This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. Charles Koch never uttered his name, but it was mighty clear that President Donald Trump was on his, and everyone else’s, mind Thursday night at a glitzy gala that might have as well have been Koch Con. “With so much change, and chaos, and conflict, too many people and organizations are abandoning these principles and turning to power to solve problems,” said the 89-year-old billionaire industrialist behind some of the most formidable organizations on the political Right. “But we know from history, this just makes them worse. “People have forgotten that when principles are lost, so are freedom and progress,” he added at the gala convened in his honor by the Cato Institute, the libertarian think tank he founded. Charles Koch has long been a foe of protectionism and an evangelist for free markets, competitive advantage, and mutual benefit. In fact, the remarks he delivered Thursday evening—just a few minutes of efficiently coded winks and nods sprinkled with quotes from philosophical favorites Friedrich Hayek and Frederick Douglass—could just as easily have come a decade ago or a decade later. But they came in May 2025, at a moment when Trump and his economic team are engaging in some of the riskiest and costliest brinksmanship over global trade in a generation. And when the head of the second-largest private company in the United States speaks, there’s an oracle-like aura that demands parsing. “You can see why we’re in the mess we are today,” Koch said. The “mess” was as explicit as he was willing to get in regard to a pursuit of power at all costs that led to the long-building Trump’s movement and what has unfolded in the first months of his second term. The President marked his 100th day in office this week with a report from his Commerce Department that showed the economy shrunk in his first quarter. His trade war has shifted buying patterns, shaken U.S. consumer confidence, and rattled the stock market. Consumers are already starting to notice costs rising from Trump’s tariff strategy, which has been all over the map: adding some here, delaying them there, canceling them here, upping them there. It is, to those who share Koch’s worldview, government intervention run amok. Koch and free-market ideals have long been wed. Charles, along with his late brother David Koch, has been a force in conservative circles for a half century, funding and fueling dozens of efforts to help small-government causes. Americans for Prosperity—a conservative powerhouse of volunteers, ads, and door-knockers—is one of the backbones of the grassroots efforts that have bolstered Republicans for decades—and AFP’s partner groups targeting veterans, young voters, voters of color, and women have all proven efficient investments for the Kochs and their circle of high-dollar pals. But it has always been a mistake for Republicans to assume blind political fealty from Charles Koch and his lieutenants. Koch-linked groups helped muscle through Trump’s first-term tax cuts and they were back in the field trying to push their extension even before Trump came back to Washington. Trump also worked with the Koch orbit on a massive rewrite of the criminal justice system and Koch-minded activists cheered on Trump-era efforts to let terminally ill patients access medical treatments that had not yet fully cleared FDA vetting. Yet the Koch groups were patently against Trump’s ban on migrants from countries with Muslim majorities, objected to his hardline view of immigration, and fought for legal status for Dreamers. In fact, the Koch orbit did its best to ignore Trump, sitting out the 2016 general election after flirting with other potential nominees who came up short. Shunned by the ultra-rich circle, Trump claimed he had turned down their invitation to join a closed-door summit that summer, but it was clear an offer had never been extended. In 2020, the Koch universe went to ground on the White House race, too, saying their focus was the Senate. And four years later, their collection of groups spent $42 million to unsuccessfully keep Trump from becoming the nominee for a third time. Its flagship political arm, Americans for Prosperity, dumped almost $160 million into political and policy advocacy in the last cycle without lifting a penny to help Trump. Despite his recent setbacks on the political stage, Koch and his fans are not shying from the fight. When a hype video played before his speech, the crowd laughed when criticism from Bernie Sanders, Tucker Carlson, and Lou Dobbs played on the screens—a nod to the fact that Koch is reviled by those who otherwise share zero in common, yet has not backed down. And judging from the applause in the room when Cato president and CEO Peter Goettler said explicitly what Koch merely waved at, the feistiness is not fading. “We will always oppose when a policy is moving in a direction that contradicts these principles,” Goettler said. “When the President disappears people without due process, or enacts extra-legal tariffs that threaten business and prosperity around the world, or targets individual law firms for retribution and calls into great danger to the rule of law, we’ll stick to our principles, speak out, push back, and oppose it.” The free-market fanboys and libertarian aficionados have spent almost a half century decrying the exact meddling that Trump is now engaging in. A hands-off-the-market approach has been sacrosanct for these wonks. Lost on no one was the fact that Koch was in town—a rare visit, really—to accept the 2025 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, named in honor of the economist who was pretty strident in his opposition to tariffs. Tariffs that have come to define Washington over the last few weeks.

