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. Mark Cuban is no fan of Donald Trump. The business moguls have a long, complicated relationship that colored plenty of the 2024 presidential campaign as the reality stars sparred from afar. The frenemy-ship was one of the best subplots of last year’s hard-fought campaign, and one that is showing no sign of abating. Speaking Saturday to a conference of traditionalist Republicans, the Dallas Mavericks owner and serial entrepreneur suggested Trump merits slim admiration as he continues to hock anything that will slap his name on it, from cryptocurrency to clothing to the U.S. government itself. “The only reason someone sells all that shit is because they have to,” Cuban trolled. Cuban by contrast said he doesn’t need to slum it with such petty endeavors. “I don’t need to sell gold tennis shoes that may not ship,” he said, noting Trump’s effort in footwear that warned might never materialize. “He doesn’t want to govern. He wants to sell.” Bravado of that order is easy when you’re a billionaire. It’s just not clear that it translates to a viable governance strategy, especially with a rival billionaire holding the most consequential job on the planet. Cuban, a swaggering independent, was regrouping in Washington with anti-Trump Republicans at the Principles First summit, as the Trumpist wing of the party huddled across the river at this year’s CPAC, where Trump was set to speak this afternoon, and Elon Musk brandishing a chainsaw stole the show earlier this week. The striking split-screen Saturday hinted at the deeply unsettled moment in politics, as our most famous billionaires offer competing views of how to fix Washington. And for Cuban, that prescription was wrapped up in his withering assessment of the Democratic Party, and Vice President Kamala Harris, who he believes failed to reach voters last year. “If you gave the Democrats a dollar bill and said, ‘You can sell these for 50 cents,’ they would hire 50 people … and then would not know how to sell the dollar bill for 50 cents,” said Cuban, who hit the trail last year for Harris. “If you gave it to Donald Trump and said, ‘Sell this dollar bill for $2,’ he’d figure out a way, right? He’d tell you that $2 bill is, you know, huge.” All of which leads Cuban to having little optimism that Democrats can steer the country away from the Trumpian skid the nation finds itself enduring. “I learned the Democrats can’t sell worth shit,” Cuban said. In Cuban’s estimation, Democratic candidates did not demonstrate having any understanding of small businesses, the impact of inflation, the anxiety about immigration, or even the basics of the tax code. All of that conspired, thanks to bloated consultants looking over their shoulders, to their losses when a win was achievable. It’s also why, after his first event for Harris, he banned her consultants from chirping in his ear, he said, and why he’s watching with frustration and shock that they haven’t learned any lessons from last year’s loss. Cuban heaped scorn on those Democrats who keep repeating the arguments from the unsuccessful 2024 bid about Trump being a threat to democracy and a challenge to everything that Americans hold dear. “How’d that work in the campaign?” Cuban said. As Trump and Musk set about to scrap whole pillars of the federal bureaucracy, Cuban argued that the fascination on the wrecking ball is not a winning tactic because neither he nor Musk need to get it all right to change government in ways that will be difficult to unwind. “Elon doesn’t give a shit,” Cuban said. “He’s, like, ‘F— it, I’ll be rich no matter what.’” That said, Cuban was clear he has zero interest in being an elected player in a system he carries avowed contempt toward. “I don’t want to be President,” he said. “I’d rather f— up health care.” As both parties fret over the outsized influence of the super-rich, it is telling how much the prescriptions of celebrities with deep pockets continue to draw so much interest. Cuban’s needling of Democrats was rooted in how much he blames them for everything unfolding now. “Chaos is not good for this country,” Cuban warned. “There's no amount of money that overcomes that.”
