year by the Legislature’s Black Caucus.

Hamstrung by a budget deficit, lawmakers passed 10 of 14 bills in the reparations package last year, which reform advocates felt were lackluster.

How Californians feel about reparations depends on what is under discussion. A poll by the L.A. Times and the UC Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies in 2023 found that voters opposed the idea of cash reparations by a 2-to-1 margin, but had a more nuanced view on the lasting legacy of slavery and how the state should address those wrongs.

Most voters agreed that slavery still affects today’s Black residents, and more than half said California is either not doing enough, or just enough, to ensure a fair shake at success.

California banned slavery in its 1849 Constitution and entered the Union as a “free state” under the Compromise of 1850, but loopholes in the legal system allowed slavery and discrimination against formerly enslaved people to continue.

California passed a fugitive slave law — rare among free states — in 1852 that allowed slaveholders to use violence to capture enslaved people who had fled to the Golden State. Slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865, ratified after the end of the Civil War.

Census records show about 200 enslaved African descendants lived in California in that year, though at least one estimate from the era suggested that the population was closer to 1,500, according to the report drafted by the reparations task force.

Heather Colley and her two children moved four times over five years as they fled high rents in eastern Tennessee, which, like much of rural America, hasn’t been spared from soaring housing costs.

A family gift in 2021 of a small plot of land offered a shot at homeownership, but building a house was beyond reach for the 45-year-old single mother and manicurist making $18.50 an hour.

That changed when she qualified for a $272,000 grant from a nonprofit to build a three-bedroom home because of a program that has helped make affordable housing possible in rural areas for decades. She and her family moved in in June.

“Every time I pull into my garage, I pinch myself,” Colley said.

Now, President Trump wants to eliminate that grant, the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, and House Republicans overseeing federal budget negotiations did not include funding for it in their budget proposal. Experts and state housing agencies say that would set back tens of thousands of future affordable housing developments nationwide, particularly hurting Appalachian towns and rural counties where government aid is sparse and investors are few.

The program has helped build or repair more than 1.3 million affordable homes in the last three decades, of which at least 540,000 were in congressional districts that are rural or significantly rural, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data.

“Maybe they don’t realize how far-reaching these programs are,” said Colley, who voted for Trump in 2024. Among those half a million homes that HOME helped build, 84% were in districts that voted for him last year, the AP analysis found.

“I understand we don’t want excessive spending and wasting taxpayer dollars,” Colley said, “but these proposed budget cuts across the board make me rethink the next time I go to the polls.”

The HOME program, started under President George H.W. Bush in the 1990s, survived years of budget battles but has been stretched thin by years of rising construction costs and stagnant funding. That’s meant fewer units, including in some rural areas where home prices have grown faster than in cities.

The program has spent more than $38 billion nationwide since it began filling in funding gaps and attracting more investment to acquire, build and repair affordable homes, federal Department of Housing and Urban Development data show. Additional funding has gone toward rental assistance and projects that have yet to be finished.

Political limbo

To account for the gap left by the proposed cuts, House Republicans want to draw on nearly $5 billion from a related pandemic-era fund that gave states until 2030 to spend on projects supporting people who are unhoused or facing homelessness.

That $5 billion, however, may be far less, since many projects haven’t yet been logged into HUD’s tracking system, according to state housing agencies and associations representing them.

A spokesperson for HUD, which administers the program, said HOME isn’t as effective as other programs where the money would be better spent.

In opposition to Trump, Senate Republicans have still included funding for HOME in their draft budget. In the coming negotiations, both chambers may compromise and reduce but not terminate HOME’s funding, or extend last year’s overall budget.

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle didn’t respond to specific questions from the AP. Instead, Ingle said that Trump’s commitment to cutting red tape is making housing more affordable.

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is working to reduce HOME’s notorious red tape that even proponents say slows construction.

Some rural areas more dependent on HOME

In Owsley County — one of the nation’s poorest, in the rural Kentucky hills — residents struggle in an economy blighted by coal mine closures and declining tobacco crop revenues.

Affordable homes are needed there, but tough to build in a region that doesn’t attract larger-scale rental developments that federal dollars typically go toward.

That’s where HOME comes in, said Cassie Hudson, who runs Partnership Housing in Owsley, which has relied on the program to build the majority of its affordable homes for at least a dozen years.

A lack of additional funding for HOME has already made it hard to keep up with construction costs, Hudson said, and the organization builds a quarter of the single-family homes it used to.

“Particularly for deeply rural places and persistent poverty counties, local housing developers are the only way homes and new rental housing gets built,” said Joshua Stewart of Fahe, a coalition of Appalachian nonprofits.

That’s in part because investment is scant and HOME steps in when construction costs exceed what a home can be sold for — a common barrier in poor areas of Appalachia. Some developers use the profits to build more affordable units. Its loss would erode those nonprofits’ ability to build affordable homes in years to come, Stewart said.

One of those nonprofits, Housing Development Alliance, helped Tiffany Mullins in Hazard, Ky., which was ravaged by floods. Mullins, a single mother of four who makes $14.30 an hour at Walmart, bought a house there thanks to HOME funding and moved in in August.

Mullins sees the program as preserving a rural way of life, recalling when folks owned homes and land with gardens — “we had chickens, cows. Now you don’t see much of that.”

A long-term effect

In congressional budget negotiations, HOME is an easier target than programs such as vouchers because most people would not immediately lose their housing, said Tess Hembree, executive director of the Council of State Community Development Agencies.

The effect of any reduction would instead be felt in a fizzling of new affordable housing supply. When HOME funding was temporarily reduced to $900 million in 2015, “10 to 15 years later, we’re seeing the ramifications,” Hembree said.

That includes affordable units built in cities. The biggest program that funds affordable rental housing nationwide, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, uses HOME grants for 12% of units, totaling 324,000 current individual units, according to soon-to-be-published Urban Institute research.

Trump’s spending bill that Republicans passed this summer increased that program, but experts say further reducing or cutting HOME would make those credits less usable.

