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. It’s still April, but President Donald Trump is already letting Americans know that the October day widely acknowledged to be Columbus Day will in fact be Columbus Day, thank you very much. The move, announced over the weekend as the newest side dish on the culture-war buffet, is merely the latest signal to Trump’s MAGA base that he won’t bend to political correctness or progressive ideology that favors Indigenous Peoples Day, which under President Joe Biden co-existed on that date. Christopher Columbus—who never set foot in the United States yet nonetheless is taught in schools as having “discovered” America—is right up there among “cancelled” American icons with Confederate leaders like Robert E. Lee. For Trump and his basic understanding of history, Columbus is as core to the United States’ DNA as apple pie and Betsy Ross, and the interloper Indigenous Peoples Day is a pernicious effort to hijack it like a cancer. “The Democrats did everything possible to destroy Christopher Columbus, his reputation, and all of the Italians that love him so much,” the President posted Sunday on Truth Social, his alternative to the platform formerly known as Twitter. “They tore down his Statues, and put up nothing but ‘WOKE,’ or even worse, nothing at all! Well, you’ll be happy to know, Christopher is going to make a major comeback. I am hereby reinstating Columbus Day under the same rules, dates, and locations, as it has had for all of the many decades before!” To be clear: Trump does not have the power to unilaterally declare a national holiday. Nor did anyone “destroy” the holiday; Biden issued proclamations acknowledging Columbus Day annually. At the same time, he recognized Indigenous Peoples Day, but Congress has not designated it into a federal holiday. Similar action would be needed to delist Columbus Day from the ranks of federal holidays. Congress has not done so. Members of Congress tried a couple of times to demote Columbus by changing the holiday’s name, but those efforts fell short. Several statues of Columbus have been removed in recent years, but it’s not as if Ohio is going to rename its capital anytime soon. Even in true-blue Manhattan, Columbus Circle still has its 76-foot tall namesake at its center, a monument developed in response to the violent lynchings of Italian-American immigrants. October the 13th was always going to be Columbus Day, no matter what Trump said or did or tweeted. And, while implicitly saying Indigenous Peoples Day is no more, the President did not technically go that far. But his base sure heard what it wanted to. The presidency has always been a largely performative task, undertaken with the expectation that the public-facing aspect of the job requires a show. The gig is a 24/7 act, but Trump takes it to a new level as he nurses grievances and fuels division for his own movement’s gain. His latest announcement is a naked appeal to voters who feel a new era of politics is excluding them by de-elevating a colonizing explorer who, per elementary-school understanding, in 1492 “sailed the ocean blue.” The reality is far more complex for a figure who opened the door for a European expansionism that led to the decimation and enslavement of native-born Americans. As many as 56 million native-born Americans died as result of Europeans’ arrival here between 1492 and 1600, but the elementary-school poem is as catchy as ever. Political memory, similarly, has always been ripe for weaponization. There’s a dark link between history and nationalism, with the two feeding off each other to paint an ideal that can, at times, turn violent in defense of both an imagined past and systemic inequality. Just look at the rise of white Christian nationalism in the last half century that accompanied increasing civil rights—and the violence it has unleashed. It’s almost impossible to imagine the MAGA present in the absence of a nativist, nationalist antecedent. But the irony is that Columbus never stood on what is today mainland North America, despite becoming a rallying point after Italian-American immigrants were lynched in the 1890s. Columbus was a stand-in for the nation’s hagiographic origin story, much like the Mayflower or its Western pioneers. As Stephen Sondheim so wisely observed, children will listen to the tales they are told, and those myths are tough to shake once they take hold. It’s why everyone is Irish on Saint Patrick’s Day, and next Monday will see lines out the doors of our local taquerias for Cinco de Mayo—two holidays that barely rank in their purported homelands. All of which suggests that Trump is less interested in correcting history or justifying a holiday-weekend mattress sale than nudging his faithful to feel aggrieved—and then emboldened. With a wink and a bullhorn, Trump is teaching his base to never back down from their dug-in stances—even those based on invented histories they were taught in kindergarten.

