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3 Proven Ways to Collaborate Better on Climate Action

On the fringes of the United Nations General Assembly last year, the Potsdam Institute’s Johan Rockström unveiled the Planetary Health Check—a science-based global initiative which showed that six planetary boundaries are nearing dangerous tipping points, threatening our future. Until now, companies, nations, and organizations have each brought their own weight to bear on this challenge. But as the science shows, and as the effects unfold, it’s clear that it’s not enough for the planet’s leaders—from CEOs to NGOs—to act in silos. The world needs a new and bolder approach to the climate and nature crises—one that brings together different groups and unlocks the creativity needed to turbocharge climate solutions. From activists to companies, everyone is talking about collaboration as the key to climate solutions. But that's easier said than done. Common barriers to the bold cross-sectoral, cross-industry partnerships include challengings in aligning objectives, vision, and values; overcoming competitive barriers; and securing organizational buy-in, to name a few. In an effort to champion strong partnerships, earlier this year the World Economic Forum hosted its GAEA (Giving to Amplify Earth Action) Awards in collaboration with global management consulting firm Kearney. This includes work by honorees Built By Nature, HYBRIT, and the Youth Climate Justice Fund—all of which are raising ambition across the public, private, and philanthropic sectors. Here’s what their collaborative models look like: Cross-Sector Problem Solving The building and construction sector is the largest and fastest growing emitter of greenhouse gases by far, making up nearly 40% of global emissions. But what if cities could absorb carbon instead of emitting it? Built By Nature (BbN), an Amsterdam-based non-profit with the vision of a built environment in harmony with nature, is facilitating collaboration across the sector to accelerate the use of timber and other bio-based materials as an alternative to carbon-intensive steel and cement. Founded three years ago, BbN brings together developers, architects, policymakers, insurers, and financial institutions to better understand and find solutions to tackle entrenched barriers—such as restrictive building codes, outdated risk perceptions, and financing challenges. By bringing these diverse stakeholders together through collaborative national networks across multiple European cities, BbN creates the conditions for bio-based materials to scale. These networks foster peer learning, drive policy change, and surface new innovations that accelerate progress. This collaborative approach has allowed BbN to amplify its support by coordinating funding from industry, government, and philanthropic donors. To date, it has invested 6.5 million euros, leveraging an additional 6.7 million euros in co-funding, directing these resources toward targeted research and practical solutions to scale bio-based materials. Advertisement And this empowers problem solving. One of the major barriers BbN’s networks have addressed is the challenge of securing insurance for timber buildings. BbN convened a group of U.K.-based industry stakeholders, including developers, architects, insurers, and agents to find solutions. The resulting Mass Timber Insurance Playbook debunks misconceptions, mitigates risk, and provides guidance for unlocking insurance for bio-based construction. Without BbN’s collaborative model, sectors would continue to work in their traditional silos, struggling to tackle the complex challenges of decarbonizing construction with innovative, low-carbon materials. “Partnerships across sectors are key to our success—and our hope is that the profile that this GAEA Award provides will enable Built by Nature to attract more industry leaders, systems change pioneers and supporters to our mission,” says Paul King, CEO of Built By Nature. Advertisement Tapping Industry Collaboration Increased demand for steel over the past decade has led to a rapid rise in emissions. To put steel on a net-zero emissions pathway, the world must reduce its reliance on coal—this is what HYBRIT is doing. HYBRIT brings together Swedish industry leaders SSAB, LKAB, and Vattenfall on a mission to replace coal with fossil-free hydrogen in steel production. What sets this groundbreaking initiative apart is its peer-to-peer collaboration model, where each partner contributes complementary expertise: SSAB’s advanced steel manufacturing, LKAB’s sustainably-sourced iron ore, and Vattenfall’s fossil-free energy. As Anna Borg, Vattenfall CEO and TIME Magazine Top 100 Climate Leader, said at the GAEA Awards ceremony at this year’s World Economic Forum Annual Meeting: “When SSAB, LKAB, and Vattenfall started this collaboration in 2016 we knew that this is the business model of the future. But believing wasn’t enough—we had to prove it. HYBRIT has succeeded in delivering a product with superior qualities, proven process, delivered on time and on budget.” Advertisement HYBRIT’s technology could reduce Sweden’s emissions by 10%, but its impact extends far beyond its national borders, creating a replicable model for decarbonizing heavy industry globally. These companies, typically operating independently, are showing how collaboration can solve systemic challenges by reducing costs, mitigating risks, and combining knowledge. Powering Youth Leadership From setting up grassroots community initiatives to developing technological solutions to climate challenges, young people are leading the charge on climate and nature action. But less than 1% of global climate funding supports youth-led initiatives, leaving them without crucial support and the opportunity to connect with funders and donors. The Youth Climate Justice Fund (YCJF) is working to address this imbalance by advocating for youth-inclusive philanthropy and developing a pipeline for larger funders, while ensuring that young leaders have agency over how they allocate the funding they receive. As co-director Nathan Méténier highlights, “Our model is about calling everyone in. Young people are a dynamic force, yet we’re falling short in scaling support for their innovations.” Advertisement Underpinned by the belief that collaboration is essential for climate justice, YCJF fosters intergenerational relationships by connecting grantee partners with experienced youth activists. It also partners with funders to pilot youth-led convenings, mobilizing resources for frontline climate initiatives. “In just two years, we’ve funded 90+ initiatives across 45 countries, committing $2.1 million to grassroots solutions,” says co-director Joshua Amponsem. “There is so much more we can all do together to support young leaders and grassroots groups whose lived experiences offer insights to achieve equitable climate action.” Across all three models—Built by Nature, HYBRIT, and the Youth Climate Justice Fund—a common theme emerges: collaboration is integral to achieving systemic change. Yet, because it’s not easy to bring unlikely allies together, these initiatives offer new and innovative approaches to do so meaningfully and authentically. They also demonstrate that when different groups work together, they can pool expertise, resources, and influence to drive meaningful progress in the fight against climate change.