“It’s LIHTC plus HOME, usually,” said Tim Thrasher, chief executive of Community Action Partnership of North Alabama, which builds affordable apartments for some of the nation’s poorest.

In the lush mountains of eastern West Virginia, Woodlands Development Group relies on HOME for its smaller rural projects. Because it helps people with a wider range of incomes, HOME is “one of the only programs available to us that allows us to develop true workforce housing,” said Executive Director Dave Clark.

It’s those workers — nurses, first responders, teachers — that nonprofits like east Tennessee’s Creative Compassion use HOME to build for. With the program in jeopardy, grant administrator Sarah Halcott said she fears for her clients battling rising housing costs.

“This is just another nail in the coffin for rural areas,” Halcott said.

Kramon, Bedayn, Herbst and Kessler write for the Associated Press. Kramon reported from Atlanta, Bedayn from Denver, Herbst from New York City and Kessler from Washington.

WASHINGTON — A divided Supreme Court said Thursday the Trump administration may cancel hundreds of health research grants that involve diversity, equity and inclusion or gender identity.

The justices granted an emergency appeal from President Trump’s lawyers and set aside a Boston’s judge order that blocked the canceling of $783 million in research grants.

The justices split 5-4. Chief Justice John G. Roberts joined the court’s three liberals in dissent and said the district judge had not overstepped his authority.

The court’s conservative majority has repeatedly sided with the administration and against federal judges in disputes over spending and staffing at federal agencies.

In the latest case, the majority agreed that Trump and his appointees may decide on how to spend health research funds allocated by Congress.

Upon taking office in January, Trump issued an executive order “ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing.”

A few weeks later, the acting director of the National Institutes of Health said the agency would no longer fund “low-value and off-mission research programs, including but not limited to studies based on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and gender identity.”

More than 1,700 grants were canceled.

Trump’s lawyers told the court NIH had terminated grants to study “Buddhism and HIV stigma in Thailand”; “intersectional, multilevel and multidimensional structural racism for English- and Spanish-speaking populations”; and “anti-racist healing in nature to protect telomeres of transitional age BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and People of Color] for health equity.”

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and his counterparts from 15 Democratic-led states had sued to halt what they called an “unprecedented disruption to ongoing research.” They were joined by groups of researchers and public health advocates.

The state attorneys said their public universities were using grant money for “projects investigating heart disease, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, alcohol and substance abuse, mental-health issues, and countless other health conditions.”

They said NIH had terminated a grant for a University of California study examining how inflammation, insulin resistance, and physical activity affect Alzheimer’s disease in Black women, a group with higher rates and a more aggressive profile of the disease.

Also terminated they said was a University of Hawaiʻi study that aimed to identify genetic and biological risk factors for colorectal cancer among Native Hawaiians, a population with increased incidence and mortality rates of that disease.

In June, the Democratic state attorneys won a ruling from U.S. District Judge William G. Young, a Reagan appointee. He said the sudden halt to research grants violated a federal procedural law because it was “arbitrary” and poorly explained.

He said Trump had required agencies “to focus on eradicating anything that it labels as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (“DEI”), an undefined enemy.” He said he had tried and failed to get a clear definition of DEI and what it entailed.

When the 1st Circuit Court refused to lift the judge’s order, Trump’s Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer appealed to the Supreme Court in late July.

He noted the justices in April had set aside a similar decision from a Boston-based judge who blocked the new administration’s canceling of education grants.

The solicitor general argued that Trump’s order rescinded an executive order from President Biden in 2021 that mandated “an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda” and instructed federal agencies to “allocate resources to address the historic failure to invest sufficiently, justly, and equally in underserved communities.”

He said the new administration decided these DEI-related grants “do nothing to expand our knowledge of living systems, provide low returns on investment, and ultimately do not enhance health, lengthen life, or reduce illness.”

The Trump administration has canceled a sexual education grant to California worth about $12.3 million on the grounds that it included “radical gender ideology” after state officials refused to revise the materials.

The funding helps pay for sex education programs in juvenile justice facilities, homeless shelters and foster care group homes, as well as some schools, reaching an estimated 13,000 youths per year through 20 agencies.

State officials did not have an immediate response Thursday morning to the federal announcement, which was linked to a 60-day compliance deadline.

“California’s refusal to comply with federal law and remove egregious gender ideology from federally funded sex-ed materials is unacceptable,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison, of the Administration for Children and Families. “The Trump Administration will not allow taxpayer dollars to be used to indoctrinate children. Accountability is coming for every state that uses federal funds to teach children delusional gender ideology.”

State officials had taken the position that its materials are accurate and did not violate the terms of the federal grant.

California is not being accused of failing to carry out the abstinence and contraception instruction funded by the grant. Rather, the state has included additional content that the Trump administration defines as objectionable and “outside the scope” of the grant’s purpose.

A June 20 letter to a senior California official cited, as one of several examples, sample wording from a middle school lesson:

“We’ve been talking during class about messages people get on how they should act as boys and girls — but as many of you know, there are also people who don’t identify as boys or girls, but rather as transgender or gender queer. This means that even if they were called a boy or a girl at birth and may have body parts that are typically associated with being a boy or a girl, on the inside, they feel differently.”

The California Department of Public Health responded in an Aug. 19 letter that it “will not make any such modifications at this time” because its materials already had been approved by the same agency that is now demanding change. In addition, officials described the materials as “medically accurate” and relevant to the instructional goals. California also challenged whether the Trump administration had authority to cancel the grant in this manner.

The amount of money at stake is small compared with other issues that are being litigated between California and the Trump administration, but the dispute embodies now-familiar legal parameters that have resulted in more than three dozen lawsuits.

The grant cancellation also represents another front in the conflict between the Trump administration and California related to LGBTQ+ issues. These culture war-fueled disputes date back substantially to Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order that recognized two sexes, male and female, a dictum that has moved across all departments under his jurisdiction.