On April 28, the House of Representatives passed the first major law tackling AI-induced harm: the Take It Down Act. The bipartisan bill, which also passed the Senate and which President Trump is expected to sign, criminalizes non-consensual deepfake porn and requires platforms to take down such material within 48 hours of being served notice. The bill aims to stop the scourge of AI-created illicit imagery that has exploded in the last few years along with the rapid improvement of AI tools. While some civil society groups have raised concerns about the bill, it has received wide support from leaders on both sides of the aisle, from the conservative think tank American Principles Project to the progressive nonprofit Public Citizen. It passed both chambers easily, clearing the House with an overwhelming 409-2 vote. To some advocates, the bill is a textbook example of how Congress should work: of lawmakers fielding concerns from impacted constituents, then coming together in an attempt to reduce further harm. "This victory belongs first and foremost to the heroic survivors who shared their stories and the advocates who never gave up," Senator Ted Cruz, who spearheaded the bill in the Senate, wrote in a statement to TIME. "By requiring social media companies to take down this abusive content quickly, we are sparing victims from repeated trauma and holding predators accountable." The tools that had been used to humiliate them were relatively new: products of the generative AI boom in which virtually any image could be created with the click of a button. Pornographic and sometimes violent deepfake images of Taylor Swift and others soon spread across the internet. When Berry and Mani each sought to remove the images and seek punishment for those that had created them, they found that both social media platforms and their school boards reacted with silence or indifference. “They just didn’t know what to do: they were like, this is all new territory,” says Berry’s mother, Anna Berry. Anna Berry then reached out to Senator Ted Cruz’s office, which took up the cause and drafted legislation that became the Take It Down Act. Cruz, who has two teenage daughters, threw his political muscle behind the bill, including organizing a Senate field hearing with testimony from both Elliston Berry and Mani in Texas. Mani, who had spoken out about her experiences in New Jersey before connecting with Cruz’s office during its national push for legislation, says that Cruz spoke with her several times directly—and personally put in a call to a Snapchat executive asking them to remove her deepfakes from the platform. Mani and Berry both spent hours talking with congressional offices and news outlets to spread awareness. Bipartisan support soon spread, including the sign-on of Democratic co-sponsors like Amy Klobuchar and Richard Blumenthal. Representatives Maria Salazar and Madeleine Dean led the House version of the bill. Political wrangling Very few lawmakers disagreed with implementing protections around AI-created deepfake nudes. But translating that into law proved much harder, especially in a divided, contentious Congress. In December, lawmakers tried to slip the Take It Down Act into a bipartisan spending deal. But the larger deal was killed after Elon Musk and Donald Trump urged lawmakers to reject it. In the Biden era, it seemed that the piece of deepfake legislation that stood the best chance of passing was the DEFIANCE Act, led by Democrats Dick Durbin and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In January, however, Cruz was promoted to become the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, giving him a major position of power to set agendas. His office rallied the support for Take it Down from a slew of different public interest groups. They also helped persuade tech companies to support the bill, which worked: Snapchat and Meta got behind it. “Cruz put an unbelievable amount of muscle into this bill,” says Sunny Gandhi, vice president of political affairs at Encode, an AI-focused advocacy group that supported the bill. “They spent a lot of effort wrangling a lot of the companies to make sure that they wouldn't be opposed, and getting leadership interested.” Gandhi says that one of the key reasons why tech companies supported the bill was because it did not involve Section 230 of the Communications Act, an endlessly-debated law that protects platforms from civil liability for what is posted on them. The Take It Down Act, instead, draws its enforcement power from the “deceptive and unfair trade practices” mandate of the Federal Trade Commission. “With anything involving Section 230, there's a worry on the tech company side that you are slowly going to chip away at their protections,” Gandhi says. “Going through the FTC instead was a very novel approach that I think a lot of companies were okay with.” The Senate version of the Take It Down Act passed unanimously in February. A few weeks later, Melania Trump threw her weight behind the bill, staging a press conference in D.C., with Berry, Mani, and other deepfake victims, marking Trump’s first solo public appearance since she resumed the role of First Lady. The campaign fit in with her main initiative from the first Trump administration: “Be Best,” which included a focus on online safety. A Cruz spokesperson told TIME that Trump’s support was crucial towards the bill getting expedited in the House. “The biggest challenge with a lot of these bills is trying to secure priority and floor time,” they said. “It’s essential to have a push to focus priorities—and it happened quickly because of her.” "Today's bipartisan passage of the Take It Down Act is a powerful statement that we stand united in protecting the dignity, privacy, and safety of our children," Melania Trump said Monday. "I am thankful to the Members of Congress — both in the House and Senate — who voted to protect the well-being of our youth." Support is broad, but concerns persist While the bill passed both chambers easily and with bipartisan support, it weathered plenty of criticism on the way. Critics say that the bill is sloppily written, and that bad faith actors could flag almost anything as nonconsensual illicit imagery in order to get it scrubbed from the internet. They also say that Donald Trump could use it as a weapon, leaning on his power over the FTC to threaten critics. In February, 12 organizations including the Center for Democracy & Technology penned a letter to the Senate warning that the bill could lead to the “suppression of lawful speech.” Critics question the bill’s effectiveness especially because it puts the FTC in charge of enforcement—and the federal agency has been severely weakened by the Trump administration. At a House markup in April, Democrats warned that a weakened FTC could struggle to keep up with take-down requests, rendering the bill toothless. Regardless, Gandhi hopes that Congress will build upon Take It Down to create more safeguards for children online. The House Energy and Commerce Committee recently held a hearing on the subject, signaling increased interest. “There's a giant movement in Congress and at the state level around kids' safety that is only picking up momentum,” Gandhi says. “People don't want this to be the next big harm that we wait five or 10 years before we do something about it.” For Mani and Berry, the passage of Take It Down represents a major political, legal, and emotional victory. “For those of us who've been hurt, it's a chance to take back our dignity,” Mani says.