A decade after allegations first surfaced that schools operated by New York’s Hasidic Jewish community were denying children a basic education, the state government is for the first time cutting off funding for schools it says have refused to improve. The New York State Education Department will no longer provide crucial funding for two all-boys Hasidic schools in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and will ensure that all of their students are enrolled in different schools by the fall. The effective closure of the two schools, which are known as yeshivas, is the strongest action taken in New York to crack down on schools over their failure to comply with education law. And it’s a move that many Hasidic leaders and even critics of the yeshiva system doubted the state would ever make. That’s partially because of the long and tangled process that the state created to penalize schools found to be breaking the law, which mandates that all children receive an adequate secular education, even in private schools. Resisting outside oversight into religious education has become perhaps the top political priority for the Hasidic community, which has long maintained a significant influence in local politics and tends to vote as a bloc. The insular community’s yeshivas, which rely heavily on taxpayer dollars, teach religious lessons in Yiddish and Hebrew for most of the school day, and offer little instruction in English or math. The two schools that the state is effectively closing are part of a larger group of yeshivas that have not made sufficient progress, said Rachel Connors, a spokeswoman for the Education Department. Most of those schools have not yet faced any consequences for failing to boost their secular education. But the leaders of the two schools, Yeshiva Talmud Torah of Kasho and Yeshiva Bnei Shimon Yisroel of Sopron, which are housed in three locations in Williamsburg, refused even to meet with education officials to work on an improvement plan. “In December 2024, the department wrote to noncompliant schools, inviting them to meet and urging them to re-engage in the process to avoid the consequences associated with final negative determinations,” Ms. Connors said in a statement. “Schools that did not re-engage have been deemed schools that do not provide compulsory education.” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The two yeshivas were part of an investigation into Hasidic schools that began after yeshiva graduates filed a complaint with the state in 2015, claiming that the education they had received had left them unprepared to navigate the world as adults. When education officials in 2019 visited one of the Sopron locations, which is now effectively being shuttered, inspectors “did not observe any instruction, taught in English, in the core academic subjects of English, history, mathematics and science,” according to a report released by the city’s Education Department. Spokespeople for a group that represents yeshivas did not respond to requests for comment. But an article published Friday in Yeshiva World News, a Hasidic news outlet, offered some insight into the community’s reaction. “It is always wiser to make your case to government rather than to refuse to respond,” the editorial read. “That makes it seem like they had something to hide. The yeshivas should have demonstrated pride and confidence in their students.” The editorial also noted that the yeshivas were not being judged on their curriculum or “approach to education.” Instead, their funding was being cut off because they had not engaged with the government. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Indeed, the state’s move, which was earlier reported by The Daily News and The Jerusalem Post and not publicized by the state’s Education Department, underscores how much some yeshivas have defied government efforts to bolster secular education. Scrutiny of the schools ramped up following a 2022 New York Times investigation, which found that scores of all-boys Hasidic schools in Brooklyn and the lower Hudson Valley did not provide a basic secular education despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in public funding. The report also discovered that teachers in some yeshivas had used corporal punishment. The following year, city and state education officials determined that 18 Hasidic yeshivas were not providing a basic nonreligious education. The state, however, provided those schools with multiple opportunities to demonstrate their commitment to improving their secular studies. A spokeswoman for Mayor Eric Adams, a longtime political ally of the Hasidic community, said that the city would defer to the state on this issue but otherwise declined to comment. Adina Mermelstein Konikoff, the director of Yaffed, a group of former yeshiva students that supports secular education, said in a statement that she hoped the state’s move “serves as a wake-up call for other schools that continue to disregard essential academic standards.”
A federal judge on Friday agreed to extend an order blocking the National Institutes of Health from reducing grant funding to institutions conducting medical and scientific research until she could come to a more lasting decision. Judge Angel Kelley of the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts had temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s cuts from taking effect earlier this month, with that hold set to expire on Monday. That teed up an urgent hearing on Friday in which states and associations representing those institutions urged her to consider halting the cuts more permanently. The stakes of the lawsuit were put in stark relief during one portion of Friday’s hearing that focused on “irreparable harm,” in which Judge Kelley asked both sides to explain whether the suspension of the funds amounted to an irreversible blow to the universities and hospitals across the country that depend on the funding. The N.I.H. has proposed cutting around $4 billion in grants it provides for “indirect costs,” which it has described as tangential expenditures for things like facilities and administrators, and which it said could be better spent on directly funding research. The proposal envisioned reducing funding for those indirect costs to a 15 percent rate to all institutions that receive funds, which a lawyer for the government said was in line with that of private foundations. But the coterie of lawyers representing the states and research institutions argued to the judge that the direct and indirect costs are often intertwined. One lawyer asked Judge Kelley to consider a scenario of a researcher doing experiments directly funded through an N.I.H. grant, and a worker disposing of hazardous medical waste produced by all the experiments being run at that facility. “It is equally important to the research that both of those people are paid to do their work,” the lawyer said. “The research couldn’t happen without that — nevertheless, one is classified as a direct cost, one is an indirect cost.” Lawyers for the plaintiffs ticked through an array of adverse effects that could result from the pause in funding. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT They asked the judge to consider the ramifications of potential layoffs of highly skilled staff members, such as veterinary technicians that oversee animal research and hospital nurses. They warned of clinical trials on new drugs being paused. They argued that many institutions would be unable to bring back employees they had lost once experiments and trials were forced to stop.Brian Lea, a lawyer representing the government, said on Friday that the broad effects mentioned at the hearing were largely speculative, part of a “nonspecific aura of urgency” that research institutions had drummed up without showing concrete damages. With universities in the middle of admissions season, the plaintiff lawyers described a chaotic environment in which both schools and Ph.D. applicants would need to reassess whether the projects they planned to pursue would be feasible. And they expressed fear for smaller universities that were not likely to be able to fill the unanticipated gap left in their budgets. Even at larger schools with hefty endowments, the promise of government funding had already influenced big investments, the plaintiff lawyers said. They pointed to a $200 million neuroscience lab at the California Institute of Technology, finished in 2020, that the university expected to pay for in part through the funding. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “There’s going to be a hole in the research budget at Caltech, and actually a big one,” a lawyer said. The plaintiff lawyers said that other groups not involved in the lawsuit, such as associations of dental and nursing schools, had also become invested in the outcome, fearing disruptions to their own operations. “Are you willing to agree that the plaintiffs will suffer harm?” Judge Kelley asked the government’s lawyer after hearing the long list of examples marshaled by the groups suing. “Not irreparable,” Mr. Lea replied. He said the states and associations suing the government had other means of recovering the lost funding, such as suing under the Tucker Act, which allows groups to sue the government in contract claims. He added that the 15 percent cap was in line with what private foundations such as the Gates Foundation often agree to. Earlier, Mr. Lea repeated the government’s claim that capping “indirect funds,” for costs like buildings, utilities and support staff, at 15 percent was simply designed to free up more money to be allocated directly to researchers. “I want to be clear about one thing at the outset: This is not cutting down on grant funding,” he said. “This is about changing the slices of the pie, which falls squarely in the executive’s discretion.” Lawyers suing to stop the cuts said that capping indirect funds at 15 percent across the board was arbitrary, a standard for challenging agency decisions. They argued that institutions of different sizes naturally have different needs when negotiating with the government, and forcing all to adapt to a 15 percent maximum was unreasonable. “A lot of this is driven by economies of scale, right?” one of the lawyers said. “The larger the institution you have, the bigger the building you have, the more you can house multiple projects within that one building — that’s going to change your ratio of direct costs or indirect costs,” she said.
Germany has long been considered a global leader on climate change and the clean energy transition. In its landmark Climate Action Law adopted in December 2023, the country aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 65% by 2030 and reach climate neutrality by 2045, along with setting annual emission budgets for various sectors until 2030. Former chancellor Angela Merkel was often referred to as the "climate chancellor" for her efforts to tackle emission reduction on the international level. And climate was an important issue for voters choosing her replacement in the 2021 German election. But as Germans prepare to head to the polls on Feb. 23 for a snap election, climate is not quite as important a factor as it used to be, says Marc Weissgerber, executive director of climate think tank E3G. “”From the voter's perspective, the priority is not as big anymore,” he says. According to a January survey by Deutschlandtrend, immigration and the economy were cited as the biggest concerns for voters, with only 13% of those surveyed mentioning environmental and climate protection—similar to the top concerns in the U.S. elections last fall. Resetting priorities Reflecting this shift in public opinion, politicians are turning away from climate too. On the far right, there is the Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD), which is second in national polls. It has questioned the legitimacy of climate change and, much like President Trump on this side of the Atlantic, has called for Germany to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords. But the AfD, whilst pre-election surveys suggest it could perform well, trails the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), whose leader Friedrich Merz could end up as the German chancellor, according to polls. And Merz, although less vehemently anti-climate than the AfD, has nonetheless promised to move away from previous governments' environmentally-focused policies, which aimed to use climate spending as a way to boost the economy. Instead, he wants to prioritize the country’s economic and industrial strength. While on the campaign trail, he said that the economic policy of recent years had been geared “almost exclusively toward climate protection,” according to Politico. “I want to say it clearly as I mean it: We will and we must change that.” Analysts say Merz’s comments reflect how the country’s green energy goals are increasingly seen as out of step with goals to boost economic growth. Germany’s manufacturing industry, for example, which has propelled its economy for decades, is on the decline. “Climate action is taking a back seat compared to industrial action, as Germany pushes to reposition its economic and industrial model,” says Olivia Lazard, senior research fellow at Carnegie Europe. “The prices of energy and material consumption have risen in Germany, which creates a lot of economic anxiety and political economic polarization.” A costly transition Behind the shift is a reality that politicians in several countries have been grappling with: the adoption of green energy has come at a cost for Germany that many now see as too high. In