In youth sports, this divide has unfolded with Trump threatening to withhold vast sums of federal funding unless California bars transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports.

California has responded by creating dual-award categories for women’s sporting events, so that the success of a trans athlete, in a track-and-field competition for example, would not prevent another athlete from winning an award. The compromise does not address the issue of trans athletes in women’s team sports, such as volleyball.

The Trump administration does not accept these steps taken by California as compliance with its directives.

Within the classroom, the Trump policy opposes curriculum that allows for more than a binary — male or female — expression of gender. Historically, federal authority over local curriculum has been limited, but Trump has been quick to use federal funding as leverage.

In this case, it’s the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that has been applying pressure.

The children and families department administers a grant program that annually distributes $75 million nationally “to educate adolescents on … both abstinence and contraception for the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS,” according to federal statute.

For a three-year period, through the next fiscal year, California has been allotted funding worth more than $18.2 million, according to Health and Human Services. Under the federal decision, the state is expected to lose $12.3 million that it has not yet received, covering multiple years.

The federal grant supports the California Personal Responsibility Education Program, or CA PREP, which provides “comprehensive sexual health education to adolescents via effective, evidence-based or evidence-informed program models,” according to a statement from the state.

“Data show that participants who completed CA PREP had a better understanding of sexual and reproductive health topics and improved health outcomes,” the health department stated.

The Trump administration does not deny that the federal government had previously approved the California materials, but said the Biden administration “erred in allowing PREP grants to be used to teach students gender ideology.”

California law requires school districts to provide students with comprehensive sexual health education, along with information about HIV prevention, at least once in high school and once in middle school.

The Trump administration has asserted complete authority over federal grants, including those in progress. Many of its grant cancellations are being challenged in court. Some have been allowed to take effect; others have been blocked. In some instances, Congress has narrowly approved grant cancellations, including for foreign aid and to support the public broadcasting network.

Forrest, who lifted his maiden European Tour title at St Andrews almost exactly four years ago, took control of windy conditions over the weekend but saw his three-shot overnight advantage trimmed to two after Todd Clements’ birdie on the opening hole.

However, when Forrest birdied the fourth and Clements carded a triple-bogey eight at the same hole, the Scot led by five and never looked back.

The world number 294, who double-bogeyed the last, added two more birdies and a dropped shot in a closing 72 to finish with an eight-under-par total.

“It’s amazing, just speechless,” Forrest said. “I think it is the same week as I won four years ago on the calendar so just amazing, that must say something about this week and being at home.

“I just can’t believe it. It’s been such a tough year on the golf course. It’s just a crazy game that you can go and come out and do this, with what feels out of nowhere.

“It’s just that old chestnut that one week can turn things around and it has.”

NEW YORK — An executive order signed by President Trump this week aims to give political appointees power over the billions of dollars in grants awarded by federal agencies.

Scientists say it threatens to undermine the process that has helped make the U.S. the world leader in research and development.

The order issued Thursday requires all federal agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, to appoint officials responsible for reviewing federal funding opportunities and grants, so that they “are consistent with agency priorities and the national interest.”

It also requires agencies to make it so that current and future federal grants can be terminated at any time — including during the grant period.

Agencies cannot announce new funding opportunities until the new protocols are in place, according to the order.

The Trump administration said these changes are part of an effort to “strengthen oversight” and “streamline agency grantmaking.” Scientists say the order will cripple America’s scientific engine by placing control over federal research funds in the hands of people who are influenced by politics and lack relevant expertise.

“This is taking political control of a once politically neutral mechanism for funding science in the U.S.,” said Joseph Bak-Coleman, a scientist studying group decision-making at the University of Washington.

The changes will delay grant review and approval, slowing “progress for cures and treatments that patients and families across the country urgently need,” the Assn. of American Medical Colleges said in a statement.

The administration has already terminated thousands of research grants at agencies such as the NSF and NIH, on topics including transgender health, vaccine hesitancy, misinformation, and diversity, equity and inclusion. It has also threatened funding for scientific research in its battle with prominent universities, including Harvard and UCLA.

The order could affect emergency relief grants doled out by FEMA, public safety initiatives funded by the Department of Justice and public health efforts supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Experts say the order is likely to be challenged in court.

Ramakrishnan writes for the Associated Press.

Aug. 4 (UPI) — The federal government is approving more than $100 million in federal grant money for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for wetland conservations efforts in more than a half-million acres of critical migratory bird habitats.

The U.S. Department of Interior said Monday its Migratory Bird Conservation Commission approved $102.9 million in federal funding for the wildlife service and its partners to “conserve, restore or enhance” some 548,242 acres of key wetlands and its associated upland habitats across North America for migratory birds.

In addition, more than $201 million in matching funds will be granted by Fish and Wildlife partners.

According to the department, the financial infusion for wetland preservation came as part of the 1989 North American Wetlands Conservation Act.

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement that NAWCA has “fostered partnerships and an investment in wetland conservation that yield both ecological and economic returns for local communities and a broad range of industries,” which he said includes tourism, commercial fisheries, and the forestry and agriculture industries.

Burgum, who sits as chair of the migratory bird commission, said the federal grants will “increase and maintain healthy bird populations and wetland habitat” while “supporting local economies and improving public access to recreational activities for American traditions” such as hunting, fishing and birdwatching.

Interior said NAWCA is the only federal grant program targeted for the conservation of wetland habitats for migratory bird species.

More than $7.1 billion in federal funding since 1991 has advanced the conservation of wetland habitats in all 50 states, Canada and Mexico, according to DOI.

It added that more than 7,100 partners from private landowners to state, tribal and local governments, conservation groups, sportsmen’s clubs, land trusts and corporate entities had taken part in more than 3,400 federal projects.

On Sunday, a noted Marine biologist and conservationist said on social media that U.S. wetlands “are disappearing at a staggering rate” and pointed out that its restoration “can take centuries” to fix.

“This hits your safety, your health, your wallet — your future,” Dr. Tom Montgomery posted on X.

