Geopolitics has found a new battleground: on ice. The U.S. and Canada men’s ice hockey teams, set to play in the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament final on Thursday night, have come to represent more than just their athletic skill. On both sides of the border, the rivalry in the rink has been seen by some as an extension of the political tensions between the once-friendly allies. As President Donald Trump has incensed Canadians with tariff threats and talk of the nation becoming the “51st” U.S. state, fans at a previous game between the neighbors on Saturday in Montreal booed during the playing of the U.S. national anthem, which has become an emerging trend. “We’re not booing your hockey players. We’re not booing your country. We’re not even booing you,” a Canadian fan posted on X. “We’re booing [Trump] who keeps threatening our sovereignty for zero reason. Once he leaves us alone it’ll stop.” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was in attendance, also posted a clip of the crowd standing and boisterously singing the Canadian national anthem, captioning the post, which some saw as a dig at his American counterpart, with the anthem’s closing words, “We stand on guard for thee.” The antagonism wasn’t kept to just the stands: players scuffled three times within the first nine seconds of playing time in the game, which ended in a 3-1 victory for the U.S. The U.S. players involved in the brawls said they simply wanted to send a message—“It’s our time”—to their sporting rivals. But both the violence and triumph were celebrated by Trump supporters online. “AMERICA IS BACK,” proclaimed pro-Trump social media influencer Philip Anderson. “Mr. President, we are still not sick and tired of winning!” posted author Nick Adams. Bill Guerin, general manager of the U.S. team, said Tuesday on Fox News about the Saturday game: “I think there was a little bit of a political flare to it. It’s just the time that we’re in. I think our guys used that as inspiration.” He added that he would welcome Trump to attend the championship game on Thursday. “We’re just trying to represent our country the best way we can,” Guerin said. Trump responded on Truth Social on Thursday, saying he wouldn’t be able to make it to the game but that he’d call the U.S. team “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.” Saturday’s game was the most-viewed non-Stanley Cup final telecast since 2019, ESPN said, and Thursday’s final is certain to crank up the intensity. The 4 Nations Face-Off is a new best-on-best tournament—featuring top National Hockey League players representing the U.S., Canada, Sweden, and Finland—replacing this year’s NHL annual All-Star game. Historically, Canada has won the past three—and nine of all 13—best-on-best tournaments, according to the NHL, while the U.S. has won once by defeating Canada at the 1996 World Cup of Hockey. The tournament’s round-robin games, which began on Feb. 12, have been played in Montreal and Boston. Canada and the U.S., who each won twice and lost once, will go head-to-head again, this time in Boston, for the final on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET, airing on ESPN and streaming on Disney+.

President Donald Trump has a fondness for giving himself nicknames: “very stable genius,” “Honest Don,” and now “the king.” The latest title gives critics the most pause. Trump bestowed on himself the monarchical moniker on Wednesday after proclaiming victory over New York’s new car-traffic toll plan for Manhattan. Trump posted on Truth Social: “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!” White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich then posted on X a screenshot of Trump’s post, juxtaposed with an AI-generated image of Trump in a crown with the New York skyline behind him. Official White House social media accounts also quoted Trump’s post and shared an illustration of Trump in a crown, with “TRUMP” in place of a familiar-looking magazine logo and the words: “Long Live the King.” Trump’s royal assertion has drawn criticism, including from Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who said in a statement, “We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king.” She added that “New York hasn’t labored under a king in over 250 years. We sure as hell are not going to start now.” Rep. Don Beyer (D, Va.) echoed Hochul’s reminder: “We don’t have kings in the USA.” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, also a Democrat, reiterated Beyer’s words in his State of the State address, adding “my oath is to the Constitution of our state and our nation. We don’t have kings in America, and I won’t bend the knee to one.” Some Trump defenders claim the posts are harmless trolling, a reference flown over liberals’ heads. “I’m going to be the king of New York real estate,” Trump told his peers when he was in college, a classmate recalled to the Boston Globe in 2018. “He used to think he was the king of New York,” former Trump Organization executive Barbara Res told the New York Daily News in 2021. “The king of New York is back to reclaim the city that he built,” Donald Trump Jr. announced last year when his father held a rally at Madison Square Garden. Over the weekend, Trump posted a Napoleon-inspired statement suggesting he’s above the law. He’s repeatedly teased the unconstitutional idea of serving a third term. And in an interview alongside adviser Elon Musk that aired on Fox News on Feb. 18, Musk suggested—not for the first time—that Trump ought to have supreme authority, unrestricted by the courts. “If the will of the President is not implemented, and the President is representative of the people,” Musk