April 2024, Germany’s Federal Network Agency, which regulates the country’s energy supply networks, announced that the cost of the country’s transition to renewable energy, an estimated 450 billion euros ($498.4 billion USD), would be passed on to consumers through their energy bills. This comes as Germans continue to pay high prices for fossil fuels in the wake of Russia’s war on Ukraine—as of last fall, German households were paying 74% more for gas than before the war. And natural gas— which was meant to be a bridge towards decarbonization given that it produces less CO2 than coal or oil— was harder to access. “It sort of sent the German narrative and the political mobilization and economic mobilization for the climate fight into disarray, not out of unwillingness to do so, but out of difficulty from an industrial and economic capacity,” says Lazar. As a result, the green transition has been losing favor with voters—many of whom are feeling pinched by the rising cost of living. “They have taken an aggressive stance to move away [from fossil fuels], but it's not always proven cost effective, and cost for most people is the key.” says Robert Orttung, a professor of sustainability and international affairs at the George Washington University. Beyond Berlin The possibility of a change in the German government’s priorities matters well beyond Berlin, with experts warning the impact could be felt globally. Germany has the largest economy in Europe and has, in past years, more than exceeded its climate financing goals for poorer countries. Now, with the U.S. pulling out of the Paris Accords and rolling back climate initiatives under the Trump administration, Germany could establish itself as a leader on the climate front. But if it steps back as well, the repercussions could be felt across Europe. “It would certainly have a huge impact if Germany falters,” Lazzard says. Take for example what is one of the world’s key climate initiatives: the so-called Loss and Damage fund, established during the 2022 climate summit in Egypt, known as COP27, to help lower-income countries recover from natural disasters. A key priority of last year’s annual climate summit, COP29, was to get wealthy nations to commit more money to support the fund. Germany pledged 94 million Euros ($100 million USD) to the fund in Nov. 2023, but the total $700 million put forward by wealthy nations by the end of COP29 “doesn’t come close” to meeting demand, according to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. With the Trump Administration pulling back from funding climate initiatives, other high-income countries might be tasked with filling in—though many are uninclined to do so as they face down the same budgetary and populist pressures as Germany. “Whether the Germans and the Europeans in general are willing to step up and really start to pay more for this kind of policy is going to be a big question mark,” says Orttung.
News about how investors are responding to climate change can look pretty grim these days. Opportunities in AI have taken up a lot of the oxygen—and capital—in the financial sector, and the Trump Administration’s move to rip up anything climate related has pushed some investors to turn their backs on climate deals. If these developments have you down, consider looking to Tom Steyer for a pick-me-up. Steyer, known by many as a 2020 presidential candidate, has since returned to his finance roots—this time as an investor focused on climate change. When we caught up earlier this month at his office in San Francisco, he brushed aside questions about how the new Trump Administration, and the broader climate pullback it has inspired, might challenge his business. He’s focused on economics, and in his telling the financial side of the equation remains solid. “I would say the numbers about the ability to make this transition are much better than expected,” he tells me, citing the continued record deployment of clean energy technologies. “The rhetoric moves back and forth, but ultimately the facts drive home reality.” His firm, Galvanize Climate Solutions, has focused in three categories: equities, real estate, and venture and growth. In those areas, the Galvanize team looks for investments that advance the climate cause while generating above market returns—all without relying on policy support from Washington. “This is going to happen if, in fact, we win in the marketplace,” he says. “We're not getting subsidies, we're not getting free money from the government, and we're not counting on anybody being nice.” Take real estate. Galvanize pairs general expertise on the real estate sector with knowledge of the financial opportunities that can come from decarbonizing real estate assets—think of lower costs as a result of energy efficiency and on-site renewable energy. That in turn drives up the price of the asset. “It's just understanding technology, understanding costs, understanding buildings and real estate markets,” he says. Steyer is not the only investor sticking with climate, though few are likely to be as full throated in still making their case or as steadfast in their determination. Some big financial institutions have insisted they will continue to pursue deals that advance the climate agenda when the economics pencil out. But there’s no question that the general enthusiasm that made anything climate-related hot a few years ago has dissipated—and troublingly for climate advocates, the enthusiasm was already waning before the Trump Administration took office in January. A report from PitchBook, which tracks private-market investment data, found that total venture funding for climate-tech fell for the third year in a row last year with funding down more than 17% from the year prior. In the public markets, U.S. ESG funds experienced outflows every quarter last year, according to a report from investment research firm Morningstar. And yet Steyer argues that the zeitgeist shift around sustainable investing makes this a great time to be a climate investor. At the core of Steyer’s argument is an assessment of the supply and demand for capital. Right now, he says, there are more investment-grade opportunities in climate and decarbonization than capital available to make those investments. This, he argues, translates into a wide range of opportunities to pick from and better deal terms for investors willing to take the leap. “From the standpoint of an investor, that's a good thing,” he says. “From the standpoint of the country or the world, that's probably not a good thing.” Over the years, I’ve had a chance to chat with Steyer on several occasions, especially during his political phase. And yet this feels like his most important environmental work. When it comes to convincing the private sector to stick with climate, he tells me, “success is the best argument.”