Montgomery noted that among 170 nations represented at the recent global summit on the wetland crisis in Zimbabwe that there were “two empty seats labeled ‘USA,'” he wrote.

A 2023 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court significantly curtailed the regulatory power of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate and protect water in wetlands under the Clean Water Act of 1972.

Yet DOI officials say the commission has aided in the conservation of “much of” America’s “most important” waterfowl habitats, saying the NAWCA legislation signed by then-President George H.W. Bush is one of the “most effective tools” the federal government has at its disposal for migratory bird conservation.

“NAWCA funding supports projects that enhance or establish areas for hunting and birdwatching, uplifting local economies and improving public access to recreational activities for future generations,” stated Justin “J” Shirley, principal deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Similar efforts by the prior Biden administration at wetland preservation included over $46 million last year in September to restore some 91,425 acres of wetland habitat in 17 states for waterfowl, shorebirds and other species. It came with nearly $100 million in partner matching funds.

In 2023 the year before a total of $50.9 million in NAWCA grants was matched by over $73 million in private partner grants.

The Trump administration has frozen hundreds of science, medical and other federal grants to UCLA worth nearly $200 million, citing the university’s alleged “discrimination” in admissions and failure to “promote a research environment free of antisemitism.”

The decision to pull funding comes after Atty. Gen.Pam Bondi and the Justice Department said this week that UCLA would pay a “heavy price” for acting with “deliberate indifference” to the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students who complained of antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza and campus protests the events spurred last year.

The cancellation of grants is the first large-scale targeted funding claw-back against UCLA under the Trump administration. Until now, the White House has largely focused its attempts to remake higher education on elite East Coast schools such as Columbia, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania. Each has reached deals with the government in recent weeks over issues including admissions, Jewish student life, student discipline, antisemitism training and gender identity in sports.

In a letter to UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk dated Wednesday, the National Science Foundation wrote that it was terminating grants because “the University of California – Los Angeles continues to engage in race discrimination including in its admissions process, and in other areas of student life.”

An estimated 300 NSF grants totaling $180 million have been canceled. About half of the funds were already distributed. Before the letter was released Thursday, researchers were expecting the other half to follow.

In a letter to the university community Thursday, Frenk wrote that the canceled grants are from NSF, NIH and other federal agencies, but he did not give a dollar amount or list the other agencies. A partial list of terminated grants reviewed by The Times added up to roughly $200 million. The list was provided by a source who was not authorized to share the information.

Frenk called the government’s decision “deeply disappointing” and “a loss for Americans across the nation whose work, health, and future depend on the groundbreaking work we do.”

“In its notice to us, the federal government claims antisemitism and bias as the reasons,” Frenk wrote. “This far-reaching penalty of defunding life-saving research does nothing to address any alleged discrimination.”

Spokespersons for the NSF and NIH did not immediately reply to requests for comment Thursday.

The federal government’s decision to cut UCLA off from significant federal funds follows a similar playbook to its dealings with Ivy League institutions.

The Trump administration this spring canceled billions of dollars in federal grants to Harvard, which has sued in federal court to reverse the terminations and stop a Trump move to rescind its ability to host international students. Harvard is separately in negotiations with the White House to end the legal fight.

Columbia University this month agreed to pay more than $200 million to the federal government to resolve investigations over alleged antisemitism amid its response to 2024 pro-Palestinian protests. On Wednesday, Brown University also came to a $50-million agreement with the White House. The Brown payment will go toward Rhode Island workforce development programs.

The Department of Justice said this week that it had found UCLA guilty of violating the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students. The department also indicated that it wanted to the university to enter into negotiations to avoid a federal lawsuit.

The department gave UCLA a Tuesday deadline to communicate its desire to negotiate. If not, the DOJ said, it was ready to sue by Sept. 2.

The University of California, in a statement, was unclear on whether it would settle or go to court.

“UCLA has addressed and will continue to address the issues raised in [the] Department of Justice notice,” Stett Holbrook, associate director of Strategic and Critical Communications, wrote in a statement Wednesday. He cited a $6.45-million settlement the university reached with Jewish students who had sued over claims that the 2024 encampment had discriminated against them.

“We have cooperated fully with the Department of Justice’s investigation and are reviewing its findings closely,” Holbrook wrote.

In his Thursday letter, Frenk shot back against the cuts.

“Let me be clear: Federal research grants are not handouts. Our researchers compete fiercely for these grants, proposing work that the government itself deems vital to the country’s health, safety and economic future,” he wrote.

“Grants lead to medical breakthroughs, economic advancement, improved national security and global competitiveness — these are national priorities,” Frenk wrote, adding that “we are actively evaluating our best course of action. We will be in constant communication as decisions move forward.”

A top US Department of State official waived nine mandatory counterterrorism and anti-fraud safeguards to rush a $30m award last month to a controversial Gaza aid group backed by the Trump administration and Israel, the Reuters news agency reported, citing an internal memorandum.

Jeremy Lewin, a former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) associate, signed off on the award despite an assessment in the memorandum that the GHF funding plan failed to meet required “minimum technical or budgetary standards”.

The June 24 action memorandum to Lewin was sent by Kenneth Jackson, also a former DOGE operative who serves as an acting deputy US Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator. The pair has overseen the agency’s dismantling and the merger of its functions into the State Department.

Lewin also overrode 58 objections that USAID staff experts wanted GHF to resolve in its application before the funds were approved, the Reuters news agency reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

Lewin, who runs the State Department’s foreign aid programme, cleared the funds only five days after GHF filed its proposal on June 19, according to the June 24 “action memorandum” bearing his signature.

“Strong Admin support for this one,” Lewin wrote to USAID leaders in a June 25 email, Reuters reported, that urged disbursement of the funds by the agency “ASAP”.

Lewin and Jackson have not issued comments on the matter.

The documents underline the priority the Trump administration has given GHF despite the group’s lack of experience and the killing of hundreds of Palestinians near its Gaza aid distribution hubs.