After an election in which Donald Trump won back the presidency and his party held the House and won the Senate, congressional leaders were quick to fantasize of all the legislation they would be able to pass. They envisioned a flurry of bills rewriting immigration law, slashing regulations, and delivering on Trump’s bold campaign promises. But the first 100 days of Trump’s second term paints a more complicated picture. Instead of relying on the Republican-led Congress, Trump has leaned heavily on executive action to carry out his agenda, issuing an unprecedented 135 executive orders since he took office in January. In doing so, Trump has largely bypassed Congress at the outset of his Administration, a sharp break from his first term. So far, Congress has only passed six bills—five of which have been signed into law—the fewest of any president in the first 100 days of an administration in the last seven decades, according to a TIME analysis of congressional records. At this point in his first term, Trump had already signed 30 bills into law—a high watermark for Presidents this century. Former President Joe Biden signed 10 bills by his 100th day in 2021, compared to 14 by Barack Obama in 2009 and seven by George W. Bush in 2001. Some earlier presidents—including Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter—signed 20 or more pieces of legislation within their first 100 days. Trump's second-term tally—just five bills signed—underscores a dramatic shift toward consolidating presidential power. The bills that have passed Congress so far have been relatively modest: three of the six bills were measures undoing regulations established by the Biden Administration, such as eliminating rules on environmental protections and cryptocurrency taxation, which were passed under the Congressional Review Act. Another was a stopgap funding bill to keep the government open. The other bills were the Laken Riley Act, an immigration detention measure, and the Take It Down Act, which Trump is expected to soon sign after it overwhelmingly passed the House on Monday. The bill criminalizes non-consensual deepfake porn and requires platforms to take down such material within 48 hours of being served notice. While Congress has largely been relegated to the sidelines under Trump’s second Administration, most Republicans on Capitol Hill have supported his unfettered use of executive power. Trump has often drawn on rarely-used laws to advance his agenda, such as invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to carry out mass deportations and declaring a national emergency to enact sweeping tariffs on countries around the world. “The executive always wants to control more things, but in the past, members—whether it's a Democratic president or Republican president— have always resisted that,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters in March. “It didn't happen this year for the first time. They just bowed down to the President, and they're surrendering their power.” Trump is now calling on Republicans in Congress to pass what many are calling his "one big, beautiful bill"—a massive legislative package designed to cement many of his campaign promises into law. The bill aims to extend the 2017 tax cuts, expand domestic energy production, fund immigration enforcement, and boost military spending. In the meantime, Trump’s reliance on executive orders to push his agenda—often bypassing Congress altogether—has become a defining feature of his presidency. Constitutional scholars and political analysts have warned that the sheer volume of executive actions is testing the limits of presidential power, raising concerns about the potential erosion of the rule of law. Here’s what Congress has accomplished—and what Republicans are still hoping to achieve—as Trump’s second presidency reached the 100-day mark. Laken Riley Act The most high-profile measure to pass Congress was the Laken Riley Act, named after a nursing student who was murdered last year by a Venezuelan immigrant who was in the country unlawfully and had been previously apprehended by Border Patrol and released. The bill, signed into law by Trump nine days into his presidency, changes how the federal government handles immigrants who are in the country unlawfully and mandates that those charged with theft, burglary, or other serious crimes be detained until their cases are resolved. The bill requires the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security “to take into custody aliens who have been charged in the United States with theft, and for