Connor McDavid broke America’s heart. The Canadian hockey superstar, a three-time NHL MVP who also won the NHL playoff MVP last season even though he played for the losing Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Finals, took a centering pass and beat American goaltender Connor Hellebuyck with a laser shot to give Canada a thrilling 3-2 overtime victory over the U.S. in the final of the inaugural—and highly successful—4 Nations Face-Off. The tournament—which pitted teams from the U.S., Canada, Finland, and Sweden against each other as a replacement for the NHL’s usually low-wattage All-Star festivities—drew record viewership, in large part due to a burgeoning U.S.-Canada geopolitical rivalry that spilled out onto the ice. The last time the U.S. and Canada met in a best-in-class world final that required an overtime session was the gold medal game of the 2010 Olympics, when Sidney Crosby scored an overtime goal in Vancouver that sent the home nation into hysterics. McDavid, just like Crosby 15 years ago, shows that Canadian hockey icons know how to deliver in the biggest moments on the biggest of stages. It was an edge-of-your-seat match for viewers. The teams traded goals in the first period; Nathan McKinnon of Canada struck first, before American Brady Tkachuck evened things up with a little more than three minutes left in the period, after an Austin Matthews wraparound instigated the action. The U.S. started to sense victory potential in the second, when Jake Sanderson gave the Americans a 2-1 advantage. But a Sam Bennett goal equalized the affair, before a scoreless third period sent the game into sudden-death. The politically-tinged tension of this championship game was unmistakable. Canada has taken exception to U.S. President Donald Trump’s pronouncement that the country could soon be America’s 51st state: during previous games in the tournament that took place in Montreal, fans booed the “Star Spangled Banner.” The atmosphere felt much different Thursday night, in Boston: red “Make America Great Again” hats dotted the crowd. “USA! USA!” chants were particularly fervent. Last Saturday’s meeting between the neighbors, in round-robin play, saw three fights between the teams in nine seconds. Team USA won that round, and the rivalry matchup drew 10.1 million North American viewers, the highest number recorded outside the Stanley Cup Final since 2014, according to the NHL. Trump has adopted the U.S. team as his own. He posted on Truth Social Thursday that, although he wouldn’t be able to attend the game because of a prior commitment, he wanted to “to spur them on towards victory tonight against Canada, which with FAR LOWER TAXES AND MUCH STRONGER SECURITY, will someday, maybe soon, become our cherished, and very important, Fifty First State.” He’s taken to calling Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “governor”—and relished another chance to get under his skin. Trump wrote that “he’d be watching and that if Governor Trudeau would like to join us, he would be most welcome.” Later, the President shared a video showing that he indeed called the U.S. team before the game. “I just want to wish you a lot of luck. You really are a skilled group of people. It’s an honor to talk to you,” he said over a phone held by U.S. coach Mike Sullivan. “There’s no pressure whatsoever.” The players in the locker room laughed. “I can tell you honestly, every person in here—players, staff, management, coaches—we are all proud Americans and we want to represent the country the best way we can,” Sullivan responded. “Just go out and have a good time,” Trump said. “You’re going to win, and we love America, we love you guys. We’ll be watching tonight, bring it home.” The U.S. failed to do so this time around, giving Canada some well-deserved gratification. “You can’t take our country,” Trudeau gloated on X. “And you can’t take our game.” But Trump may take some satisfaction: While U.S. national teams competing on the world stage tended to distance themselves from him in his first term—the U.S. women’s soccer team in 2019 relished trolling him—this hockey team seemed to embrace the attention Trump lavished upon them. A victory could have given Trump and his supporters a sort of first MAGA world title. There will be other chances. These teams can meet again in the upcoming Winter Olympics, next year in Milan. Sports fans around the world will be watching. The President very much among them.