GHF, which closely coordinates with the Israeli military, has acknowledged reports of violence, but claims they occurred beyond its operations area.

Lewin noted in the email that he had discussed the funds with aides to Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s negotiator on Gaza, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s office.

He acknowledged that authorising the funds would be controversial, writing, “I’m taking the bullet on this one.”

‘Inhumane and deadly’

There was no comment from the White House.

Reuters said Witkoff and Rubio did not reply to a question about whether they were aware of and supported the decision to waive the safeguards.

The State Department told Reuters that the $30m was approved under a legal provision allowing USAID to expedite awards in response to “emergency situations” to “meet humanitarian needs as expeditiously as possible”.

“The GHF award remains subject to rigorous oversight, including of GHF’s operations and finances,” the statement said. “As part of the award, GHF was subject to new control and reporting requirements”.

A GHF spokesperson told Reuters, “Our model is specifically designed to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse. Every dollar we receive is safeguarded to ensure all resources — which will eventually include American taxpayer funds — reach the people of Gaza.” The spokesperson added that such requests for clarification from the US government about fund applications were routine.

Speaking about the nine conditions that were waived, the spokesperson said, “We are addressing each question as per regulations and normal procedure and will continue to do so as required.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry has said at least 743 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,891 others injured while seeking assistance at GHF aid sites.

The GHF, which began operating in the bombarded Palestinian enclave in late May, has drawn widespread criticism amid multiple reports that its contractors, as well as Israeli forces, have opened fire on aid seekers.

Leading humanitarian and human rights groups have demanded the immediate closure of the GHF, which they accused of “forcing two million people into overcrowded, militarised zones where they face daily gunfire and mass casualties”.

Amnesty International has described the group’s operations as an “inhumane and deadly militarised scheme”, while the UN insists that the model is violating humanitarian principles.

Palestinians under bombardment in Gaza, where a famine looms as Israel maintains a crippling blockade, have no choice but to seek aid from the GHF despite the risks involved.

Over the last several months, a deep sense of unease has settled over laboratories across the United States. Researchers at every stage — from graduate students to senior faculty — have been forced to shelve experiments, rework career plans, and quietly warn each other not to count on long-term funding. Some are even considering leaving the country altogether.

This growing anxiety stems from an abrupt shift in how research is funded — and who, if anyone, will receive support moving forward. As grants are being frozen or rescinded with little warning and layoffs begin to ripple through institutions, scientists have been left to confront a troubling question: Is it still possible to build a future in U.S. science?

On May 2, the White House released its Fiscal Year 2026 Discretionary Budget Request, proposing a nearly $18-billion cut from the National Institutes of Health. This cut, which represents approximately 40% of the NIH’s 2025 budget, is set to take effect on Oct. 1 if adopted by Congress.

“This proposal will have long-term and short-term consequences,” said Stephen Jameson, president of the American Assn. of Immunologists. “Many ongoing research projects will have to stop, clinical trials will have to be halted, and there’ll be the knock-on effects on the trainees who are the next generation of leaders in biomedical research. So I think there’s going to be varied and potentially catastrophic effects, especially on the next generation of our researchers, which in turn will lead to a loss of the status of the U.S. as a leader in biomedical research.“

In the request, the administration justified the move as part of its broader commitment to “restoring accountability, public trust, and transparency at the NIH.” It accused the NIH of engaging in “wasteful spending” and “risky research,” releasing “misleading information,” and promoting “dangerous ideologies that undermine public health.”

National Institutes of Health.

(NIH.gov)

To track the scope of NIH funding cuts, a group of scientists and data analysts launched Grant Watch, an independent project that monitors grant cancellations at the NIH and the National Science Foundation. This database compiles information from public government records, official databases, and direct submissions from affected researchers, grant administrators, and program directors.

As of July 3, Grant Watch reports 4,473 affected NIH grants, totaling more than $10.1 billion in lost or at-risk funding. These include research and training grants, fellowships, infrastructure support, and career development awards — and affect large and small institutions across the country. Research grants were the most heavily affected, accounting for 2,834 of the listed grants, followed by fellowships (473), career development awards (374) and training grants (289).

The NIH plays a foundational role in U.S. research. Its grants support the work of more than 300,000 scientists, technicians and research personnel, across some 2,500 institutions and comprising the vast majority of the nation’s biomedical research workforce. As an example, one study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that funding from the NIH contributed to research associated with every one of the 210 new drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration between 2010 and 2016.

Jameson emphasized that these kinds of breakthroughs are made possible only by long-term federal investment in fundamental research. “It’s not just scientists sitting in ivory towers,” he said. “There are enough occasions where [basic research] produces something new and actionable — drugs that will save lives.”

That investment pays off in other ways too. In a 2025 analysis, United for Medical Research, a nonprofit coalition of academic research institutions, patient groups and members of the life sciences industry, found that every dollar the NIH spends generates $2.56 in economic activity.

A ‘brain drain’ on the horizon

Support from the NIH underpins not only research, but also the training pipeline for scientists, physicians and entrepreneurs — the workforce that fuels U.S. leadership in medicine, biotechnology and global health innovation. But continued American preeminence is not a given. Other countries are rapidly expanding their investments in science and research-intensive industries.

If current trends continue, the U.S. risks undergoing a severe “brain drain.” In a March survey conducted by Nature, 75% of U.S. scientists said they were considering looking for jobs abroad, most commonly in Europe and Canada.

This exodus would shrink domestic lab rosters, and could erode the collaborative power and downstream innovation that typically follows discovery. “It’s wonderful that scientists share everything as new discoveries come out,” Jameson said. “But, you tend to work with the people who are nearby. So if there’s a major discovery in another country, they will work with their pharmaceutical companies to develop it, not ours.”

At UCLA, Dr. Antoni Ribas has already started to see the ripple effects. “One of my senior scientists was on the job market,” Ribas said. “She had a couple of offers before the election, and those offers were higher than anything that she’s seen since. What’s being offered to people looking to start their own laboratories and independent research careers is going down — fast.”