Exclusive: Louis DeJoy Resigns as Postmaster General

Louis DeJoy has resigned from his role as Postmaster General of the U.S. Postal Service, according to a source familiar with the matter. He told the USPS Board of Governors on Monday that it would be his last day on the job, naming Deputy Postmaster General Doug Tulino as his replacement until the Board names a permanent successor. Shortly after this story’s publication, DeJoy released a statement confirming his resignation. His sudden departure comes after he struck an agreement earlier this month to allow Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency inside the USPS to cut costs and remove bureaucratic red tape. DeJoy’s allies fear that his absence will leave the agency vulnerable to a dramatic and disruptive takeover by the Trump Administration. Both President Donald Trump and Musk have recently floated ideas to reshape the beloved institution, such as privatizing the Post Office or folding it into the Commerce Department. “It’s been just a tremendous loser for this country,” Trump said. In a letter to the agency’s 640,000 employees, DeJoy, 67, expressed confidence that Tulino and the organization could continue steering the USPS toward financial sustainability, saying “the entirety of the Postal Service will aggressively shape its future and become more efficient, capable, and competitive as it continuously changes and improves to best serve the American public.” Since taking the helm in 2020, DeJoy launched a 10-year plan to remake the USPS and save it from insolvency. He built new processing centers and modernized the delivery network. He renegotiated contracts for air and ground transportation to eliminate billions in expenses. Most consequentially, he shepherded major legislation through Congress to rescind a 2006 law requiring the Postal Service to prepay the next 50 years of health and retirement benefits for its entire workforce—a rule no other federal agency was forced to follow. Those changes have been starting to bear fruit. In the final quarter of 2024, the USPS made $144 million, its first profitable period in years. Still, DeJoy was always planning to step aside this year. Last month, he told the Board to start looking for a successor, ending a five-year tenure running the agency through a pandemic, three elections that relied heavily on mail voting, and his logistical overhaul. But he originally planned to stay in the position for several more months, helping the USPS transition to a new leader. A source familiar with the matter tells TIME that DeJoy had clashed in recent days with DOGE representatives assigned to the Postal Service, whom he tasked with reviewing the agency’s structural problems that he ascribed to a law passed in the 1970s. Musk’s lieutenants wanted more control over the USPS than DeJoy was willing to allow, a source familiar with the matter says. DOGE officials complained that DeJoy was “uncooperative.” Some suspect that DeJoy stepped aside to prevent a larger conflagration. For DeJoy, it’s a somber end to his government career. After making a fortune building a logistics firm worth more than $600 million, he became a GOP megadonor and helped to raise millions for Trump. He was set to serve as the official host of the 2020 Republican National Convention until the USPS Board asked him to become Postmaster General. Taking over in the thick of COVID-19, he initially struggled to transition from life as a corporate executive to a high-level bureaucrat. But, by his own admission, he grew to love the job and the arduous project of trying to rescue the agency from existential threats, even as Democrats and Republicans alike called for his removal. On his watch, the USPS struggled with on-time delivery and meeting its own service standards. But when the Postal Service turned a profit for the first time in years, it was a sign that his plan might be working for the only delivery service that reaches every American in every corner of the country. Yet for all his turnaround efforts—and his history as a Trump backer—it was not enough to withstand Trump’s war on Washington. Now, he will be leaving the agency unsure of what will follow him. “It has been one of the pleasures of my life and a crowning achievement of my career to have been associated with this cherished institution,” he wrote to his colleagues on Monday, “the United States Postal Service.”