When Alex Marrero, superintendent of Denver Public Schools, went to visit some of the classrooms in his district on Feb. 5, the same day that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raided apartment buildings in the city, he noticed significant changes to the environment. Upon walking into one classroom that had over 30 students enrolled, Marrero saw only seven children present. He says that one young student did not recognize him and asked the teacher if Marrero was “one of them” in Spanish—referring to an ICE agent—since he was wearing a suit and tie. In that moment, Marrero recognized that the district needed to act on what he says is their most important core value: “Students first.” So on Feb. 12, Marrero led Denver Public Schools to become the first U.S. school district to sue the Trump Administration over its policy allowing ICE immigration agents in schools. The action followed significant movements made on President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, which saw the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rescind the latest version of the protected areas policy which was issued in 2021 by the Biden Administration. A new directive, titled “Enforcement Actions in or Near Protected Areas,” ended the practice of ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents avoiding “sensitive” areas—including elementary and secondary schools, colleges, hospitals, and churches— for enforcement actions. “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America's schools and churches to avoid arrest,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement on Jan. 21. “The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.” This policy overture is just one in a slew of immigration crackdown policies and Executive Orders that the Trump Administration has put forth. Denver Public Schools v. Noem, the lawsuit filed by Denver Public Schools—Colorado’s largest public school district—against the DHS and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, argues that the new directive gives ICE “unchecked authority” to enforce immigration in schools, and that the district has since been “hindered in fulfilling its mission of providing education and life services to the students who are refraining from attending DPS schools for fear of immigration enforcement actions occurring on DPS school grounds.” In the meantime, the school system is asking for a temporary restraining order to prohibit ICE and CBP’s enforcement of the policy. Marrero says that he and the district are not “anti law enforcement” nor are they planning on “obstructing ICE agents.” “Our vision is to educate kids, and it becomes unnecessarily difficult with the potential of non-emergency law enforcement action,” he says. “Also, we have to protect the sanctity of the schoolhouse, because I do not believe that they are going to find warlords and gang leaders sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the colorful rug learning how to read.” The Migration Policy Institute estimated in 2019 that 733,000 school-aged children lived in the United States without legal status. Beyond this, the American Immigration Council estimated in 2021 that more than six million children shared a home with at least one family m Anna Fusco, the president of the Broward Teachers Union in South Florida, says that in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s new policy in schools, there was “panic” and “uncertainty” from parents, teachers, and students. They initially saw attendance dip, and the “stress levels skyrocketed.” But Fusco says that the union has worked with other South Florida teachers’ unions to quell concerns and fears of the over 10,000 Broward union members she represents. She is keen to express to community members that schools can still remain safe for students—her view is not one that endorses obstructing law enforcement, but she’s also set on not allowing federal agents to enter the school without a warrant reviewed by attorneys. “Teachers are teachers first and foremost,” Fusco says. “We're never going to violate the law, but we have rights.” Fusco was a Broward teacher until she was elected as president of the union full time in 2016. She says that the concern of deportation is similar to what it was during Trump’s first term, but this time it’s heightened. “Educators are angry. Teachers just want to teach, and not every day have to be overloaded with another thing to protect a child from,” Fusco says. “We signed up to teach because we want kids to blossom and flourish. We grow to love our students, and it’s become very cumbersome on a lot of our teachers and schools.” Marrero agrees, stating that “no student can learn under anxiety stress, no teacher can teach under those conditions,” and this stress weighed heavily on his decision to sue the Trump Administration. Adelaide, a teacher in the Cincinnati Public Schools, spends her days working with students from immigrant communities, and says first and foremost, what she’s seeing in the classroom is “fear.” “I had an eighth grader come up and hug me goodbye, and I nearly lost it—the whole family just said ‘Sorry, we can’t come to school anymore. It’s not safe,’ and that’s been heartbreaking” she says. “And a lot of them are documented or have pending cases. But there’s just no trust in the government right now to respect the cases already happening.” Adelaide says the school is navigating Trump’s immigration crackdowns by providing resources to those in need. Her school has hosted multiple “Know Your Rights” events for immigrant families, which teach people what to do in various scenarios, including when approached or questioned by ICE, if a loved one is detained, and how to avoid immigration fraud. These events have had a pro bono immigration lawyer present to listen to questions from parents. Other school districts, such as New York Public Schools and Chicago Public Schools, have posted resources to best aid students, parents, educators, and community members, and statements to reify their support of immigrant communities. PTAlink, which connects the Parent Teacher Associations (PTA) across New York City, for example, has posted lists of toolkits, “know your rights” cards, and other digital resources that show how to navigate different situations with law enforcement. Said resources have been translated into multiple languages. In 2017, the San Lorenzo Unified School District Board of Education passed a Safe Haven resolution that affirmed the district’s commitment to supporting the educational journeys of students, regardless of their documentation status. Superintendent of San Lorenzo District, Daryl Camp, says that they’ve reified this resolution in the wake of Trump’s second term. The district, which is located in the San Francisco Bay Area, shared a “resources and support for our immigrant families” page, reassuring that the district will not release student or family information without a warrant, and stating that they “will continue to stand” with their students and community. Camp, who is also incoming president of the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA), says a lot of work is going into educating immigrant families as to how they can best protect the children. With over 50% of the students attending TK-12 schools in San Lorenzo being Hispanic or Latino, Camp recognizes that families are fearful. In his conversations with other administrators in ACSA, he says he has heard discussions about administrators being concerned of what they will need to do if a child of immigrants does not have parents to go home to after the school day has ended. Camp says he and the school district have learned from Trump’s first term and the pandemic and now host their own “Know Your Rights” presentations virtually, since some families “don’t feel comfortable going to a common area.” The San Lorenzo district has also provided training for school administrators, and gave the school’s social workers, office managers, and counselors access to an attorney to know what they should do if federal agents show up, because they “never know” who the first contact might be for immigration officials. “This is not a bluff. This is us putting our hands up saying ‘Let's get back to doing what we've been trained to do, which is educate kids,’” Marrero says, adding that since the lawsuit has been filed, other school districts have inquired with him about the process. “We’re not alone in this.”