In addition, Ribas, who directs the Tumor Immunology Program at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, says that academia and industry are now closing their door to young talent. “The cuts in academia will lead to less positions being offered,” Ribas explained. “Institutions are becoming more reluctant to attract new faculty and provide startup packages.” At the same time, he said, the biotech industry is also struggling. “Even companies that were doing well are facing difficulties raising enough money to keep going, so we’re losing even more potential positions for researchers that are finishing their training.”

This comes at a particularly bitter moment. Scientific capabilities are soaring, with new tools allowing researchers to examine single cells in precise detail, probe every gene in the genome, and even trace diseases at the molecular level. “It’s a pity,” Ribas said, “Because we have made demonstrable progress in treating cancer and other diseases. But now we’re seeing this artificial attack being imposed on the whole enterprise.”

Without federal support, he warns, the system begins to collapse. “It’s as if you have a football team, but then you don’t have a football field. We have the people and the ideas, but without the infrastructure — the labs, the funding, the institutional support — we can’t do the research.”

For graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in particular, funding uncertainty has placed them in a precarious position.

“I think everyone is in this constant state of uncertainty,” said Julia Falo, a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley and recording secretary of UAW 4811, the union for workers at the University of California. “We don’t know if our own grants are going to be funded, if our supervisor’s grants are going to be funded, or even if there will be faculty jobs in the next two years.”

She described colleagues who have had funding delayed or withdrawn without warning, sometimes for containing flagged words like “diverse” or “trans-” or even for having any international component.

The stakes are especially high for researchers on visas. As Falo points out for those researchers, “If the grant that is funding your work doesn’t exist anymore, you can be issued a layoff. Depending on your visa, you may have only a few months to find a new job — or leave the country.”

A graduate student at a California university, who requested anonymity due to the potential impact on their own position — which is funded by an NIH grant— echoed those concerns. “I think we’re all a little on edge. We’re all nervous,” they said. “We have to make sure that we’re planning only a year in advance, just so that we can be sure that we’re confident of where that funding is going to come from. In case it all of a sudden gets cut.”

The student said their decision to pursue research was rooted in a desire to study rare diseases often overlooked by industry. After transitioning from a more clinical setting, they were drawn to academia for its ability to fund smaller, higher-impact projects — the kind that might never turn a profit but could still change lives. They hope to one day become a principal investigator, or PI, and lead their own research lab.

Now, that path feels increasingly uncertain. “If things continue the way that they have been,” they said. “I’m concerned about getting or continuing to get NIH funding, especially as a new PI.”

Still, they are staying committed to academic research. “If we all shy off and back down, the people who want this defunded win.”

Rallying behind science

Already, researchers, universities and advocacy groups have been pushing back against the proposed budget cut.

On campuses across the country, students and researchers have organized rallies, marches and letter-writing campaigns to defend federal research funding. “Stand Up for Science” protests have occurred nationwide, and unions like UAW 4811 have mobilized across the UC system to pressure lawmakers and demand support for at-risk researchers. Their efforts have helped prevent additional state-level cuts in California: in June, the Legislature rejected Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed $129.7-million reduction to the UC budget.

Earlier this year, a coalition of public health groups, researchers and unions — led by the American Public Health Assn. — sued the NIH and Department of Health and Human Services over the termination of more than a thousand grants. On June 16, U.S. District Judge William Young ruled in their favor, ordering the NIH to reinstate over 900 canceled grants and calling the terminations unlawful and discriminatory. Although the ruling applies only to grants named in the lawsuit, it marks the first major legal setback to the administration’s research funding rollback.

Though much of the current spotlight (including that lawsuit) has focused on biomedical science, the proposed NIH cuts threaten research far beyond immunology or cancer. Fields ranging from mental health to environmental science stand to lose crucial support. And although some grants may be in the process of reinstatement, the damage already done — paused projects, lost jobs and upended career paths — can’t simply be undone with next year’s budget.

And yet, amid the fear and frustration, there’s still resolve. “I’m floored by the fact that the trainees are still devoted,” Jameson said. “They still come in and work hard. They’re still hopeful about the future.”

June 18 (UPI) — President Donald Trump extended a pause on legislation banning TikTok from operating in the United States a third time, extending it for a further 90 days to allow time for a deal to split the firm’s U.S. business from its Chinese parent company.

The White House said Tuesday that Trump would sign a fresh executive order this week instructing the Justice Department not to take measures or impose fines on TikTok or tech providers such as Google and Apple for allowing the video-sharing app to remain on their platforms.

“As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark. This extension will last 90 days, which the Administration will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure,” said Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

The previous 75-day extension from April, which was due to expire on Thursday, came after his administration agreed a deal, according to CBS News, to spin off TikTok’s American operation into a majority U.S.-owned entity.

However, that deal was derailed by Trump’s imposition of severe tariffs on China with parent ByteDance saying Beijing would not authorize the sale while the dispute over tariffs and trade was ongoing — although TikTok maintained the deal was not finalized and approval from Beijing was a given.

Trump said Tuesday that he was confident that Beijing would give its blessing.

“I think President Xi [Jinping] will ultimately approve it.”

A convert to TikTok after trying to ban it in his first 2017- 2021 term, Trump acknowledges security concerns over the personal data of American users ending up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party that prompted Democrats to join in passing a Republican bill requiring TikTok to sell by Jan. 19 this year, or be shutdown.

The latest extension takes that deadline to mid-September, almost 18 months after the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was signed into law by then-President Joe Biden in April 2024.

It’s been over three decades since Four Weddings and a Funeral was released on the big screen, and the Richard Curtis rom-com still holds a special place in the hearts of audiences everywhere

For over thirty years, Four Weddings and a Funeral has shown that a film with a lot of heart can go a long way. Despite being one of the most beloved romantic comedies out there, and helping catapult some of its stars to new levels of fame, it was actually a really low-budget project.