Why Usha Vance’s Upcoming Visit to Greenland Is Angering Its Leaders

President Donald Trump is ramping up his pressure campaign to make Greenland part of the U.S., even as Greenland's leaders insist that they are not interested and that the Danish territory is not for sale. This week, the Administration plans to send three members of Trump’s inner circle to visit the island: Second Lady Usha Vance, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Their visit is being viewed by Greenland officials as an escalation in the Trump Administration’s ongoing push to assert control over Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark. In a video shared Sunday on Instagram, the Second Lady said she’s looking forward to visiting Greenland with one of her sons “to celebrate the long history of mutual respect and cooperation between our nations” and “to express hope that our relationship will only grow stronger in the coming years.” Greenland's outgoing Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede called the planned visit “highly aggressive” and accused the Trump Administration of using diplomatic engagements as a smokescreen for its ultimate goal: bringing Greenland under U.S. control. “Greenlanders have tried to be diplomatic, but it simply bounces off Donald Trump and his Administration in their mission to own and control Greenland,” he told the Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq on Sunday. The White House said that Usha Vance is scheduled to attend Greenland’s national dog-sled race and visit other culturally significant sites. In addition to the growing concerns surrounding the visit, the timing of the delegation’s trip is causing further unease. Greenland just completed a highly contested parliamentary election. The country is in the process of forming a new government and grappling with potential paths toward greater autonomy from Denmark, which is a NATO ally of the United States. Here’s what to know about the Trump Administration’s upcoming visit to Greenland and why Trump wants the island. Why Trump wants Greenland A semiautonomous Danish territory, Greenland has long been viewed as a strategic gem in the Arctic: it’s home to the U.S. Pituffik Space Base, which provides missile warning and space surveillance capabilities, and is situated along vital air and sea routes in the North Atlantic that could be beneficial for shipping and trade. The Trump Administration has framed a potential acquisition of Greenland as a matter of national security, arguing that American control would counter growing Russian and Chinese influence in the Arctic. “We need Greenland for national security and even international security,” Trump said earlier this month during a joint session of Congress. “And I think we’re going to get it one way or the other.” However, security concerns are not the only factor. Greenland possesses vast deposits of rare-earth minerals critical for advanced technology, including electric vehicle batteries, medical imaging equipment, and military applications. It also contains billions of untapped barrels of oil and a vast supply of natural gas—though mining the island has proven notoriously difficult. The President previously sent his son, Donald Trump Jr., to the Arctic territory’s capital in January. “This is a deal that must happen,” Trump wrote on social media at the time. “MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!” Trump’s push to acquire Greenland has also coincided with his vow to make Canada the 51st state and reclaim control of the Panama Canal. As officials in Denmark and Greenland have rejected Trump’s advances, U.S. officials have escalated their rhetoric. On Sunday, Vice President J.D. Vance blasted Denmark during an interview on Fox News, saying that the country is “not doing its job” and “not being a good ally.” “So you have to ask yourself: How are we going to solve that problem, solve our own national security?” Vance said. “If that means that we need to take more territorial interest in Greenland, that is what President Trump is going to do, because he doesn’t care about what the Europeans scream at us.” Usha Vance: Second Lady or diplomatic envoy? The inclusion of Usha Vance in the delegation has raised some eyebrows, as it will be her most high-profile moment thus far in the new Administration, one that was quickly viewed as a deliberate attempt at “soft power” diplomacy. The White House insists that her visit is for purely cultural purposes, aimed at fostering goodwill. In her video on Instagram, Vance emphasized her excitement about Greenland’s traditions. “I’ve been reading all about it with my children, and I’m amazed by the incredible skill and teamwork that it takes to participate in this race,” she said, referencing the Avannaata Qimussersu, Greenland’s national dog-sled race. Yet, Greenlandic leaders are unconvinced. “We are now at a point where it can no longer be described as an innocent visit from a politician’s spouse,” outgoing Prime Minister Egede told Sermitsiaq. “The international community must now react.” Despite Trump’s repeated assertions that Greenland is vital to U.S. interests, Danish and Greenlandic officials have consistently rejected any suggestion that the territory is available for purchase or annexation. “We are not for sale and cannot simply be taken,” Egede said on March 5 in response to Trump’s comments to Congress. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen echoed his stance, emphasizing that Greenland’s sovereignty is not negotiable. Greenland’s political transition following recent elections has further complicated the situation. Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the leader of the pro-business Demokraatit party, which emerged victorious in the elections, sought to calm fears while maintaining Greenland’s independence. In a post on Facebook on Sunday, he wrote: “There is no reason to panic. But there is good reason to stand together and to demand respect. I do. And I will continue to do so.”