Five former National Weather Service directors have taken the unusual step of signing onto an open letter warning that cuts to the organization by the Trump administration may soon endanger lives. “N.W.S. staff will have an impossible task to continue its current level of services,” they write in the letter, dated Friday. “Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life.” Hundreds of Weather Service employees, or about 10 percent of the agency’s total staff, have been terminated or accepted buyout offers since President Trump began his second term, according to the letter. The letter notes that the coming weeks are “the busiest time for severe storm predictions like tornadoes and hurricanes,” and it points to a wide range of activities that rely on accurate forecasting: “Airplanes can’t fly without weather observations and forecasts; ships crossing the oceans rely on storm forecasts to avoid the high seas; farmers rely on seasonal forecasts to plant and harvest their crops which feed us.” “Perhaps most importantly,” they write, “N.W.S. issues all of the tornado warnings, hurricane warnings, flood warnings, extreme wildfire conditions and other information during extreme weather events.” The loss of staff is already affecting local forecast offices, said Joe Friday, who led the Weather Service from 1988 to 1997 and who signed the letter. “You have offices that cannot maintain their balloon launch schedules,” he said. “You have offices that cannot maintain 24-hour-a-day operations fully staffed.” The more than 100 Weather Service offices around the country have traditionally launched at least two balloons a day to collect data that helps them produce forecast models. In an interview, Dr. Friday said he was concerned that meteorologists who are stretched increasingly thin will be left to issue severe weather warnings with less lead time. “There’s going to be fewer people keeping their eyes on what’s going on,” he said. In addition to Dr. Friday, the letter was signed by Louis Uccellini, who led the Weather Service from 2013 to 2022; Jack Hayes, who led it from 2007 to 2012; D.L. Johnson, who led it from 2004 to 2007; and John J. Kelly Jr., who led it from 1998 to 2004. The Weather Service declined to comment on the letter on Friday. The agency may soon face another challenge. On Friday, the White House published a budget proposal including a $1.5 billion cut in funding to the Weather Service’s parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has already faced the loss of hundreds of employees. Editors’ Picks How Pickle Lemonade Took Over the Group Chat Kristen Stewart Thinks the Critics at Cannes Are Being Too Nice Living the Slop Life Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The budget proposal does not describe specific reductions in funding to the Weather Service, but the cuts planned for NOAA’s research arm could have a profound effect on meteorologists’ capacity to improve forecasting techniques. “Given the interconnectedness of all of the parts of NOAA, there will be impacts to weather forecasting as well,” the letter says. The proposed cuts at NOAA echo a plan laid out in Project 2025, a policy playbook published by the conservative Heritage Foundation in 2023 that described the agency as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” It called for NOAA to be “broken up” and for the Weather Service to be privatized. Dr. Friday said he worried that a forced decline in the accuracy of Weather Service products could eventually offer a pretext for the agency’s privatization. “If you want to basically wipe out an organization, the personnel policies that are going on right now under DOGE are probably about the best way to do it,” Dr. Friday said. “You destroy the organization from the inside.”

Alandmark agreement for Ukraine to hand over half of its future oil, gas and mineral wealth to the U.S. may be thawing a cold war within the Republican Party. For more than a year, Republicans have been at odds over the war-torn country, with Trump-aligned lawmakers skeptical of continued involvement and national security hawks intent on countering Russia's continued invasion. But several Republicans in Congress told TIME Thursday that the deal gives both factions what they need: a path to continued support that could be sold to voters as either a business arrangement or a moral obligation—or both. “Yesterday was a very bad day for the dictator and war criminal, Vladimir Putin,” Senator Roger Wicker, a Kansas Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, tells TIME. “The door is now open for more aid. It's a game changer." The deal, completed on Wednesday after months of negotiations, will give the U.S. a 50% stake in all new oil, gas and mineral projects and infrastructure inside Ukraine and will be used to fund Ukrainian purchases of U.S. weapons systems. The terms, which still have to be ratified by Ukraine’s parliament, seem to have dissolved weeks of tension between the inner circles of President Donald Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky after Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance dressed down Zelensky in a heated Oval Office exchange. The U.S. has provided more than $66 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since Russia launched a full scale invasion of the country in 2022. In recent months, Trump and Congressional Republicans have balked at sending more U.S. assistance to the country, pressuring Ukraine to make territorial concessions to Russia in exchange for a ceasefire agreement. But Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have overplayed his hand by continuing to launch fatal strikes into Kyiv during the talks, frustrating Trump and exposing how little influence he has with the Russian leader. While the agreement does not offer Ukraine the security guarantees it had long sought, it does, in effect, give Trump and his allies a tangible, economic rationale for maintaining U.S. aid. For long-time Ukraine-backers in the Capitol, the deal revives the prospect of Congress appropriating more funds to Ukraine as early as this year. “This puts American skin in the game,” Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma tells TIME. Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa calls the agreement a “huge breakthrough” that allows Trump “to say to the American people that the Ukrainians will pay us back, and we can continue providing the military aid to defend something we are really invested in.” The joint U.S.-Ukraine investment fund will be administered by both countries and financed through revenues from future energy and mineral projects, including those tied to Ukraine’s vast reserves of lithium, titanium, and rare earth elements, according to a Trump administration official. Existing operations will remain fully under Ukrainian control, and ownership of all resources will remain with Ukraine. But going forward, Kyiv would be required to match any new U.S. military assistance with a resource-based contribution to the fund. Zelensky’s leadership team was buoyant about the terms. “This is excellent news—we’re feeling optimistic,” says a foreign policy advisor to Zelensky who was involved in the negotiations. Ukrainian negotiators were able to “take out all the really onerous stuff” proposed by the U.S., the adviser says, leaving a deal in which the costs to Ukraine “look minimal.” While the deal lacks an explicit promise the U.S. will protect Ukraine from more Russian incursions, giving the U.S. a financial stake in the country’s future may be the next best thing. “This is probably as close as we’re going to get to security guarantees with this administration,” the advisor tells TIME. A former senior Ukrainian official had a more measured reaction, noting that the agreement doesn’t change much on the battlefield. “It’s hard to call this a security guarantee. The Americans can tell the Russians not to attack any projects with US investment. But that does not give security to the rest of the country,” the former official says. The reaction from Democrats was also mixed, with some warning that the deal risks turning U.S. foreign policy into a pay-to-play operation. For lawmakers who had long supported Ukraine based on shared democratic values and geopolitical interests, the shift to an explicitly transactional arrangement was jarring. “My worry is that Trump will succumb to the bully Putin,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tells TIME. “He's doing these elaborate dances, but the proof of the pudding will be if he stands up to Putin, if he stands up for Zelensky, when they're going to sign a real agreement.” Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who recently introduced a bipartisan bill that would impose new sanctions and tariffs on nations buying Russian energy, describes the mineral deal as “a positive step” but “largely symbolic.” “It’s meaningless in the immediate practical terms,” he tells TIME. “But it could be a stepping stone toward Trump reaffirming our support for Ukraine in military as well as economic terms.” Senator Chris Murphy, another Connecticut Democrat, was even more critical, dismissing the deal as pointless since “Donald Trump is rooting for the destruction of Ukraine.” He pointed to reports that Ukraine’s most resource-rich regions are in areas Trump officials have encouraged Ukraine to give up as part of a ceasefire. “My sense is that [the deal] likely has no teeth in it, and it likely has to do with mineral deposits that are in the Russian-controlled territories that Donald Trump has already said will remain permanently in Russia’s hands,” Murphy tells TIME. Lawmakers and analysts in Ukraine and America on Thursday were still poring over the details of the deal, particularly the mechanics of the joint U.S.-Ukraine investment fund. Even though accessing the country’s minerals is years off, the way the fund is structured may provide Ukraine with immediate help in its war effort, says Mark Montgomery, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. For Ukraine to continue to fend off the Russian advance, the Ukraine military needs the U.S. to continue to provide real-time intelligence, specialized missiles for Ukrainian fighter jets, and missiles for Patriot batteries that are defending Ukrainian civilians. In recent months, Trump and other Republicans were threatening to cut off all of that. Over the long term, if this arrangement actually leads to the extraction of valuable minerals, it will "more deeply integrate the United States into the future of Ukraine," says Montgomery. That shared interest is what Ukraine’s leaders–and Republican hawks–have been pitching to Trump for months, and this deal may have established the right way to get his attention—with dollars and cents.