other purposes,” meaning immigration officers would be required to arrest and detain those people. Before, immigration officials would use their discretion to first detain people with violent criminal records. The bill ultimately passed the House with unanimous support from Republicans, and the backing of 46 of 215 Democrats. In the Senate, 12 Democrats joined all Senate Republicans to move the bill forward. Avoided a government shutdown Congress managed to avert a government shutdown in late March, passing a stopgap funding bill to keep federal agencies running through the end of the fiscal year. The effort required careful maneuvering by GOP leaders—and a surprising degree of cooperation from ten Senate Democrats who voted alongside Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was criticized by many in his party for voting in favor of the legislation, which critics said stripped away numerous funding directives and gave Trump unprecedented power to reallocate money as he saw fit without fear of judicial intervention. Rolled back Biden Administration regulations One area where Trump and congressional Republicans have been unusually productive is in using the Congressional Review Act—a powerful but little-used law that allows Congress to repeal recent federal regulations with a simple majority vote, bypassing the Senate filibuster. Of the five bills Trump has signed, three were CRA resolutions aimed at dismantling Biden-era rules. In March, Trump signed a resolution overturning the Waste Emissions Charge, an environmental regulation finalized near the end of Biden’s presidency. Although parts of Biden’s broader climate agenda remain in place, Republicans succeeded in nullifying this specific fee on methane emissions. That same month, Trump also signed a CRA resolution blocking a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management rule that had required oil and gas companies operating offshore to submit detailed archaeological surveys. Republicans argued the rule created unnecessary compliance costs for energy producers. And in April, Trump signed into law a bill to overturn a revised rule from the Internal Revenue Service that expanded the definition of a broker to include decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges. Take It Down Act A bipartisan bill that criminalizes non-consensual deepfake porn is expected to soon become law, after it was sent to Trump’s desk on Monday. The measure, which had the backing of First Lady Melania Trump, aims to stop the scourge of AI-created illicit imagery that has exploded in the last few years along with the rapid improvement of AI tools by making it a federal crime to knowingly post or threaten to publish computer-generated pornographic images and videos of real people. Trump has said he would sign the bill into law: “I’m going to use that bill for myself too if you don’t mind because nobody gets treated worse than I do online, nobody,” he told a joint session of Congress in early March. A few days earlier, Melania Trump staged a press conference with deepfake victims—her first solo public appearance since she resumed the role of First Lady. “Republicans, it is more important now, than ever, that we pass THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL,” Trump posted on Truth Social in April. “The USA will Soar like never before!!!” The House and Senate passed a budget resolution earlier this month to begin a process known as reconciliation that they hope will allow them to pass the measure without Democratic support. Yet significant divisions within the GOP caucus remain. Senate Republicans set a relatively modest $4 billion target for cuts, while House Republicans are under orders to find at least $1.5 trillion in savings, a gap that will be difficult to bridge. Disagreements have already surfaced over proposed cuts to Medicaid, food assistance, and clean energy initiatives. Moderate Republicans from swing districts are balking at deep cuts to social safety net programs, even as hardliners demand more aggressive reductions. Adding to the pressure is the looming threat of a government default. The bill is expected to include a provision raising the federal debt ceiling by as much as $5 trillion, which the Treasury Department warns must happen by late summer to avoid an unprecedented financial crisis. Economists across the political spectrum have warned that extending the Trump tax cuts without equivalent new revenue or significant changes to entitlement programs like Social Security could balloon the federal deficit to record levels.