What We Must Understand About the Dark Enlightenment Movement

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti liked automobiles, particularly his four-cylinder Fiat sports car. For him, the car represented innovation and vitality, even violence. Most of all, it signified the future. An Italian poet, performer, and pamphleteer, Marinetti was a reactionary; he loathed egalitarianism and democracy. He also wasn’t a conservative in any traditional sense, for there was little that he, and others in the Futurist art movement that he founded, wished to conserve. In his 1909 treatise, Founding and Manifesto of Futurism, he wrote, “We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind.” A precursor to the fascism that would envelop Europe, Marinetti was an influence on Benito Mussolini, and that ideology, which would soon fulfill that dark promise of destroying Europe’s museums, libraries, and academies. Marinetti’s stronghold over Mussolini has striking parallels to America today—particularly with the rise of the “Dark Enlightenment” movement and its most vocal steward: software engineer and blogger Curtis Yarvin. Largely ignored by academic philosophers, the “Dark Enlightenment” movement and Yarvin have curried favor and influence with tech executives in recent years. A software engineer by training, Yarvin has become a kind of official philosopher for tech leaders like PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel and Mosaic founder Marc Andreessen. Not unlike the Futurists, Yarvin advocates for replacing democracy with a kind of techno-feudal state—for the government to be run like a corporation, with the president as its “CEO.” This new system is elitist—“humans fit into dominance-submission structures” Yarvin wrote in 2008; and it’s authoritarian—“If Americans want to change their government, they’re going to have to get over their dictator phobia,” he said in 2012. There are shades of Yarvin’s philosophy in Thiel’s 2009 essay for the Cato Institute, where he wrote “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” And Thiel, through his venture capital firm, Founders Fund, was an early investor in the blogger’s startup company Urbit. As for Yarvin’s controversial opinions and whether or not Thiel holds them, Yarvin has said that his patron is “fully enlightened,” as he had been “coaching Thiel.” What’s more, in a recent interview with the Hoover Institution, Andreessen quoted Yarvin and called him a “friend.” What’s even more alarming is that Yarvin’s outsize influence on tech executives has now made its way to Washington. The signs are everywhere: Yarvin was a feted guest at Trump’s so-called “Coronation Ball” in January 2025. Vice President J.D. Vance, a protegee of Thiel’s, spoke admiringly of the blogger’s influence on his thinking when interviewed on a podcast in July 2024. And while Andreessen’s role in the Trump White House is unofficial, The Washington Post reported in January 2025 that the executive “has been quietly and successfully recruiting candidates for positions across Trump’s Washington.” Meanwhile, Elon Musk, though not outwardly tipping his hat to Yarvin, seemingly has a similar philosophy: In 2020, Musk told the Wall Street Journal that the “government is simply the largest corporation.” Five years later, Musk has been using his position as an unofficial advisor to the second Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to operationalize what Yarvin has called “a hard reboot” of the government. As such, it behooves us to be more familiar with Yarvin and other associated figureheads of this far-right philosophy. Understanding their motivations is essential to understanding what the stakes currently are—and how history can repeat itself. Much can be gleaned about the attractions of this ideology to many of those in power from simply parsing the name of the movement. “Dark Enlightenment” portends the upending of the liberal order that has defined democratic aspirations for nearly three centuries. Where the Enlightenment promised liberty, emancipation, equality, and solidarity, “Dark Enlightenment” offers servitude, hierarchy, bondage, and ruthlessness. The movement is most often associated with the British philosopher Nick Land. Land was a founder of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom until 1995 when his own increasingly erratic behavior had him expelled. Land is actively anti-democratic, desiring a system where great men (guided by algorithms and artificial intelligence) steer the ship of state. This is an explicitly nihilistic vision—“Nothing human makes it out of the near-future,” wrote Land in 1994—an ideology combining technological utopianism with deep misanthropy, a variant of what the historian Jeffrey Herf described as “reactionary modernism,” but which we might as well call cybernetic authoritarianism or technological fascism. This leads us to Yarvin. A polemical blogger, Yarvin wrote for years under the goofy name “Mencius Moldbug” where he advocated for his own form of techno-authoritarianism in opposition to democracy. Like Marinetti, Yarvin expressed disdain for those symbols of American culture that he sees as oppositional to “Dark Enlightenment”—from free voting to free inquiry, a vibrant media to the open university. Yarvin, writing in 2021, posited (with significantly less poetry than the Futurists), “Because the university is the heart of the old regime, it is absolutely essential to the success of any regime change that all accredited universities be both physically and economically liquidated.” Yarvin speaks disparagingly of something that he calls “The Cathedral,” a nexus of educational, media, and nonprofit organizations that he believes sets the tenor for discourse, but that also impedes the liberty of executives to do what they will. Rather his aspiration is, as he wrote in 2007, that “the state is simply a real estate business on a very large scale.” Using a variety of mixed metaphors, Yarvin advocates for a “Butterfly Revolution,” a “full power start” to the U.S. government accomplished by “giving absolute sovereignty to a single organization." This is imagined as an internal coup meant to privatize the government and replace democracy with complete executive authority. Two years ago, Yarvin laid out his strategic program with the acronym “RAGE,” or “Retire all government employees.” Yarvin argued that a hypothetical future Trump administration should terminate all nonpolitical federal workers to have them be replaced by loyalists. The government’s coffers must then be impounded and redirected, according to the blogger. When courts prevent unconstitutional orders, Yarvin says that they should just be ignored. After that, the free press and universities must be curtailed, as well—Yarvin said no later than April after the inauguration. That so much of this seems to mirror the actions of the Trump administration and DOGE may not be a coincidence. So far, some 30,000 federal employees—across departments as varied as the FDA, the National Park Service, and the FAA—have been fired by DOGE in the name of government efficiency. Yarvin’s musings in 2009 that the “definition of a sovereign is that a sovereign is above the law,” hold a mirror to Trump’s February tweet that “He who save his country, violates no law.” Yarvin’s claim that “No brand or building can survive” is perfectly congruent with the tech industry’s notorious ethos to “Move fast and break things.” But what’s also being seemingly witnessed is a harbinger of the “monarchism” that Yarvin desires. On February 19, Trump posted a doctored image of himself in a crown with the caption “Long Live the King!” on his social media app Truth Social. As is so often the case with Trump, pundits have a tendency to assume a lack of seriousness or intention with what the president says. The same dismissiveness sometimes accompanied the Futurists, and Mussolini’s fascists for that matter, when they were ascendant. Now, as Trump threatens longtime American allies from Panama to Mexico, Canada to Denmark, a belief of the Futurists even more disturbing than their worship of technology should be remembered: Marinetti’s claim that “War is the hygiene of the world.”