said, “that means the will of the people is not being implemented, and that means we don’t live in a democracy, we live in a bureaucracy.” America’s Founding Fathers didn’t envision the U.S. as a bureaucracy or a democracy. They envisioned it as a republic—defined by James Madison as “a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior.” The very principle that the country would not be ruled by an all-powerful king was foundational to the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed in the Constitution, the latter of which was hammered out during a contentious convention in 1787. To be sure, not every Founding Father was against the idea of an authoritative executive branch leader. Some, including Alexander Hamilton, argued in favor of a single executive, rather than a group of people, which risked the “danger of difference of opinion,” as he wrote in the Federalist Papers. Others believed, as Edmund Randolph put it during debate, that a unitary executive would be “the fetus of monarchy.” Amid public concerns that the crafters of the Constitution would create a monarchy, according to the University of Houston’s Digital History Project, a Philadelphia newspaper reported on the negotiations, quoting a delegate, who said: “Tho’ we cannot, affirmatively, tell you what we are doing, we can, negatively, tell you what we are not doing—we never once thought of a king.” The Constitution that resulted outlined a separation of powers between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, serving together as a system of checks and balances to prevent the kind of tyrannical rule that the colonies fought to free themselves from. Thomas Paine had written in Common Sense in 1776: “For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.” “There were so many issues where the founders disagreed, but this was not one of them,” historian Holly Brewer told ABC News last year of the consensus that a President would not be effectively made “an elected king.” “The American solution,” summarized writer Richard Hurowitz in an essay for TIME in 2018, was “an executive strong enough to be effective but checked enough to prevent tyranny.” But even the Founders realized that such a solution, as Hurowitz put it, “remains unfortunately dependent to some degree on the character of the President and the electorate that supports him.” When Benjamin Franklin was asked on the last day of the convention in 1787 whether the delegates had created a monarchy or a republic, Franklin famously responded: “a republic, if you can keep it.” In 1814, John Adams, by then a former President, wrote that unchecked democracy can be just as pernicious as monarchy and “never lasts long.” “It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy.” “Absolute power intoxicates alike despots, monarchs, aristocrats, and democrats,” Adams also wrote, warning that dissatisfaction with the state of government could give rise to a democratic public yearning for a strongman. “They soon cry, ‘this will not do; we have gone too far! We are all in the wrong! We are none of us safe! We must unite in some clever fellow, who can protect us all—Caesar, [Napoleon] Bonaparte, who you will! Though we distrust, hate, and abhor them all; yet we must submit to one or another of them, stand by him, cry him up to the skies, and swear that he is the greatest, best, and finest man that ever lived!’”

In his first month in office, President Donald Trump and his Administration have taken a number of actions affecting abortion and reproductive healthcare access, both within the United States and internationally—and reproductive rights advocates worry that more is still to come. Trump has publicly expressed his anti-abortion views, but he was vague during his most recent presidential campaign about the specific moves he would make on abortion, sidestepping questions about whether he would veto a national ban if it crossed his desk. However, reproductive rights activists, medical providers, politicians, and legal experts feared and expected that his Administration would curtail access to abortion, as well as other reproductive health services. Mary Ziegler—a professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law with an expertise in abortion—says that some of the actions the Trump Administration has taken so far on the issue are “part of the standard playbook for Republican presidents.” She adds, “There’s a sort of pendulum that swings back and forth depending on whether a Republican or Democrat is in the White House.” At the same time, Ziegler says Trump has taken some of these actions a step further, such as when his Justice Department said that it would be curtailing prosecutions against anti-abortion protesters accused of obstructing access to abortion and reproductive health clinics. While the Administration has already taken several significant steps on abortion, Ziegler says, “we’re still in kind of a wait and see mode” for others. “He didn’t ask day one for Congress to pass and deliver to his desk an abortion ban, [but] no one should take comfort in that,” says Nancy Northup, president and chief executive officer of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “This Administration is going to be the most anti-abortion Administration that we’ve ever seen in U.S. history, with no backstop of federal constitutional protection. The steps that he’s taken so far do reveal that it is going to be a vibrant anti-abortion agenda.” What has the Trump Administration done to affect access domestically? In his first week in office, Trump pardoned several anti-abortion protesters convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a 1994 law meant