Germany has long been considered a global leader on climate change and the clean energy transition. In its landmark Climate Action Law adopted in December 2023, the country aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 65% by 2030 and reach climate neutrality by 2045, along with setting annual emission budgets for various sectors until 2030. Former chancellor Angela Merkel was often referred to as the "climate chancellor" for her efforts to tackle emission reduction on the international level. And climate was an important issue for voters choosing her replacement in the 2021 German election. But as Germans prepare to head to the polls on Feb. 23 for a snap election, climate is not quite as important a factor as it used to be, says Marc Weissgerber, executive director of climate think tank E3G. “”From the voter's perspective, the priority is not as big anymore,” he says. According to a January survey by Deutschlandtrend, immigration and the economy were cited as the biggest concerns for voters, with only 13% of those surveyed mentioning environmental and climate protection—similar to the top concerns in the U.S. elections last fall. Reflecting this shift in public opinion, politicians are turning away from climate too. On the far right, there is the Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD), which is second in national polls. It has questioned the legitimacy of climate change and, much like President Trump on this side of the Atlantic, has called for Germany to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords. But the AfD, whilst pre-election surveys suggest it could perform well, trails the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), whose leader Friedrich Merz could end up as the German chancellor, according to polls. And Merz, although less vehemently anti-climate than the AfD, has nonetheless promised to move away from previous governments' environmentally-focused policies, which aimed to use climate spending as a way to boost the economy. Instead, he wants to prioritize the country’s economic and industrial strength. While on the campaign trail, he said that the economic policy of recent years had been geared “almost exclusively toward climate protection,” according to Politico. “I want to say it clearly as I mean it: We will and we must change that.” Analysts say Merz’s comments reflect how the country’s green energy goals are increasingly seen as out of step with goals to boost economic growth. Germany’s manufacturing industry, for example, which has propelled its economy for decades, is on the decline. “Climate action is taking a back seat compared to industrial action, as Germany pushes to reposition its economic and industrial model,” says Olivia Lazard, senior research fellow at Carnegie Europe. “The prices of energy and material consumption have risen in Germany, which creates a lot of economic anxiety and political economic polarization.” A costly transition Behind the shift is a reality that politicians in several countries have been grappling with: the adoption of green energy has come at a cost for Germany that many now see as too high. In April 2024, Germany’s Federal Network Agency, which regulates the country’s energy supply networks, announced that the cost of the country’s transition to renewable energy, an estimated 450 billion euros ($498.4 billion USD), would be passed on to consumers through their energy bills. This comes as Germans continue to pay high prices for fossil fuels in the wake of Russia’s war on Ukraine—as of last fall, German households were paying 74% more for gas than before the war. And natural gas— which was meant to be a bridge towards decarbonization given that it produces less CO2 than coal or oil— was harder to access. “It sort of sent the German narrative and the political mobilization and economic mobilization for the climate fight into disarray, not out of unwillingness to do so, but out of difficulty from an industrial and economic capacity,” says Lazar. As a result, the green transition has been losing favor with voters—many of whom are feeling pinched by the rising cost of living. “They have taken an aggressive stance to move away [from fossil fuels], but it's not always proven cost effective, and cost for most people is the key.” says Robert Orttung, a professor of sustainability and international affairs at the George Washington University. Beyond Berlin The possibility of a change in the German government’s priorities matters well beyond Berlin, with experts warning the impact could be felt globally. Germany has the largest economy in Europe and has, in past years, more than exceeded its climate financing goals for poorer countries. Now, with the U.S. pulling out of the Paris Accords and rolling back climate initiatives under the Trump administration, Germany could establish itself as a leader on the climate front. But if it steps back as well, the repercussions could be felt across Europe. “It would certainly have a huge impact if Germany falters,” Lazzard says. Take for example what is one of the world’s key climate initiatives: the so-called Loss and Damage fund, established during the 2022 climate summit in Egypt, known as COP27, to help lower-income countries recover from natural disasters. A key priority of last year’s annual climate summit, COP29, was to get wealthy nations to commit more money to support the fund. Germany pledged 94 million Euros ($100 million USD) to the fund in Nov. 2023, but the total $700 million put forward by wealthy nations by the end of COP29 “doesn’t come close” to meeting demand, according to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. With the Trump Administration pulling back from funding climate initiatives, other high-income countries might be tasked with filling in—though many are uninclined to do so as they face down the same budgetary and populist pressures as Germany. “Whether the Germans and the Europeans in general are willing to step up and really start to pay more