The Vicious Cycle of Extreme Heat Leading to More Fossil Fuel Use

Last year was the hottest on record, and global average temperatures passed the benchmark of 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times for the first time. Simultaneously, the growth rate of the world’s energy demand rose sharply, nearly doubling over the previous 10-year average. As it turns out, the record heat and rapidly rising energy demand were closely connected, according to findings from a new report from the International Energy Agency. That’s because hotter weather led to increased use of cooling technologies like air-conditioning. Electricity-hungry appliances put a strain on the grid, and many utilities met the added demand by burning coal and natural gas. All of this had the makings of a troubling feedback loop: A hotter world required more energy to cool down homes and offices, and what was readily available was fossil-fuel energy, which led to more planet-warming emissions. This dynamic is exactly what many countries are hoping to halt through the development of renewable energy and the construction of nuclear power plants. Put another way, the I.E.A. estimated that if 2024’s extreme weather hadn’t happened — that is, if weather was exactly the same in 2024 as in 2023 — the global increase in carbon emissions for the year would have been cut in half. It’s not all bad news: Increasingly, the global economy is growing faster than carbon emissions. “If we want to find the silver lining, we see that there is a continuous decoupling of economic growth from emissions growth,” said Fatih Birol, the executive director of the agency. We’re bringing this newsletter to you on Monday, instead of our usual Tuesday, to coincide with the release of the I.E.A. report. Here are five takeaways from last year’s energy trends. We’ll be back in your inbox on Thursday. Extreme heat helped drive global demand A major factor that raised global electricity demand last year was extreme heat, particularly heat waves in the U.S., China and India, the report found. Last spring, temperatures in New Delhi hit 126 degrees Fahrenheit, and temperatures in northern China broke records. All that added load had consequences, the I.E.A. found. These temperature effects drove about a fifth of the overall increase in demand for electricity and natural gas. Other electricity-intensive sectors grew in 2024. For example, data-center capacity grew by about 20 percent, mostly in the U.S. and China. High temperatures led to burning more coal Renewables, like solar and wind, are not that good at handling large, sudden upticks in electricity demand during heat waves. And they’re still not being deployed fast enough to meet global goals to triple renewable capacity by 2030. To meet urgent demand for electricity and help people avoid heat stress, some countries burned coal to help power air-conditioners and other cooling technologies. That led overall coal demand to increase by 1 percent last year to reach a record. The agency’s report found that the entire increase in coal demand could be explained by extreme temperatures. China remained the world’s biggest global coal consumer, burning 40 percent more coal than the rest of the world combined. Global electricity demand jumped In 2024, global energy demand grew by a little over 2 percent, almost twice as much as the average annual increase over the previous 10 years. This trend held across the board: Oil, natural gas, coal, renewables and nuclear all had an uptick in demand. Most of the global growth was concentrated in nations with emerging and developing economies, led by China and India. The numbers were even up in the European Union, where energy demand has largely not grown since 2017, with a post-Covid rebound year being the exception. The result of all this growth? Once again, energy-related carbon emissions reached a record in 2024. The I.E.A. estimated last fall that global carbon-dioxide emissions will peak in the next few years, then fall by 3 percent by 2030 under current national policy commitments. Global emissions would need to fall by 43 percent by 2030 in order to keep global warming below the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold established in the 2015 Paris Agreement, according to the U.N. The temperature goal is seen as increasingly unattainable by scientists and policymakers. Renewables and nuclear are growing About 80 percent of new electricity generation came from renewables and nuclear least year, and renewables accounted for almost a third of total electricity generation. Solar installations led the charge. In the United States, solar and wind electricity overtook coal for the first time. Global carbon emissions would have been 7 percent higher last year without clean technologies like solar, wind, nuclear, electric cars and heat pumps, the report found. For the first time, oil dipped below 30% of global energy demand Growth in oil demand continued to slow last year, with factors including consumers’ buying electric vehicles and ditching gas-powered cars. Last year, just two categories accounted for virtually all of the growth in oil demand: Aviation and shipping, and plastics. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Plastics have become an increasingly important part of oil companies’ growth plans as cars and trucks go electric and other sectors use less oil. Oil is a key material in plastics manufacturing.