President Donald Trump and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos are feuding again. The White House lashed out at Amazon on Tuesday for reportedly planning to display how much of a product’s cost comes from Trump’s tariffs. Doing so would emphasize to consumers that U.S. tariffs are not paid by overseas companies, but by the American companies importing the goods, and then largely passed on to customers. “This is a hostile and political act by Amazon,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday at a briefing focused on the economy and Trump’s 100th day in office. She said she had just talked to Trump on the phone about Amazon’s plan, citing a report from Punchbowl News. “Why didn’t Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years?” Leavitt said. Amazon soon disputed the report, with a spokesperson initially telling The Washington Post that the company was only thinking about listing tariff costs on some products on a lower-cost section of the site called Amazon Haul. Then the company walked back the idea entirely. "The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store considered the idea of listing import charges on certain products," spokesman Tim Doyle said in a statement. "This was never approved and is not going to happen.“ Bezos had clashed publicly with Trump for years. When Trump was running for president in 2016, he said Trump’s calls to “lock up” his political rival Hillary Clinton “erodes our democracy.” Trump has called him “Jeff Bozo.” But Bezos extended an olive branch last summer after Trump was shot in the ear at a rally in Butler, Pa., writing on X that Trump had shown “tremendous grace and courage.” After the Bezos-owned Washington Post decided not to endorse a presidential candidate in 2024, Bezos defended the decision, saying presidential endorsements “create a perception of bias.” When Trump won a second term, Bezos praised Trump’s “extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory” and said at a New York Times event that he wanted to work with Trump to reduce regulation and was “actually very optimistic” about Trump’s return to office. That outlook may have changed over the past 100 days, as Trump launched a trade war that included 10% across-the-board tariffs on all goods brought into the U.S. and a 145% tariff on goods from China. Trump paused a raft of even higher tariffs on dozens of countries for 90 days to allow time for countries to petition his Administration directly for relief. The higher tariffs are scheduled to snap into place in July. Trump officials say they are negotiating trade deals with 17 countries, but the trade negotiations with China are stalled. The on-again-off-again tariff announcements have rattled investors, wiping out trillions in value from stock markets and frustrating business leaders who are struggling to make business decisions without knowing how much goods will cost in the long run. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who appeared with Leavitt in the press briefing room on Tuesday, said Trump’s erratic tariff actions were part of the President’s negotiating strategy to achieve better trade deals and encourage more companies to open factories in the U.S. “President Trump creates what I call strategic uncertainty in the negotiations,” Bessent said. Bessent acknowledged that some business leaders have pulled back from launching new projects in recent weeks. He said that Trump’s work stripping away federal regulations and a tax bill Republicans hope to pass this summer may include incentives for businesses to buy equipment and build new factories. “Business leaders, they’ve gone into a pause, and I think we are going to give them great certainty on this tax bill,” Bessent said. Congressional Republicans are hoping to include a raft of tax breaks in the bill they hope to finish by early July. On the campaign trail, Trump promised he would end taxes on tips, overtime, Social Security payments, and auto payments for cars made in the U.S. Bessent said Trump is pushing for companies to be able to deduct the cost of new equipment and factory buildings to encourage more manufacturing in the U.S. Americans have become more skeptical of Trump’s economic decisions since he took office. A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in mid-April found that 37% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, down from 42% in late January.

In a study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's annual meeting, researchers report encouraging early results from research investigating a potential way to help some cancer patients avoid surgery. According to the results of the early study, published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine, 92% of patients who received only an immune-based treatment to help their own immune systems shrink their tumors—and no surgery, which is generally the standard treatment for them—showed no detectable signs of disease after two years. Advertisement Maureen Sideris, 71, was one of those patients. The New York resident was diagnosed with gastroesophageal junction cancer in 2022 after she noticed it was difficult for her to swallow and digest food. When she saw a cancer surgeon, he told her that surgery to remove the tumor they had detected would be her best treatment option. He also informed her that she would need chemotherapy and radiation following the surgery to kill as much of the cancer as possible. “I was freaking out,” says Sideris. For a certain period after the surgery, she wouldn’t be able to talk or lie flat at night to sleep. Then there was the chemotherapy and radiation. “There were a lot of steps to the recovery.” But based on the genetics of her cancer, she was told about a study of a new approach being pioneered by Dr. Andrea Cercek, section head of colorectal cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Cercek was testing whether people like Sideris could be treated with a checkpoint inhibitor, a relatively new type of cancer treatment that frees the body’s immune cells to recognize and attack cancer cells. If the treatment worked, it would mean Sideris might not need surgery. “They told me it was all experimental—'Are you okay with that?' I said, 'Sign me up,'” says Sideris.