President Donald Trump is replacing his National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, and nominating him to be Ambassador to the United Nations, he announced Thursday, marking the first major personnel shake-up of Trump’s second term. A senior White House official told TIME that Waltz and his deputy Alex Wong are set to leave their posts Thursday, weeks after a bombshell report revealed Waltz used the encrypted messaging app Signal to coordinate a sensitive military strike against Houthi militants in Yemen. A former Green Beret and congressman from Florida, Waltz mistakenly added The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg to the private chat, which ultimately led to the publication of key operational details after the attack, including timing and weapons packages—details that were later confirmed after Trump Administration officials downplayed the sensitivity of the information in the chat. While it was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who disclosed the specific military plans on the Signal thread, it was Waltz who created the group and inadvertently invited a journalist to read along. "I take full responsibility. I built the group," he told Fox News at the time. "It's embarrassing. We're going to get to the bottom of it." The misstep sparked a flurry of speculation in Washington about whether anyone would be held accountable. Trump publicly backed both members of his Cabinet in the immediate aftermath, calling Waltz “a good man” who had “learned his lesson.” Waltz will now need the Senate's backing to represent the U.S. at the United Nations—a confirmation process that could prove challenging given the slim Republican majority. The U.N. Ambassador role was open after Rep. Elise Stefanik withdrew her nomination so she could hold onto her House seat amid concerns over the GOP’s narrow majority. “From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our Nation’s Interests first,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “I know he will do the same in his new role.” Trump announced that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as interim national security advisor. With Waltz being replaced, more than five weeks after The Atlantic’s story, Democrats on Capitol Hill speculate that the Administration believes enough time has passed to cast the exit as part of a broader reorganization, rather than a direct response to the leak. Many are calling for Hegseth to also step down from his post. Additional reports have revealed Hegseth shared military plans in a second Signal group chat that included his wife and brother. Meanwhile, former staffers have said that there’s a “culture of fear and toxicity” at the Pentagon. “If the Trump Administration cared about either national security or accountability, Pete Hegseth would be out on his butt,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren tells TIME. “Hegseth’s notion of leadership is to blame Waltz, but I don't think it was Waltz who had the Signal line installed in Hegseth’s office or invited his wife, brother and lawyer to be on calls where classified information was exchanged… He put our national security at risk—that’s about as bad as it gets.” Trump told the Atlantic over the weekend that he thinks Hegseth is “gonna get it together” and that he had a “positive talk” with the former Fox News host. Hegseth and Waltz both attended Trump’s Cabinet meeting Wednesday, touting the Administration’s record on national security. “We've had 100 days of your leadership with respect, with strength,” Waltz said. “Pulling this great team together Mr. President… It's an honor to serve you in this Administration." Also leaving the Administration is Wong, a veteran diplomat who was appointed deputy national security advisor and previously served in Trump’s first term as a North Korea envoy. The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this story. The Signal incident was not Waltz’s only vulnerability. He had long been seen by many in Trump’s orbit as more hawkish than Trump on Russia, Iran, and China, sometimes clashing with other White House officials, the Wall Street Journal reported. His presence in the White House was also a lightning rod for far-right activists, including Laura Loomer, a firebrand right-wing commentator who is known to have Trump’s ear. Loomer has been critical of Waltz and reportedly accused him of staffing the NSC with “neocons” and officials insufficiently loyal to the “America First” agenda. On Thursday, she publicly celebrated Waltz’s exit on social media, writing “SCALP.” With Waltz’s exit from the National Security Council, none of the three House Republicans Trump picked to join his second Administration remain in their original positions. Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who resigned from his seat when he was picked to be attorney general, ended his nomination in November amid mounting legal issues. In March, Stefanik had to give up plans to represent the U.S. at the United Nations amid concerns that House Republicans, working with a narrow majority, couldn’t afford to lose her vote. Waltz’s fall comes against the backdrop of Trump’s efforts to project a more stable administration after a first term defined by high-level churn. Trump cycled through four national security advisers in his first four years—including Michael Flynn, who was fired within a month of the 2017 inauguration after misleading Vice President Mike Pence about contacts with the Russian ambassador. Though Waltz survived longer, his tenure was no less rocky—facing external pressure from Trump loyalists and bearing the brunt of a damaging leak that reverberated through national security circles. On Thursday morning, he appeared on television touting a new critical minerals agreement with Ukraine. Hours later, his exit became apparent.