Teachers Unions Sue Trump Administration Over Push to Shut Education Dept.

The Trump administration’s campaign to dismantle the Education Department drew a pair of court challenges on Monday, as opponents called the plan an attempt to evade congressional authority. The first lawsuit was filed in federal court in Massachusetts by the American Federation of Teachers, a teachers union; the American Association of University Professors; and two public school districts in Massachusetts. Within hours the N.A.A.C.P., the National Education Association union and other critics had brought a case of their own in federal court in Maryland. The challenges came four days after President Trump signed an executive order that directed the education secretary, Linda McMahon, to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the department.” The day after the order, Mr. Trump announced that the Small Business Administration would assume control of the government’s $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio, and that the Health and Human Services Department would oversee nutrition programs and special education services. The Education Department, created in 1979, cannot be closed without Congress’s consent. The Massachusetts lawsuit argues that the Trump administration’s moves since it came to power in January, including an effort to roughly halve the department’s work force, “will interfere with the department’s ability to carry out its statutorily required functions.” Ilana Krepchin, chairwoman of the Somerville, Mass., school committee, which is a plaintiff in the Massachusetts case, said that the Education Department was a “cornerstone of equitable public education.” “Dismantling it would cause real harm — not only to our students and schools, but to communities across the country,” Ms. Krepchin said. Madi Biedermann, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, said that all federally mandated programs would remain in the agency and that the administration had promised to work with Congress in order to close the department. “Instead of focusing on the facts and offering helpful solutions to improve student outcomes, the union is once again misleading the American public to keep their stranglehold on the American education bureaucracy,” Ms. Biedermann said, referring to the American Federation of Teachers. Top Republicans on Capitol Hill — including Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions — have pledged to support the president’s push, which has been embraced by some right-leaning groups. But rank-and-file lawmakers are expected to face significant pressure, both for and against the plan, before any vote is held. Charles L. Welch, the president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, said last week that he was “dismayed” by Mr. Trump’s order and urged lawmakers to, in effect, defy the White House and help preserve the department. The Education Department has limited power over what is taught in American classrooms. Its principal jobs are to distribute money to schools, enforce civil rights laws and run the federal student aid program for college students. It has historically played a large role in data collection and education research funding. It is not clear when any legislation to close or rebuild the department might come to a vote. In the Maryland case, the N.A.A.C.P. and the N.E.A., the nation’s largest teachers’ union, were among the plaintiffs who argued that the administration’s tactics over the last two months amounted to “a de facto dismantling of the department by executive fiat.” “Donald Trump’s own secretary of education has acknowledged they can’t legally shut down the Department of Education without Congress,” said Aaron Ament, president of the National Student Legal Defense Network, which is helping represent the National Education Association in the case. “Yet that is, for all intents and purposes, exactly what they are doing,” he added. “It’s a brazen violation of the law that will upend the lives of countless students and families.” Derrick Johnson, president and chief executive of the N.A.A.C.P., accused Mr. Trump of doing far more than trying to shrink or shutter an agency. “Education is power,” Mr. Johnson said. Referring to Mr. Trump, he added, “He is deliberately destroying the pathway many Americans have to a better life.” The N.A.A.C.P. and the other challengers in Maryland asked a federal judge to prohibit the Education Department and Ms. McMahon “from continuing their dismantling of the department and implementing the March 20 executive order.” In a separate, privacy-focused case also in Maryland, a federal judge ruled on Monday that the Education Department could not supply sensitive data to the Department of Government Efficiency, which is led by Elon Musk.