More and more, climate change is taking a toll not only on communities, the environment, and the economy, but also on human minds. In recent years, researchers have been describing what they variously label eco-distress, exo-anxiety, or even eco-grief—a suite of symptoms including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder—linked to experiencing severe weather events or simply living in a world in which climate change is becoming a growing crisis. Advertisement Whatever name the phenomenon goes by, it spares no one; simply by dint of being exposed to a warming world, you have cause to feel distress about it. Last year was the warmest one on record, edging out 2023, which had briefly held the number one spot. The top 10 warmest years have all occurred since 2014. Extreme weather and other disasters linked to climate change—including wildfires, droughts, floods, and hurricanes—are all on the rise. Experts are finding, however, that one demographic may suffer more than others: young people. A recent flurry of papers has documented significant and growing levels of climate anxiety in the 25-and-under group, with even preschoolers sometimes showing symptoms. “You come across it in children as young as three,” says Elizabeth Haase, a founding member of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance and a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. “You find them on TikTok, sobbing about losing their teddy bears or sobbing that animals they loved got killed” in an extreme weather event. Advertisement Grottoes bear the enduring touch of Tang Branded Content Grottoes bear the enduring touch of Tang By China Daily Now, researchers in peer-reviewed studies are putting empirical meat on those anecdotal bones. In one April 2025 paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), scientists surveyed nearly 3,000 young people in the U.S. aged 16-to-24 and found that approximately 20% of them were afraid to have children—worrying about bringing a new generation into a steadily warming world. That figure jumped to over 30% among young people who had experienced a severe-weather event first hand. An earlier 2021 study in The Lancet surveyed 10,000 16- to 25-year-olds in 10 countries, and came up with even more concerning results. Overall, nearly 60% of respondents described themselves as very or extremely worried about climate change and nearly 85% were at least moderately concerned. More than 45% of the total said that those feelings adversely affected their daily functioning. Fully 75% said that they think the future is frightening and 83% said that they believe the adults in charge have failed to take care of the planet—leaving the problem to the generations to follow.

Klein is a contributor for TIME. Whether you’re struggling to swallow with a sore throat or can’t keep anything down with a stomach bug, eating isn’t always your top priority when you’re under the weather. But “our bodies actually need nourishment when we're sick, so don't avoid eating,” says family physician Dr. Shannon Dowler, a board member of the American Academy of Family Physicians. In many cases, simply eating whatever appeals to you in the moment is enough to make sure you’re getting at least some nutrients and plenty of fluids. But if you can handle it, there are some specific foods that might actually ease your symptoms. Advertisement Here’s a guide to what to eat when you’re sick, tailored to whatever is ailing you. Stomach bug With an upset stomach, diarrhea, vomiting, or a combination of all three, you probably don’t feel very hungry or thirsty when you’ve got gastroenteritis. The problem is it’s easy to get dehydrated, says registered dietitian and certified specialist in oncology nutrition Amy Bragagnini, spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Dehydration can be dangerous and may result in headaches, fatigue, dizziness, and other unpleasant symptoms, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Bragagnini suggests getting plenty of water, coconut water, or electrolyte drinks while you’re battling a stomach bug. Start slowly, and add more liquids as you can tolerate them. “Take sips and spoonfuls rather than gulping large quantities of liquids,” Dowler says.

Top colleges in the cross hairs of President Trump have sharply increased their spending on lobbying, according to an analysis by The New York Times. Ten universities that have been singled out by the administration for scrutiny spent a combined $2.8 million lobbying the federal government in the first three months of 2025, which is more than those institutions spent in any quarter at least since 2008, according to the analysis. A federal task force that says it is devoted to rooting out antisemitism on campuses targeted those schools in February for investigation. One of the 10, Columbia University, more than tripled its spending on lobbying in the first quarter of 2025, compared with the same quarter last year, the analysis found. Another, Harvard University, also greatly increased its lobbying outlays, spending $230,000, compared with $130,000 in the same period last year. Lobbyists generally seek meetings with White House and Congressional staff members to discuss matters that affect the institutions they represent. Public records show that for the targeted schools, those matters in the first months of 2025 included, among other things, seeking financial aid for students, promoting the value of university research and explaining efforts to combat antisemitism. Colleges that have been accused by the Trump administration of being bastions of leftism are seeking the help of firms that are in tune with conservative sensibilities. Much of the new spending on lobbying is flowing to firms with Republican bona fides. The amount the schools spent on contracted lobbying firms increased nearly 150 percent from the first quarter of 2024 to this year. The analysis found that these schools were far more reliant on lobbyists with Republican ties than a year before.