It cost only £3 million to make – which might sound like a lot, but in Hollywood terms is as cheap as chips – and was shot over just six weeks.

But despite being a small movie, Four Weddings is still one of the British public’s favourite rom-coms after all these years, and it cemented Hugh Grant as a household name in the UK, along with his girlfriend Liz Hurley.

Her stunning and risque Versace dress – the barely-there piece was held together with safety pins – captured serious attention at the Four Weddings premiere, and has become an iconic moment in fashion history.

The movie’s producer, Duncan Kenworthy, remembered discussing what Liz might wear when going for lunch with her and Hugh the week before the premiere, “Liz said, ‘I have absolutely no idea at this point’,” he said, adding that “With every piece about Liz came a mention of the film, so it was great publicity. The premiere was an extraordinary event.”

After the film’s release on March 11, 1994, even the movie’s theme song – Love is All Around by Wet, Wet, Wet – found major success, and spent 15 weeks at the top of the charts.

Pretty much every character in the film has become totally beloved by audiences, from the floppy-haired Charles as lead, to his quirky flatmate Scarlet, and the laugh-a-minute, over-the-top Gareth.

Duncan, 73, has said that they were totally consumed by their “little film” during the two years production took and that due to issues finding finance for the film, “We were making it for a long time in our heads before we actually made it in reality”.

However, even though they were working on a budget, everyone around them really believed that Four Weddings would go the distance.

“I remember sitting and watching the Oscars on telly with friends the year before we made Four Weddings and they all said, ‘You’ll be there next year’ and laughed,” Duncan explained.

“Literally a year later, there I was, at the Oscars, with a Best Picture nomination. It was unthinkable, really. In those days there were only five nominees for best picture at the Oscars. It shows what a big impact the film made – not just with the public but within the film world, too.”

Despite its popularity, Four Weddings and a Funeral didn’t take home Best Picture, but to be fair, they faced some pretty stiff competition that year, with other nominees in 1995 including Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, and Forrest Gump – with the latter taking home the statue.

Four Weddings did manage to score a host of BAFTAs, however, for its depiction of Hugh Grant as the slightly-hopeless Charles attending a series of landmark occasions in his loved one’s lives – and falling in love with American socialite, Carrie – played by Andie MacDowell.

Casting the film presented the production team with a few challenges, particularly when it came to the lead role of Charles. Whilst it might seem impossible to imagine anyone else playing him now, Richard Curtis is said to have had more than few doubts about his ability to carry the role.

Over 70 people were auditioned for the role, but in the end it came down to Hugh Grant and one other choice.

“It sounds odd now but the other actor in the frame was Alan Rickman, who’d really cut through in the Robin Hood movie. Mike, Richard and I simply couldn’t agree which of them to cast, so we voted in secret,” Duncan explained.

“We were an odd number, and it came out 2 to 1 in favour of Hugh Grant. It’s a cause of enormous delight to me that it was Richard who nearly ended Hugh’s romcom career before it even started.”

Hugh Grant has also revealed that Richard Curtis definitely was not a fan of him during the auditioning process, saying “[My audition] was in front of Mike Newell, the director, who seemed to quite like me, and Richard Curtis, who seemed to want me dead. He really hated me. Apparently there was a bit of a fight between them…. and Richard didn’t want me at all.”

The actor also revealed that before the movie’s release, he thought it would be a total flop, and he said as much to his friend Sam Neil over dinner one night. Later, Hugh said about his initial impression of the rom-com “I was clearly wrong and the film changed my life. It was the beginning of a happy friendship with Richard Curtis, and I’ve always had the greatest respect for Mike Newell who taught me things I use to this day.”

Despite the rocky start to Richard’s impression of Hugh, the pair went on to make two other iconic rom-coms together, Notting Hill and Love Actually, so the actor obviously convinced him eventually that he had it in him.

Finding someone to play Carrie also presented some challenges, Duncan explained, and after an extensive auditioning process in the US, they offered the role to two actresses – both of whom turned it down.

Back in the UK, they heard on the grapevine that established actress Andie MacDowell was in town, and quickly arranged a meeting, “We found out Andie MacDowell was staying at The Dorchester, so Mike and I arranged to meet her in the bar. As soon as we met her, Mike knew she was the one,” the producer said.

And it was Andie who would end up delivering probably the film’s most famous – and cheesy – line after Hugh Grant’s character declared his undying love for her as the pair stood in the pouring rain. “Is it still raining? I hadn’t noticed,” Carrie deadpans, a delivery that Duncan thinks in hindsight might have missed the mark.

“Of course Carrie knows it’s raining! She’s drenched, he’s drenched. She means it ironically,” he explained. “If Andie had said it with a smile, no one would have mentioned it!”

Four Weddings and a Funeral is packed with laughs – and at the funeral of Gareth more than a few tears – and it’s popularity is such that it has even born a TV show. Created by Mindy Kaling, the show over ten episodes followed the framework of the film – but it didn’t resonate with the public in the same way the film had.

When it comes to the continued love for Four Weddings, and its longstanding legacy, Duncan said: “To think there’s still interest in the film, all these years later, is surprising but lovely.”

June 7 (UPI) — A former Arkansas police chief who escaped from a prison 12 days ago was apprehended about a mile and half from where he was incarcerated in northwest Arkansas.

Grant Hardin, known as the “Devil in the Ozarks,” was caught around 3 p.m. local time Friday by Arkansas law enforcement officers and the U.S. Border Patrol, according to Arkansas Department of Corrections.

Hardin, 56, was an inmate at the North Central Unit in Calico Rock in Izard County for murder and rape. Calico Rock is 126 miles north of Little Rock.

Tracking dogs picked up Hardin’s scent west of the prison near Moccasin Creek in Izard County, the state agency said.

Hardin was brought back to the North Central Unit where he was identified using his fingerprint and for a physical exam before he was moved to the Varner SuperMax Unit in Gould, Arkansas, Arkansas Department of Corrections spokesperson Rand Champion told CNN.