What Are Your Plans After Graduation?

Students, we want to hear about life after graduation. Have your plans been affected by turmoil in the federal government? These can be positive or negative outcomes, or maybe just a rethinking of what your future could look like. Tell us about your career goals and how you intend to navigate this period of change. We may reach out to hear more about your submission, but we will not publish any part of your response without contacting you first, and we will never publicly share your personal information.

Wildfires Burn More Than 4,000 Acres in North Carolina

Two wildfires, each greater than 2,000 acres, more than doubled in size on Sunday and raged uncontained in Polk County, N.C., after residents were ordered to evacuate among warnings of dire conditions. At 8:20 p.m. on Saturday, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety announced a mandatory evacuation for parts of the county. It was not immediately clear how many people were affected by the evacuation order. Officials warned of dangerous conditions, saying on social media that “visibility in the area will be reduced and roads/evacuation routes can become blocked; if you do not leave now, you could be trapped, injured, or killed.” As of Sunday evening, the North Carolina Forest Service had reported four active fires in the county. The largest two — Black Cove, which grew on Sunday to 2,076 acres, and Deep Wood, which also grew, to 2,545 acres — were zero percent contained. Both fires were burning in timber on steep terrain on a mix of state-owned and private land in the Green River Gorge, according to the state’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Nearly 250 firefighting personnel from across North Carolina and other states were working to prevent the fires from spreading to neighborhoods and structures, the department said. Kellie Cannon, a spokeswoman for the county, said on Sunday afternoon that the Black Cove and Deep Woods fires “are coming close to meeting and they are separated by a road.” She added that a code red air quality alert was in place for the county “because the smoke is very dense.” The alert means that the air is unhealthy for anyone exposed to it. Polk County, in the western part of the state, is home to about 20,000 people. The Forest Service had a statewide burn ban in effect, with the agency announcing that “under North Carolina law, the ban prohibits all open burning in the affected counties, regardless of whether a permit was previously issued.” The threat of wildfires extended into South Carolina, where Gov. Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency in an effort to combat a wildfire known as the Table Rock fire in Pickens County. That blaze ignited on Friday in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and spread over 1,300 acres by Sunday evening. “As this wildfire continues to spread, the state of emergency allows us to mobilize resources quickly and ensure our firefighters have the support they need to protect lives and property,” Mr. McMaster said in a statement. Another fire, the Persimmon Ridge fire, started Saturday in the Mountain Bridge Wilderness area and had grown to more than 800 acres by Sunday evening. The South Carolina Forestry Commission said that both fires remained zero percent contained as of Sunday night. Around 100 homes were under voluntary evacuations just east of Table Rock State Park on Sunday, while another 500 homes remained under close watch. Officials from the South Carolina Forestry Commission urged people to stay away from the area. The Storm Prediction Center issued an elevated fire-weather risk on Saturday, for an area from northern Georgia, through western portions of the Carolinas and into central Virginia. Fires have been fueled by weeks of below-average rainfall, with much of Polk County experiencing moderate drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. These conditions are common in spring, said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “Right around when the leaves start coming up on the trees, right around green-up,” he said. “There’s a lot of dry fuels on the ground, so it’s easy for them to burn.” Some relief arrived on Sunday night, when showers were expected to increase humidity levels. Beyond that, Mr. Oravec said, conditions will remain mostly cool and dry across the eastern United States. “No real big blockbuster rains to really help the drought conditions,” he said.