The Supreme Court appeared skeptical on Monday of a Minnesota school district’s argument that students with disabilities must prove their school acted in “bad faith” in failing to provide adequate accommodations in order to prove discrimination. A family who had sued the district, the Osseo Area School District near Minneapolis, argued that federal law required merely that the school display “deliberate indifference,” a lower standard. The two sides had argued in front of lower courts over the legal standard in schools. But in recent court filings, the school district argued that the higher standard could apply broadly to all sorts of disability rights claims under the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. That unnerved some disability rights groups, who warned that if the court accepted the school district’s argument, the higher “bad faith” standard could make it much harder for Americans with disabilities to successfully bring court challenges.The school district’s position led to an unusually tense oral argument, with lawyers for the family and the federal government arguing that the district had improperly shifted its position after the justices had agreed to hear the case. The lawyer for the school district rejected those claims, going so far as to suggest that her opponents were lying, an accusation that prompted a rebuke from one of the justices. The case, A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, No. 24-249, stemmed from a dispute over whether the Minnesota school district provided reasonable accommodations for Ava Tharpe, a teenage girl with severe epilepsy that made it difficult for her to attend school during normal hours. The girl’s family said they had requested evening instruction but were told the district would not provide it, leaving Ava with only 65 percent of the instructional hours that her peers received. After the district rejected the Tharpe family’s request for evening instruction, the family filed a complaint with the Minnesota Department of Education. An administrative law judge found that the school district had violated federal law, ruling that the district’s “prevailing and paramount consideration” was not Ava’s “need for instruction,” but rather the school system’s desire “to maintain the regular hours of the school’s faculty.” The dispute then moved to federal court, where a trial judge sided, in part, with the school district, finding that under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, the Tharpe family was required to show the school district had acted with either “bad faith” or “gross misjudgment.”A panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit agreed. In front of the Supreme Court, the two sides argued over both the standard that should be required to prove discrimination in schools — and whether that standard should be applied in other settings. The lawyer for the student and her family, Roman Martinez, argued that the school district’s line of reasoning would “revolutionize disability law, stripping protections from vulnerable victims and gutting the reasonable accommodations needed for equal opportunity.” A federal government lawyer, Nicole F. Reaves, assistant to the solicitor general, appeared to agree, calling the district’s position “breathtakingly broad.” The lawyer for the school district, Lisa S. Blatt, argued that, for schools, the “bad faith” standard was proper. She said lowering the bar for proving discrimination would be costly for school districts and could even jeopardize federal funding if it was determined that schools had failed to comply with federal law.Ms. Blatt argued that a ruling against the school district “would expose 46,000 public schools to liability when, for 40 years, they have trained teachers, allocated budgets and obtained insurance all in reliance” on the “bad faith” standard. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “Every good-faith disagreement would risk liability or even the nuclear option, the loss of federal funding, which is over a hundred billion dollars,” she said. Ms. Blatt conceded that her argument meant that this higher standard could apply to disability cases that do not involve public schools, potentially heightening the legal standard for all disability rights cases. Some of the justices appeared incredulous. “Your argument is that ‘bad faith’ should apply everywhere?” asked Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. When Ms. Blatt answered yes, Justice Amy Coney Barrett jumped in. “That would be a sea change, right?” Justice Barrett asked. “Well, it would be only a sea change in terms of liability,” Ms. Blatt responded. “A sea change in terms of liability is a pretty big sea change,” Justice Barrett answered. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Ms. Blatt said it was not true that the school district had shifted its position, going so far as to say the accusation was “a lie and inaccurate.” That upended the normal decorum of the court — where advocates often use the term “friend” to refer to their opponents. “You believe that Mr. Martinez and the solicitor general are lying,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said. “Is that your accusation?” “At oral argument, yes, absolutely,” Ms. Blatt responded. “It is not true that we —” Justice Gorsuch broke in before she finished, saying, “I think you should be more careful with your words, Ms. Blatt.” “OK, well, they should be more careful in character — mischaracterizing a position by an experienced advocate of the Supreme Court, with all due respect,” she said. Justice Gorsuch returned to the point later in the argument, asking Ms. Blatt to withdraw her accusation. After an extended back and forth, she agreed. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Justice Sonia Sotomayor also expressed concern over the school district’s position. She suggested Ms. Blatt might have violated a court rule that obligates lawyers to point out any perceived misstatements of law or facts in briefs arguing that the court should not hear a case. Ms. Blatt said the school system had not argued that point but said failing to do so did not violate court rules because it had not been necessary given the school district had merely been required in its filings to defend its win in the lower appeals court. A decision in the case is expected by the end of the court’s term, which typically concludes in late June or early July.