Harvard, like many American colleges and charities, enjoys a federal tax exemption, a status granted by the Internal Revenue Service that allows the wealthy Ivy League university to forgo paying perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars a year in taxes. The I.R.S. is now weighing whether to revoke Harvard’s tax exemption, according to three people familiar with the matter, as the Trump administration demands that the university make changes to its hiring, admissions and curriculum policies. President Trump has called publicly for Harvard to pay taxes, and his administration cut $2.2 billion in federal funding to the university after it refused to submit to the administration’s pressure campaign. He raised the issue again on Friday, posting on his social media site: “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” He did not offer details. Here’s what to know about tax-exempt status: What is tax-exempt status? Tax-exempt status allows an organization not to pay federal income and property taxes under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, which means that donations to the institution are tax-deductible. Eligible organizations include those whose purpose is “charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition and preventing cruelty to children or animals,” according to the I.R.S. The I.R.S. places a number of restrictions on any organization claiming tax-exempt status. Under the Internal Revenue Code, none of the organization’s earnings can go to a private shareholder or individual; the organization is limited in its ability to influence legislation and it cannot participate in a campaign or support political candidates. Why do Harvard and other universities claim it? Simply put, tax-exempt status saves money and can boost credibility. It can also help attract wealthy individuals seeking to donate large sums. Institutions must apply to the I.R.S. for tax exemption, and a vast majority of universities do so, according to the Association of American Universities. This is because of their educational purpose, which “the federal government has long recognized as fundamental to fostering the productive and civic capacities of citizens,” the association says.Can the I.R.S. revoke tax-exempt status? The I.R.S. determines which organizations meet the criteria for tax-exempt status. The agency has at times revoked tax-exempt status, including after audits that found political or commercial activities that violated the terms of eligibility. Editors’ Picks His Life Savings Were Mailed to Him by Paper Check. Now, It’s Gone. Timothée Chalamet Is Living a Knicks Fan’s Dream It’s Time to Put Away Your Winter Clothes. Here’s How to Store Them Safely. In the past, the I.R.S. has challenged the tax exemptions of educational and other institutions under both Republican and Democratic administrations, according to Gowri Krishna, a professor at Fordham University School of Law who specializes in nonprofit law. In one well-known example, Bob Jones University in South Carolina, a fundamentalist Christian institution that had banned interracial dating, lost its tax-exempt status over its discriminatory policies in a case that the Supreme Court ruled on in 1983. The university had claimed that the I.R.S. had violated its religious liberty. The university lifted the ban in 2000, and said in 2017 that it had regained its tax-exempt status. But it is rare for the I.R.S. to revoke the tax-exempt status of an educational institution. Tax laws also provide organizations the right to appeal an adverse decision by the agency. The agency says that it receives complaints claiming abuse of tax-exempt status every year from the public, members of Congress, state and federal government agencies and internal sources. But federal law bars the president or other senior officials of the executive branch from directly or indirectly requesting that the I.R.S. investigate or audit specific organizations. Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said that the I.R.S. began scrutinizing Harvard before the president’s public call for Harvard to pay taxes. In a statement issued in April, Harvard said that there was no legal basis for rescinding its tax status. Any attempt to take away Harvard’s tax exemption would be likely to face a legal challenge, which tax and legal experts expect would be successful. “Harvard would argue there’s a violation of its free speech and academic freedom,” Ms. Krishna said. “I think it would be highly, highly unlikely that the government would win.” What would happen if Harvard lost its tax-exempt status? Harvard has said that losing its tax exemption would result in the reduction of financial aid for students, the abandonment of important medical research and the loss of other opportunities for innovation. Bloomberg News estimated in an analysis that Harvard’s tax benefits totaled at least $465 million in 2023. The university also indirectly benefits from the tax deduction that its donors receive from making contributions. In the 2024 fiscal year, Harvard reported that it had collected more than $525 million in donations that could be used immediately. Rescinding Harvard’s tax exemption would also have “grave consequences” for higher education in general, the university said. And an attempt to change Harvard’s tax-exempt status amid its dispute with the Trump administration would amount to a severe breach of the independence of the I.R.S., which was established to be insulated from political pressure.

The millions of people who suffer from seasonal allergies each year are too familiar with symptoms like sneezing, wheezing, and sniffling. But many don't realize there are lots of other, more unusual ways allergies can show up. “People have a preconceived notion of what allergies are, but there's so much outside just itchy eyes or sneezing,” says Dr. Purvi Parikh, an allergist and immunologist at NYU Langone Health. “It can mimic a lot of infections—people think they’re getting sick with something, but it’s actually allergies.” Advertisement We asked allergists to share some of the lesser-known symptoms they see in their offices, from black eyes to nasal creases. A sore throat Perhaps you suspect you’re coming down with strep throat. It could actually be seasonal allergies. Blame it on post-nasal drip, that lovely sensation of mucus sliding down the back of your throat. “When your nose is all blocked up or inflamed, inflammation has nowhere to go, so it starts draining down your throat,” Parikh explains. “That’s what causes the sore throat, or having to clear your throat often.” Read More: Why You Suddenly Have Allergies There are a few ways to zero in on the likely culprit: If you have severe throat pain that begins suddenly and is paired with a fever and swollen tonsils, strep throat is certainly a contender. But if your symptoms are more gradual, and you’ve also noticed hoarseness or a chronic cough, consider making an appointment with an allergist.