to protect abortion clinics and their patients by prohibiting people from physically blocking or threatening force against patients. A day later, a top official in Trump’s Justice Department issued a memo that said prosecutions against people accused of violating the FACE Act will now “be permitted only in extraordinary circumstances” or in situations where there are “significant aggravating factors,” effectively ordering the department to curtail such prosecutions. Under former President Joe Biden, the Justice Department pursued cases against dozens of people accused of violating the FACE Act. While Ziegler says many expect that the law won’t be enforced as rigorously under a Republican president, this announcement takes it a step further by openly declaring that the department won’t be prioritizing these cases Northup says that six of the people who were pardoned by Trump’s order had been convicted last year of violating the FACE Act, after they had blocked patients from entering a Michigan reproductive healthcare clinic that the Center for Reproductive Rights represents. “This is sending a clear signal to anti-abortion extremists that the Trump Administration will turn a blind eye to the type of blockades and violence and threats of violence that women have to go through to get access to the clinics, and that clinic staff have to deal with on a daily basis,” Northup says. Also in his first week in office, Trump signed an Executive Order committing to enforcing the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from being used for abortion. The order revokes two Executive Orders that Biden had signed during his presidency—one that encouraged the government to widen and protect reproductive healthcare access, and another that categorized abortion as healthcare. Northup accuses Trump of slipping anti-abortion sentiment into other policies he’s enacted in his first month in office. She points to the Executive Order the President signed that proclaimed that the U.S. will only recognize “two sexes, male and female.” “That [order] obviously both guts access to gender-affirming care, which is of deep concern, but also in that Executive Order itself, it embedded personhood language because when it talked about there being a policy of the United States to recognize two genders, they basically said that a person begins at conception,” Northup says. “They are sneaking into all federal policy this notion of personhood beginning with a fertilized egg as opposed to all rights and privileges that begin at birth.” Reproductive rights advocates say that Trump and his Administration have made their anti-abortion views clear. Soon after Trump was sworn in, reproductiverights.gov, a federal website launched under the Biden Administration that shared information about abortion and reproductive healthcare, went dark. That same week, Vice President J.D. Vance gave an in-person speech at an annual anti-abortion rally, March for Life, in Washington, D.C., calling Trump the “most pro-life American President of our lifetimes” and praising the actions Trump took on abortion in his first presidential term, crediting him for the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. While Trump didn’t appear at the rally in person, he gave a pre-recorded video address, in which he promised to support anti-abortion protesters. What has the Administration done to affect access internationally? Experts say that one of the most significant actions Trump has taken in his first month affecting access to reproductive healthcare globally is the Administration’s freeze on foreign aid. The U.S. government provided more than 40% of all humanitarian aid that the United Nations tracked during 2024, and is the largest single aid donor in the world. For the 2024 fiscal year, Congress appropriated $575 million for family planning, in addition to $32.5 million for the United Nations Population Fund, the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which researches and supports sexual and reproductive health and rights. Elizabeth Sully, principal research scientist at the Institute, says that level of funding has generally received bipartisan support and has been stable for nearly a decade. Because of the Helms Amendment, which bars using foreign assistance to fund abortions, that money wasn’t going toward abortion care, Sully says. According to a recent Guttmacher analysis, those funds can provide 47.6 million women and couples with contraceptive care every year and prevent 17.1 million unintended pregnancies, which can save the lives of an estimated 34,000 women and girls who, without that care, could have died from pregnancy and childbirth complications. “Family planning is a life-saving intervention,” Sully says. But with the freeze, international family planning programs receiving U.S. aid have been forced to halt services, and the Guttmacher Institute estimates that more than 3 million women and girls have been denied contraceptive care so far as a result. The Guttmacher Institute predicts that, over the course of the full 90-day review period, about 11.7 million women and girls will be denied contraceptive care, leading to 4.2 million women and girls experiencing unintended pregnancies, and 8,340 dying from pregnancy and childbirth complications. On Feb.13, a federal judge ordered the Trump Administration to temporarily lift the suspension of foreign aid, but the Administration’s lawyers are defending the freeze, arguing that the judge’s order doesn’t prevent the State Department from suspending foreign assistance programs. At this point, it’s unclear if the judge’s order will lead to the resumption of foreign assistance programs. “What’s