U.S. Lodges New Accusations Against Detained Columbia Protest Leader

When Mahmoud Khalil, who helped lead pro-Palestinian demonstrations while a Columbia University student, was detained this month, the Trump administration argued he should be deported to help prevent the spread of antisemitism, invoking a rarely used law. Lawyers for Mr. Khalil, a legal permanent resident who is being detained in Louisiana, quickly responded that the administration was retaliating against their client for his constitutionally protected speech criticizing Israel and promoting Palestinian rights. Last week, the government quietly added new accusations to its case against Mr. Khalil, saying that he had willfully failed to disclose his membership in several organizations, including a United Nations agency that helps Palestinian refugees, when he applied to become a permanent U.S. resident last March. It said he also failed to disclose work he did for the British government after 2022. The Trump administration appears to be using the new allegations in part to sidestep the First Amendment issues raised by Mr. Khalil’s case. On Sunday, in a filing opposing his release, Justice Department lawyers argued that the new allegations reduced the importance of concerns about Mr. Khalil’s right to free speech. “Khalil’s First Amendment allegations are a red herring,” they wrote. Given the new allegations, they added, there was an “independent basis” for his deportation. “The new deportation grounds are patently weak and pretextual,” said one of Mr. Khalil’s lawyers, Ramzi Kassem, a co-director of CLEAR, a legal clinic at the City University of New York. “That the government scrambled to add them at the 11th hour only highlights how its motivation from the start was to retaliate against Mr. Khalil for his protected speech in support of Palestinian rights and lives.” Mr. Khalil’s lawyers are fighting for his release in a New Jersey federal court. His wife, an American citizen who lives in New York City, is expected to give birth next month. The new allegations, listed in a document from the Homeland Security Department, include that Mr. Khalil did not disclose his work with the U.N. agency or Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of student groups that set off pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the school. Mr. Khalil earned a master’s degree from Columbia in December.The government also said that Mr. Khalil failed to list his continuing employment with the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, after 2022. The efforts of Mr. Khalil’s lawyers in New Jersey to secure his release are separate from the immigration court proceedings — currently being held in Louisiana — that could lead to his deportation. But in order to deport Mr. Khalil on the basis of the new allegations, the government would have to convince an immigration judge that any failure to disclose the relevant information was willful, and that it would have made a difference in his chances of receiving legal permanent residency status. The Trump administration is also standing by its original justification for Mr. Khalil’s detention, citing a little-used law that says the secretary of state can initiate deportation proceedings against noncitizens whose presence in the United States can reasonably be considered a threat to the country’s foreign-policy agenda. The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has accused Mr. Khalil of participating in antisemitic activities, referring to protests on Columbia’s campus at which, the secretary said, students expressed support for Hamas. Mr. Khalil’s lawyers have denied that their client promoted Hamas and have argued more generally that their client’s speech is protected by the First Amendment. They are expected to challenge the constitutionality of the law Mr. Rubio used to initially justify Mr. Khalil’s detention. Jesse Furman, a federal judge in New York who reviewed Mr. Khalil’s case before transferring it to New Jersey last week, said that the First and Fifth Amendment issues raised by the case warranted careful review. “The fundamental constitutional principle that all persons in the United States are entitled to due process of law demands no less,” he wrote.

Tribes That Rely on Federal Funds for Medical Care Worry About DOGE Cuts

The reservation of the Kashia Pomo Tribe, based in Sonoma County, Calif., is nearly two hours away from the nearest hospital or center providing critical medical services. Reno Keoni Franklin, chairman emeritus of the Kashia Pomo Tribe, says the long commute is just one of several inconveniences impacting American Indians, whose medical care is funded by federal dollars. Funding for Indian Health Service (IHS), the agency that provides Native Americans with medical care, is under threat by slashes to national spending imposed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which tribal leaders say could worsen their situation. Advertisement “These cuts are jeopardizing a system that's working. The notion by DOGE is that it's of no real value… They don't know what these workers do to provide essential services,” says Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe. “They’re an essential pipeline to help the community. We do what we can to make a difference. And we're still struggling.” Tribal reliance on federal funds for medical care is part of the existing legal trust obligation to provide certain services, including health care, to Native Americans because the government took over Indigenous land. But looming DOGE cuts could upend the already-underfunded IHS. For fiscal year 2025, IHS received a budget of some $8 billion, far below its estimated need. The IHS National Tribal Budget Formulation Workgroup recommended the agency receive $73 billion—nine times the amount allotted to the agency. Administrators for tribal public health boards are able to supplement lack of funding by applying for federal grants—which are also being gutted by DOGE—and other third-party revenue reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid. While President Trump has said that Medicaid and Medicare will not be cut, Congressional Republicans have pledged to make massive cuts to their budget, and constituents fear the two programs will be affected.