Mark Carney was elected to a full term as Canada’s prime minister Monday with a campaign agenda focused squarely on pushing back on attacks from his counterpart to the South, President Donald Trump. Insofar as climate was a factor on the campaign trail, it was mainly about Carney ditching a key part of his predecessor’s signature carbon tax. But just by virtue of his resume as a leading voice on climate and finance he becomes a climate prime minister that the environmental movement can claim as its own. The ascendance of Carney as a climate prime minister who didn’t talk about climate is all the more striking when considered alongside last year’s election in Mexico of Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist who also avoided talking about the issue in her campaign. She ran on continuing her predecessor’s work, most importantly popular social programs. (The previous president rarely talked about climate.) The result is that the U.S., where Trump has nixed climate policies left and right, is now the regional outlier, squeezed in the middle of a climate sandwich, with implications for the longtime allyship between the three countries. Beyond that, the success of both Carney and Sheinbaum offers an opportunity for reflection. For the last 15 years, advocates in the U.S. have pushed for climate to take a bigger role on the political stage. The logic being that making climate a top-tier issue would result in more climate leaders in elected office and, in turn, better climate policy. The results, as evidenced by the Biden campaign and presidency, have been mixed: the U.S. has enacted big climate policies but it’s unclear whether the country can sustain them. Carney and Sheinbaum offer an opportunity to test a different theory. Few who work on climate change would have chosen a route that involved actively not talking about the climate crisis. But if the two leaders can use their positions to implement climate policy strategically while the public remains focused on trade, geopolitics, and bread and butter issues, they will have forged a new model for what it means to be a climate leader. Anyone who has spent time working at the intersection of climate and economics will have seen Carney in action. A former Goldman Sachs investment banker, Carney later ran Canada’s central bank beginning in 2008 before running the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020. After leaving the world of monetary policy, he put climate at the center of his work. As the vice chairman at Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management, he ran the firm’s ESG portfolio and impact investing, launching funds aimed at financing clean energy investments in emerging markets. And, in his spare time, beginning in 2021 he chaired the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, which helps financial institutions advance the energy transition. Over the course of the last five years, it was almost impossible to have a conversation about climate finance without hearing Carney’s name invoked. Advertisement As the Canadian electoral campaign wound on, I took a look back at the notes from my last conversation with Carney in 2022. He covered a range of subjects when we spoke, from the role of nuclear energy to the gap between climate targets and policies. He focused in particular on the role of financial institutions in fostering the transition. But the line that struck me most was a simple one, almost a cliche: “We need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.” At the time, we were discussing the Russian invasion of Ukraine and how the conflict had created new incentives for fossil fuel producers across the globe, but the sentiment could just as easily apply today. To an activist focused on big systemic change, Carney’s climate policy, buried deep in a section on his campaign site titled “Build,” might look almost like dreary stuff compared to bold ideas like a Green New Deal or even a carbon tax. But his proposals—including tax incentives, transition bonds, and a mechanism to tax high-carbon imports—are designed to move the needle all the same. “Different parties, different individuals have different views on whether you use pricing or regulation or subsidies,” he told me in 2022. “Spoiler alert: It is always some combination of the three.” Advertisement These efforts might be just drab enough to fly under the radar while also giving companies what they need to keep investing in the transition. To the south, Sheinbaum, who contributed to the important U.N. climate science reports before her career took a political turn, came out the gate with a modulation of her predecessor’s approach to climate. She promised more renewable energy, and a cap on oil production. But those promises have been far from central talking points as she too has focused on Trump’s trade war. Does it matter that the U.S. is out of step with its two neighbors, stuck between a climate scientist to the South and a climate economist to the North? In the short term, it might not change things all that much. But, in the long term, the significance shouldn’t be understated. Trump’s destruction of global trade norms means that the world will need to rewrite the rules of the road almost from scratch. For many countries, those new rules will include climate. Carney references a border tax on his campaign site. Moreover, both Canada and Mexico are home to rich mineral supply chains necessary for the energy transition. Both leaders have suggested they want to work with the U.S., but it’s also possible to imagine they choose to work with more reliable partners elsewhere. Advertisement “Critical minerals in particular are a potentially useful tool,” Canada’s energy and natural resources minister Jonathan Wilkinson told me in March, referring to the possibility that the country looks to partner with other nations to develop them to the exclusion of the U.S. But “we're not there yet.” It’s easy to imagine how we could be soon.