After a dayslong manhunt that crossed several states, Champion said Hardin would be interviewed to learn more about his escape and nearly two weeks on the run.

“This was a great joint operation by a number of agencies, and I’m so thankful for their tireless efforts,” Dexter Payne, director of the Division of Correction in Arkansas’ Department of Corrections, said in an agency press release. “The Arkansas State Police, U.S. Marshals, FBI, Border Patrol, Game and Fish, all the state and local agencies, along with the dedication of our Department employees, all played an indispensable role and I express my extreme gratitude.”

Hardin escaped from the prison at approximately 2:55 p.m. on May 25. The agency said he “was wearing a makeshift outfit designed to mimic law enforcement” when he escaped, but was not wearing an actual guard uniform and all DOC-issued equipment was accounted for.

Hardin is the former chief of police for the city of Gateway in Benton County, which had a population of 444 people in 2023. He also was a police officer, county constable and corrections officer. Gateway, which is near the Missouri border, is 129 miles west of Calico Rock.

Since 2017, he was in the North Central Unit serving a 30-year sentence for first-degree murder, and 25 years for each rape count.

He pleaded guilty to the murder of James Appleton, 59, a city water employee found shot in the face inside his work truck in October 2017, KNWA reported.

Hardin’s DNA linked him to the 1997 rape of a teacher, the TV station reported. Amy Harrison, a teacher at Frank Tillery Elementary in Rogers, was ambushed while preparing lesson plans at the school when she was ambushed and assaulted by a man with a gun.

“He’s a sociopath,” former Benton County prosecutor Nathan Smith told Arkansas ABC affiliate KHBS/KHOG. “Prison’s not full of people who are all bad. It’s full of a lot of people who just do bad things. Grant’s different.”

The FBI offered a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to his arrest.

“Arkansans can breathe a sigh of relief because violent criminal Grant Hardin is now in custody,” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders posted on X. “I am grateful for all law enforcement who contributed to his capture and give special thanks to the Trump administration and Secretary Kristi Noem, who sent a team from Border Patrol that was instrumental in tracking and apprehending Hardin.”

California on Wednesday joined 15 other states filing suit against the National Science Foundation and its acting director, alleging the agency has illegally terminated millions of dollars in grants and imposed new fees that have ended or crippled research vital to health, the economy and the advancement of knowledge.

The Trump administration has defended its actions as both legal and necessary to align the NSF with the president’s priorities.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York, specifically targets the science foundation for “terminating grants for scientific research that seeks to promote and understand diversity in higher education and the workforce,” according to a statement from California Atty. General Rob Bonta.

The suit alleges that the NSF’s actions are illegally arbitrary and capricious and violate federal law on the management and use of federal funding.

Bonta’s office asserted that between 1995 and 2017, the number of women in science and engineering occupations, or with science or engineering degrees, doubled with help from federal support; minorities, meanwhile, went from representing about 15% in the occupations to about 35%.

The suit also seeks to overturn the Trump administration’s 15% cap on indirect costs related to research, which universities say are critical to carrying out their work. Such indirect costs include maintaining lab space, keeping the temperature controlled and the proper handling and disposal of biological, chemical and biochemical materials.

Like other key federal agencies, the National Science Foundation has been in turmoil since Trump took office in January — undergoing across-the-board funding cuts, layoffs and reorganization as well as apparent ideological litmus tests for research, sweeping grant terminations and a funding freeze on grant applications.

The Trump administration has fired back at critics.

Earlier this month Michael Kratsios, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, criticized diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in federally funded research, calling them “close-minded” in a speech before the National Academy of Sciences in Washington.

Kratsios also called for a reduction of “red tape” in scientific research, the online news site FedScoop reported. He said there is a “crisis of confidence in scientists” that comes from fears that political biases are impacting research.

Trump officials also have repeatedly maintained that the federal government is rife with waste and fraud.

The federal actions have come at extreme cost, according to Bonta.

“President Trump wants to make America’s universities second tier with his backwards efforts to slash research funding that has kept us on the cutting edge of science and innovation,” Bonta said. “For more than 50 years, Congress has expressly authorized the National Science Foundation to train up the next generation of talent and invest in the infrastructure necessary to keep our position as a global leader” in science, technology, engineering and math.

“With President Trump’s latest round of indiscriminate funding cuts, America is poised to fall behind its competitors at a critical moment in the global technology race. We’re suing to stop him,” Bonta said.

In California, billions of dollars are at risk across the California State University, University of California and public community college systems.

“Many innovations — like the internet, GPS, and MRI technology — trace their origins to research initially funded by NSF. Without NSF funding, many California colleges and universities will be forced to substantially reduce or stop altogether potentially groundbreaking programs and research projects,” according to Bonta’s office.

Terminated NSF grants, for instance, include a five-year, $3-million project, “Computational Research for Equity in the Legal System.” This study examined crime data for patterns of racial bias while also looking at police misconduct and eviction policies, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Canceled UC Berkeley grants included projects on electoral systems and two on environmental science education.

The NSF has also told staff to screen grant proposals for “topics or activities that may not be in alignment with agency priorities” that had shifted under the Trump administration, the journal Nature reported.

The lawsuit lays out a wide range of benefits and goals of the federal funding.

“From developing AI technology that predicts weather patterns to protect communities, to developing sustainable solutions for environmental and economic challenges, to making power grids more sustainable, NSF-funded research at American universities ensures this nation’s status as a global leader in scientific innovation,” according to the lawsuit.

The other states involved in the litigation are Hawaii, New York, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Washington.

The pattern of federal cuts and turmoil related to research also is playing out with the National Institutes of Health. And California also is party to a lawsuit over cuts to these grants.

Tara Kerin, a project scientist who works in pediatric infectious disease research at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, said that the funding cuts at the National Science Foundation echoed similar ones made at the National Institutes of Health.

That, she said, makes her “very nervous about the future of science and research.”

Kerin, whose work has partly focused on HIV prevention and detection in young adults, was funded by NIH grants — until they were cut this spring.