The first major conservative gathering since President Donald Trump’s second inauguration quickly became a stage for a symbolic homecoming: pardoned January 6 rioters, some of whom were convicted of assaulting law enforcement while storming the U.S. Capitol four years ago, were now celebrated as heroes among the party’s loyal base. “The J6ers are here at CPAC!” said former Trump strategist Steve Bannon on Thursday, drawing raucous cheers at the Conservative Political Action Conference. While the annual gathering has a history of promoting Trump's efforts to falsely portray all those who participated in the deadly riot as victims of entrapment or unfair prosecution, this year's CPAC has embraced that sentiment more strongly than ever in the wake of Trump granting all of the J6 rioters clemency on his first day back in office. At a panel discussion on Friday called “The J6 sham,” conservative commentator Julie Kelly thanked Trump for the pardons and tapped into a growing sense of solidarity among those who stormed the Capitol and their supporters. “Now it’s cool,” she said. “Everyone’s like, free the J6ers! It’s the cause of the day, but it wasn’t back then.” The sentiment at the National Harbor in Maryland over the four-day gathering, which featured speeches from Vice President J.D. Vance and Trump ally Elon Musk, is at odds with the rest of the country. A new Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that more than 80% of Americans oppose pardons for those convicted of violent crimes, and a little over half disagree with pardons for nonviolent offenders. Yet, at CPAC, the atmosphere was one of triumph. Several pardoned rioters were interviewed on Bannon’s “War Room” show in the CPAC exhibition complex. For many of them, this year’s CPAC represented a moment of vindication. “We became celebrities here. It’s weird,” said Brian Mock, who was convicted of six felonies and five misdemeanors, including assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers. Some hinted that they intended to pursue financial compensation for their time in prison. Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, and other pardoned rioters wandered the event’s halls, stopping to chat with attendees and pose for selfies. On Friday afternoon, they gathered on the east side of the Capitol grounds for a press conference, where the mood appeared jovial as the pardoned rioters celebrated their clemency and chanted “USA.” “Get over it,” said Joe Biggs, a former leader of the Proud Boys, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 17 years in prison. “We’re here.” (Tarrio was arrested after the press conference for simple assault against a counter protestor, the U.S. Capitol Police said.) The Jan. 6 celebration surrounding CPAC was not without its controversies, however. Some pardoned rioters claimed they were denied entry to the event, sparking outrage on social media. Richard Barnett, who became infamous for putting his feet on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk during the riot, said he was among those initially turned away, despite having been granted a pardon. “I am considered a national hero,” Barnett said in a video he posted to social media. “I’m a J6er and I have an unlimited, unconditional presidential pardon from President Trump… I went when he called me, I stood up. I spent all this time in prison for my country.” “I don’t understand why CPAC would do this to me,” he added. Rhodes was also initially denied entry, which led to a flurry of online complaints from supporters, calling out what they perceived as a betrayal. CPAC’s response came quickly. In a statement on X Thursday morning, CPAC denied that the conference had rejected individuals based on their involvement in the Jan. 6 attack. “It is untrue that we are not allowing people to come to CPAC because of their involvement with J6,” the statement read. “In fact, CPAC has been a constant supporter of this persecuted community and we support wholeheartedly President Trump’s pardons of the J6 victims.” By the afternoon, the pardoned rioters were granted access, and the celebration continued. But even as the J6ers basked in their newfound celebrity status, the shadow of their actions continues to loom over the broader political discourse. While Trump frequently said on the campaign trail that he would pardon some of those charged in relation to the Capitol riot, many of his allies predicted he would stop short of those charged with or convicted of violent felony crimes, such as assaulting police officers, using a deadly weapon, participating in a riot and destroying government property. Trump ultimately issued a sweeping pardon that covered nearly 1,600 individuals convicted in connection with the January 6 attack, drawing pushback from law enforcement officials and even some Republicans. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a top Trump ally in the Senate, said it was a “mistake” for Trump to pardon the sentences of “people who went into the Capitol and beat up a police officer violently.” During his confirmation hearing to be FBI Director last month, Kash Patel said he did not agree with Trump’s decision to commute the sentences “of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement.” While the J6ers found their moment in the spotlight, the broader Republican Party may be forced to grapple with its evolving identity. Indeed, many at CPAC treated the pardons as a righting of a wrong, echoing the rhetoric of Trump loyalists like Bannon, who hailed the pardons as a triumph over a “deep state” that had unjustly targeted conservatives. “It took tremendous courage for President Trump to do that,” Bannon said