When President Trump swept back into office, his dejected opponents watched as his return was greeted not with mass resistance but with a sense of resignation. Protesters stayed home. Corporations and executives rushed to curry favor. Even some Democrats made overtures to Mr. Trump, as he and his allies boasted that they had popular opinion on their side. But just over 100 days into his second term, seeds of dissent to Mr. Trump’s agenda, governing style and expansion of executive power have grown in fits and starts across the country. The opposition is sturdier than it once appeared. Demonstrations have increased in size and frequency. Town halls have become unruly and combative, pushing many Republican lawmakers to avoid facing voters altogether. And collective efforts by universities, nonprofit groups, unions and even some law firms have slowly started to push back against the administration. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “There is a momentum developing,” said Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat who first ran for office in 2018 because of his revulsion to Mr. Trump’s first term. “Now, I feel like there are people standing up and speaking out and taking up and seeing that this is the right thing to do, that it’s going to get worse before it gets better.” A national movement has not yet flowered: The opposition lacks a leader, a central message or shared goals beyond a rejection of Mr. Trump. Even as some Democrats become more aggressive, their deeply unpopular party is struggling to articulate a unified line of attack — or much of a strategy at all, apart from hoping the president’s approval ratings continue to fall. Vanita Gupta, who was associate attorney general during the Biden administration, said Democrats in Congress were largely following, rather than leading, the opposition to Mr. Trump. “There was a feeling of despair early on that he had all the levers and nobody was standing up, but that momentum has changed,” she said. “People may not understand what members of Congress are doing, but lawyers, advocates and regular people are challenging the administration.” Still, many of Mr. Trump’s opponents worry that what is happening is not nearly enough to stop what they fear is a slide toward authoritarianism.“We seem to be facing the destruction of the United States,” said Jason Stanley, a Yale professor and an expert on fascism. “I don’t see anyone articulating that this is an attack on what it means to be American, on the very idea of America, and it’s an emergency.”Mr. Trump is still barreling ahead. He has reshaped foreign and domestic policy, threatened open defiance of the courts, ripped apart the federal government and retaliated against perceived enemies. White House aides dismissed the opposition against him as coming from Democrats and “superficial paid ‘detractors.’” “They are losing everywhere, and they will never match the organic enthusiasm behind his movement,” said Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman. “While Democrats throw attacks at the wall to see what sticks, President Trump is quickly delivering on his campaign promises with over 140 executive orders to date.” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Those orders are being met with a historic flood of lawsuits, more than 350 in all. As of this week, at least 123 court rulings have paused some of the administration’s moves, according to a New York Times analysis. “You’re seeing the courts really hold as a front line in the rule of law,” said Skye Perryman, the chief executive of Democracy Forward, a liberal-leaning legal group that has filed 59 challenges to the Trump administration. The plaintiffs, Ms. Perryman said, include public school districts, religious groups, small-business owners, doctors and even Republicans fired by the president. The pushback, she said, “is transcending typical politics.” Beyond the courts, Mr. Trump’s opponents have limited options. Republicans control Congress and have abandoned their role as a check on Mr. Trump. Democrats have full power over just 15 state governments, versus 23 for Republicans. Unlike in Mr. Trump’s first term, he is now using his official powers to reach deep into American life and culture, targeting universities, law firms, nonprofit groups and broadcast networks. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT His divide-and-conquer strategy has won key successes: Some targets, including top law firms and Columbia University, have given in to his demands. Others, like the Democratic fund-raising platform ActBlue, have been consumed by chaos. But sectors that fear being targeted have begun pursuing a more collective approach. Nonprofit groups and charitable foundations have formed organizations to share best practices for legal defense and protecting their finances. More than 400 higher education leaders have signed a letter condemning “political interference” in universities. “The people who are going to lead the next steps in the resistance movement and opposition to Trump are not the ones trying to get the band back together from 2017,” said Cole Leiter, the executive director of Americans Against Government Censorship, a new group of progressive organizations and labor unions opposing Mr. Trump. “We are setting up new coalitions.” Colleges grew much more willing to oppose Mr. Trump openly after Harvard sued his administration, according to Michael S. Roth, the president of Wesleyan University. “At first, I think everybody was pretty shocked at the scale and the rapidity of this assault on basic American freedoms,” he said. “Now, I think people don’t want to be left off that list. They don’t want be seen as collaborators with authoritarianism.” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT A Newly Skeptical Public Mr. Trump’s aggressive pursuit of his agenda has come at a political cost. Polls show that his approval rating is historically low for a president so early in a term, with majorities of voters saying he has “gone too far” and is overreaching with his powers. Some of the frustration is also economic: His ever-shifting tariffs have raised expectations of a recession and tanked consumer confidence. And in Wisconsin, conservatives were dealt a major defeat in a court election. His administration’s actions are also trickling into personal areas of voters’ lives. Dr. Susan J. Kressly, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said Mr. Trump’s far-reaching spending cuts and proposals were having an extraordinary effect on children, their parents and the country’s pediatric system. Fears of a government-led autism registry have also made some families more reluctant to attend doctors’ appointments, she said. Others are worried that their children’s mental health care plans could be threatened. And as the country confronts deadly measles cases, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, is serving as health secretary. “What we’re seeing in the exam room is that every single appointment is taking longer because parents are confused and anxious,” Dr. Kressly said. “There’s a degree of anxiety, and that’s overlying even what used to be straightforward well-child visits.”Democrats have yet to capitalize fully on those worries. But in recent days, several candidates in competitive races have toughened their language against the president, reflecting liberal voters’ desire for a fight. Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, a Democrat who faces re-election next year, said at a town hall last Friday that the president’s conduct “has already exceeded any prior standard for impeachment.” Three days later, Representative Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat running for governor of New Jersey, wrote in an opinion essay that Democrats must “play hardball” and “disrupt norms and institutions” to combat Mr. Trump. Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the party’s most recent nominee for vice president, noted that no single Democrat was championing the resistance to Mr. Trump. “The desire for leadership is a natural human thing, but I think people are leading this,” he said. “I don’t think any one person can actually do it right now. It’s pretty difficult to lead the party.” Mr. Walz predicted without a hint of humor that Mr. Trump would soon begin dressing in a military uniform and said it was “only a matter of time” before he arrested a Democratic political rival. Asked if he saw himself at risk, Mr. Walz said, “It wouldn’t surprise me.”But other Democrats say their constituents increasingly want more from liberal leaders than simply opposing the administration. “If I just woke up every day as mayor to protest Donald Trump, I would not get re-elected,” said Mayor Justin M. Bibb of Cleveland, the head of the Democratic Mayors Association, who said his city was struggling to respond to tariffs and cuts to federal grants. “People don’t give a damn if I’m protesting every day. They want to see me deliver results.” The real-world effects of Mr. Trump’s moves are still being processed by many Americans. Last Sunday at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Washington, about 30 parishioners gathered for a session to help process their collective grief over what the president had done to their lives. They shared stories about losing their jobs and watching their life’s work be dismantled by a hostile administration. Julie Murphy, a parent coach who helped lead the session, said that while it took place three blocks from the Capitol, where many of the parishioners have worked, it could have been held anywhere in America. “The response is coming,” she said. “It is empowering to think that I am not alone.”