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday announced the framework of a roughly $254 billion state budget agreement, ending a monthlong stalemate over public safety issues that the governor had insisted on including in the fiscal plan. The budget deal, which will now go to the Legislature for a full vote, includes changes to make it easier to remove people in psychiatric crisis from public spaces to be evaluated for treatment, and eases so-called discovery requirements for how prosecutors hand over evidence to criminal defendants in the pretrial phase. Ms. Hochul also successfully pushed for an all-day ban on students having cellphones in schools. But another of the governor’s policy priorities relating to the restriction of the wearing of masks was whittled down by legislators over concerns that it would be selectively enforced and infringe on people’s civil liberties. “We worked through some really challenging issues,” Ms. Hochul said at a news conference Monday afternoon. “We refused to be drawn into the toxic, divisive politics of the moment.” Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the majority leader, and Carl E. Heastie, the Assembly speaker, were not present at the announcement. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The changes related to criminal justice and mental health were major priorities of Mayor Eric Adams and district attorneys from New York City, who appeared several times with Ms. Hochul to push for the proposals. She made them clear priorities, frustrating lawmakers who were forced to pass several so-called budget extenders to keep the government running after the April 1 deadline passed. Ms. Hochul did not provide many details on what exactly would be changed and to what degree, saying that her aides would iron out the final details with legislative leaders in the coming days. Other changes may yet be in store, depending on the severity of the rolling cuts to federally subsidized programs, the specter of which has heightened anxiety among lawmakers. Most concede that a special legislative session may be needed to reckon with the shortfalls once Congress passes its budget. Ms. Hochul and others have been saying for months now that it is essentially impossible to plan until they fully understand the cuts. “We can only devise a budget based on the information we have at this time,” Ms. Hochul said, adding the state had already been hit with about $1.2 billion in cuts.“There’s a possibility that we’ll have to come back later this year and update our budget in response to federal actions,” she added. Still, New York’s budget agreement, which will be fleshed out and voted on next week, dealt only glancingly with the transformed fiscal picture that could be on the horizon a few months from now — a bleak outlook made even more uncertain by President Trump’s tariff-driven global trade war. State Democratic leaders have stressed that congressional Republicans seem all too willing to cut entitlement programs such as Medicaid and Social Security. Yet the budget proposal called for New York to spend $17 billion more than last year, made possible in part after state officials disclosed earlier this month that tax revenues and the state’s general fund closed the fiscal year with billions more dollars than expected. Ms. Hochul, who is keenly aware of voters’ frustrations with rising costs for basic goods like food and housing, is up for re-election next year. Several Democrats are considering primary challenges, and several prominent Republicans, including Representative Elise Stefanik, are also weighing bids. In effort to boost her flagging political prospects, she stuffed her executive budget proposal in January with populist efforts to “put money back in people’s pockets.” It included a $3 billion tax refund that would have seen New Yorkers receive between $300 and $500 and a generous expansion of the state’s child tax credit program. The framework agreement with the Legislature included the governor’s proposed child tax credit of up to $1,000 for families with a child under 4, but the refund was scaled back in negotiations, amid pushback over whether that was the best use of so much cash. Now about $2 billion will be devoted to the program, with New Yorkers receiving between $200 and $400, depending on their income. Similarly Ms. Hochul had promised no increases to state income taxes, although she proposed an extension of an existing tax on residents making more than $1.1 million through tax year 2032, and relief for many middle-class New Yorkers earning up to $323,000 per year as joint filers. The budget agreement reached on Monday maintains the tax cut but includes an increased payroll levy on companies with more than $10 million in revenue. This largess would help fund the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $68 billion five-year plan to make systemwide infrastructure upgrades. Smaller companies will see a cut in their payroll tax burden because of the deal. The M.T.A., the state and New York City will each kick in $3 billion to fund the plan. Ms. Hochul also said that $1.2 billion that had been previously allocated for renovating Penn Station will go toward safety improvements and stopping fare evasion. “It’s a fair plan that asks the most from large employers, but also calls on the city, state and M.T.A. to step up,” said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a business group. Mr. Heastie said the framework agreement included changes to the state’s campaign finance matching system. Donations larger than $250 are currently disqualified from the matching program; the agreement provides for the state to match the first $250 of any donation up to $1,000. The budget deal also includes a change to the law to allow candidates for governor and lieutenant governor to run together as a ticket, rather than in separate primaries as they do now. The current lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, recently announced he would not seek another term in the role and is considering challenging Ms. Hochul in next year’s primary.