In just the last month, the Supreme Court has heard three important religion cases, culminating in yesterday’s argument over a Catholic charter school in Oklahoma. Judging from the justices’ questioning, the side pressing religious-freedom claims seemed likely to prevail in all three. That would extend a remarkable winning streak for religion at the Supreme Court. Since 2012, the pro-religion side has won all but one of 16 First Amendment cases about the government’s relationship with faith. (The exception: The court rejected a challenge to the first Trump administration’s ban on travel from several predominantly Muslim countries.) The court has been especially active in cases involving religious education. It said if the government was helping private schools, it couldn’t exclude religious ones. It exempted religious schools from anti-discrimination laws. In one pending case, the justices seemed poised to let parents with religious objections withdraw their children during discussions of gay and transgender themes. Yesterday they seemed likely to let a Catholic organization start a charter school in Oklahoma — which would make it the first religious school to get state charter funds. A 2021 study of religion rulings since Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court in 2005 found that the Roberts court ruled in favor of religious people and groups over 83 percent of the time, compared with about 50 percent of the time for other courts since 1953. “In most of these cases, the winning religion was a mainstream Christian organization, whereas in the past pro-religion outcomes more frequently favored minority or marginal religious organizations,” the study’s authors — Lee Epstein, of Washington University in St. Louis, and Eric Posner, of the University of Chicago — wrote. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT If the court rules in favor of religious claims in all three of the pending cases, that figure will rise to 88 percent.Regardless of what the justices decide about yesterday’s Oklahoma case, state money is already helping faith bloom in American education. The main vehicle is via school vouchers, which have proliferated in Republican-led states. Vouchers allow you to use taxpayer money — funds the government would have spent on a public school — to pay for your kid’s private school (or home-school supplies). More than half of states have such programs, and more than one million students use them, double the number in 2019. The Supreme Court blessed vouchers for religious schools in a 2002 case, but their use took off after the pandemic as more states embraced them widely. In states like Florida, where vouchers have expanded to be available to all students, some religious schools now receive nearly all of their funding from state dollars, said Doug Tuthill, who helps manage Florida’s program. States are looking for other ways to expand religion in public schools, too. Oklahoma wants to put Bibles in its classrooms. Louisiana is in a legal battle to get the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Texas is considering a similar move.State lawmakers pushing to expand religion in public schools sometimes cite the Supreme Court rulings that my colleague Adam mentions above, such as a 2022 decision siding with a football coach who prayed at the 50-yard line after games. “There is no such thing as ‘separation of church and state’ in our Constitution, and recent Supreme Court decisions by President Trump’s appointees reaffirmed this,” said a lawmaker in Texas, who put forth a bill proposing prayer in schools.In public, President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador is full MAGA. He swoons about President Trump. He trolls American judges who impede Trump’s immigration crackdown. He lets Trump ship deportees to a prison in his country designed for terrorists. He says he will not hand over a Maryland resident wrongly sent there. But in private, Bukele was more equivocal. My colleagues and I reported a big new story about the Salvadoran deportations and found that there are limits to his willingness to host Trump’s penal colony. During negotiations with the United States, Bukele told Trump’s advisers he would jail “convicted criminals” but not non-Salvadorans whose only crime was being in the United States illegally. Bukele worried about how that would look at home. He could not convince Salvadorans he was prioritizing their national interests if he turned their country into a dumping ground for U.S. deportees, he explained to Trump aides. This caused a problem almost immediately. The Trump administration sent 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador, saying they were members of Tren de Aragua, a gang. Bukele wanted to see the evidence. U.S. officials scrambled to gather evidence. They sent the Salvadorans a scorecard created by the Homeland Security Department in which the men were assigned points for different attributes. Having a lot of tattoos was worth four points, for instance. If a deportee got a score of eight points or more, he was considered a gang member. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT That — and a coveted trip to the Oval Office — appeared to satisfy Bukele. The Salvadoran leader continued to accept U.S. deportees, whom the U.S. labels “violent criminals,” and he still enjoys a close bond with Trump.

A top Trump appointee in the Justice Department ordered an aggressive investigation in the last several months of student protesters at Columbia University, raising anger and alarm among career prosecutors and investigators who saw the demand as politically motivated and lacking legal merit, people familiar with the episode said. The demand for the inquiry into students who protested Israel’s conduct of the conflict in Gaza also prompted pushback from a federal magistrate judge, who believed some of the steps being sought by the official, Emil Bove III, were unjustified and might violate the First Amendment, the people said. The breadth of the investigation, conducted by the Justice Department’s civil rights division, has not been previously reported. The ensuing clash highlights the tensions roiling the department as administration officials seek to enact President Trump’s agenda. That bid includes redirecting the civil rights division away from its traditional approach of protecting the rights of minority groups to a new mission of fulfilling a campaign promise to crack down on student protesters amid accusations of rampant antisemitism on college campuses. Those types of demands from political appointees at the Justice Department are part of the reason there has been an exodus of lawyers from the division in recent weeks, according to current and former officials. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The federal investigation into student protesters at Columbia appears to have stalled for now, but it represents one of the most contentious episodes yet inside the Justice Department during Mr. Trump’s second term. The dispute has left lingering ill will within the department, as well as the courts and the F.B.I., the people said. Asked for comment, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said, “This is a false story fabricated by a group of people who allowed antisemitism and support of Hamas terrorists to fester for several years, standing by but doing nothing.” The Trump administration has vowed to take on campus protests against Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip, saying they reflect antisemitism that must be punished. Those efforts are aimed at both college administrators, who Trump officials say should have done more to rein in campus protests, and student activists themselves, some of whom immigration officials have detained. Activists, in turn, accuse the authorities of conflating criticism of Israeli and U.S. policy with antisemitism. The investigation began shortly after masked protesters barged into Milbank Hall, a building at the Columbia-affiliated Barnard College, on Feb. 26 to demonstrate against the expulsion of students who had been accused of disrupting a “History of Modern Israel” class. Video shows students pushing past a security guard and occupying a hallway. School officials said at the time that the guard was assaulted and taken to the hospital for minor injuries. Mr. Bove, a senior Justice Department official, ordered an immediate investigation, primarily of one particular student group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, according to three people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details intended to remain private.Prodded by Mr. Bove, prosecutors in the civil rights division were told to obtain a membership list of the group. Investigators, however, pushed back on those instructions because they were skeptical such a list even existed, given the amorphous nature of online forums, and even if it did, scrutinizing people for their membership seemed like a possible violation of their First Amendment rights, these people said. One of the Justice Department lawyers assigned to the case was Samantha Trepel, an experienced civil rights prosecutor who secured a federal conviction against Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd in 2020, these people said.The prosecutors were told by superiors that Mr. Bove was seeking a list so the information could be shared with immigration agents, these people said. Inside the civil rights division, prosecutors came to fear that their criminal investigation was a pretext to facilitate an intimidation and deportation campaign by the Trump administration against student protesters, these people said. Prosecutors refused to compile such a list that could be given to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, these people said. Mr. Bove then shifted his focus to obtaining a search warrant for the group’s Instagram account, these people said. He ordered prosecutors to apply for a search warrant for the nonpublic data associated with the account, these people said. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The premise of the application was also contentious within the department. Mr. Bove insisted that the Instagram account in question had been used to make a threat, while line prosecutors said the statement at issue did not meet the legal definition of a threat, these people said. In late March, the social media company suspended the group’s account for failing to meet its “community standards.” Mr. Blanche, in his statement, added that the warrant application focused on Columbia University Apartheid Divest “included a photograph from C.U.A.D.’s social media of an inverted triangle symbol used by Hamas to designate targets for violence, which was spray-painted on Columbia property along with red paint designed to look like blood.” He said the investigation was “ongoing,” appearing to point to a related criminal investigation that the federal authorities have pursued, one that “included an independent magistrate judge finding probable cause to believe that there was evidence on Columbia property of harboring and concealing illegal aliens.” Before Mr. Trump delivered a speech to the Justice Department on March 14, Mr. Blanche told the audience that the department was investigating whether anyone involved in the campus protests at Columbia violated civil rights laws and antiterrorism laws. Mr. Blanche projected unwavering certainty about the wisdom of such an investigation. But behind the scenes, career lawyers had profound doubts about the merits of the case they were assigned, and deep concerns about the potential consequences if they refused. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Mr. Bove’s demands frustrated people in the civil rights division, but many of the managers were afraid to push back, having watched a month earlier as Mr. Bove pressed prosecutors in a different division, the public integrity section, to drop criminal charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York, the three people said. That section, which once had about 30 lawyers, now has only a handful. Bennett Gershman, a Pace University law professor who specializes in prosecutorial ethics, said the described conduct of Mr. Bove was “staggering.” “He did something that prosecutors are absolutely forbidden to do — use the law enforcement powers of the government to try to intimidate these individuals or destroy their rights,” Mr. Gershman said. “This is so far past the line of prosecutorial professionalism and the commitment to principles of justice.” In his statement, Mr. Blanche said that “unethical and inaccurate claims from deep state terrorist sympathizers who stood by as members of the Jewish faith were targeted across the country” would not deter Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and the Justice Department from “aggressively investigating criminal conduct and rooting out antisemitism.” When the federal prosecutors involved in the investigation of student protesters applied for a search warrant, a magistrate judge in New York rejected the request, finding that the government did not have sufficient probable cause, these people said. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In an unusual move, Mr. Bove insisted that the prosecutors appeal the ruling to a district court judge, these people said. After weighing the request, Judge John G. Koeltl of Federal District Court of the Southern District of New York instructed the chief magistrate judge, Sarah Netburn, to reconsider the application, the people said. But the second time, the government lawyers fared even worse. Judge Netburn not only rejected the request for a search warrant, but she also ordered the government to abide by a special condition: Should prosecutors ever try to refile such an application before another federal judge, they had to include a transcript of the sealed discussions in her court, these people said. Part of the judge’s skepticism, these people said, stemmed from the absence from the case of lawyers with the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office. But prosecutors in the Southern District of New York were wary of signing onto the effort and had minimal involvement with it, these people said. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment. While civil rights prosecutors conducted the investigation that Mr. Bove had demanded, they often pushed back against specific steps that he wanted taken, these people said, arguing that they were either not justified by the available facts or contrary to law and past practice, or both. At one point, Mr. Bove instructed F.B.I. agents on the joint terrorism task force in New York to put on their raid jackets, go to Columbia’s campus and stand in a phalanx near any protesters. Within the civil rights division, the instruction was viewed as deeply improper and a blatant attempt to intimidate students, these people said. The F.B.I. agents did not make any such show of force. By early April, the investigation seemed to have largely died, but nothing prevents Mr. Bove or others from reviving it. In its wake, however, people familiar with the case said it had only exacerbated the ill will and distrust between political appointees at the Justice Department’s headquarters in Washington and the prosecutor’s office in New York, as well as between those political appointees and veterans of the civil rights division.