so hard right now is the unpredictability of all of this,” Sully says. “You can go to a clinic now that maybe you’d been to before, and that’s where you’d been receiving your injections or your contraceptive pills, or you were talking with a provider about an IUD, and you show up to that clinic now and its doors are closed, or there’s no commodities in stock, and no one can tell you when to come back.” Dr. Sierra Washington, director of Stony Brook’s Center for Global Health Equity and a member of the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics’ Committee on Safe Abortion, practices medicine in Mozambique. She says the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) provides a lot of care in Mozambique, and that the impact the freeze will have “keeps [her] up at night.” She worries the freeze will lead to a resurgence of HIV, rise in unsafe abortions, and an increase in maternal mortality. “It’s just a matter of weeks before we’ll start to see real impact on shortages in condoms and contraceptives starting to plague the entire health system, and that just means we’re going to see more women dying of unsafe abortion and dying of unsafe delivery,” Washington says. “It’s just a real tragedy.” “I don’t believe that [Trump Administration officials] understand how interrelated we all are, and that condoms … actually prevent the spread of HIV, and that HIV doesn’t really respect international borders,” she continues, adding that a rise in HIV prevalence could “reach the American border and will permeate throughout the world.” Also in his first week in office, Trump reinstated the Global Gag Rule, which prohibits foreign organizations receiving U.S. aid from providing, referring to, or discussing abortion care. Many reproductive health experts anticipated the move, since it’s a policy often enacted by Republican presidents and rescinded by Democratic ones. During Trump’s first term in office, he expanded the order to apply to any global health funding distributed by the U.S., not just ones specific to family planning services, which Sully says had “far-reaching impacts” beyond abortion care. The Guttmacher Institute found that in some regions in Ethiopia and Uganda, the previously seen trend of increased contraceptive use came to a halt or even reversed course after the first Trump Administration enacted the Global Gag Rule. “Its supposed intended aim is abortion, but when you have declines in family planning, you have more people who end up having unintended pregnancies, and you actually have more abortions,” Sully says. The Trump Administration also announced that the U.S. was rejoining the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a non-binding pact the U.S. had joined toward the end of Trump’s first term that promotes anti-abortion policies and has garnered support from more than 30 countries, including Uganda and Hungary. Biden withdrew the U.S. from the declaration when he took office. What could Trump do next? Most experts TIME spoke to agree that the Trump Administration will continue to take steps curtailing abortion and reproductive healthcare access. One of the most pressing issues experts are watching is what actions the Administration will take on mifepristone, a drug that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for abortion purposes more than two decades ago but has recently been unsuccessfully challenged in court by a group of anti-abortion doctors and organizations. During his confirmation hearings to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave vague responses when asked about mifepristone, saying only that the President asked him “to study the safety” of the drug but “has not yet taken a stand on how to regulate it.” Ziegler says it’s hard to say if the Trump Administration would revoke the FDA’s approval for mifepristone entirely, or if it would roll back Biden-era policies that made the drug more accessible, including allowing it to be prescribed via telehealth and received by mail. Either move would have a significant impact on abortion access nationwide; Northup says that access to medication abortion through telehealth and mail has been a “lifeline” to many patients in a post-Dobbs America. Experts are also waiting to see if the Department of Justice will use the Comstock Act, a 19th century anti-obscenity law, to ban the mailing of abortion pills. Looking further down the line, Ziegler says that Trump will likely continue to appoint conservative federal judges, as he did in his first term, who can have a major impact on abortion laws, now that many state-level restrictions are being fought in court. It can take time for Trump to pick judges and get them confirmed, let alone the years it can take for cases to be filed and work their way up through the court system, so the impact may not be immediate, but it could be considerable. “Those judges will be making decisions that impact access to abortion, contraception, in vitro fertilization, all kinds of reproductive health services,” Ziegler says. “Over time, the more the courts are transformed, the more, I think, explosive kinds of outcomes we can see on reproductive issues.” Some expected the Trump Administration to make even more dramatic moves on abortion soon after the President was sworn in. Part of the holdup may be because Trump and his Administration could have “some trepidation” about taking dramatic steps if Trump is trying to appeal to both the majority of Americans who support abortion rights and his anti-abortion supporters, Ziegler says. Sully also notes that, “Trump took office right away, but we’ve had to wait for confirmations for a number of leaders of these departments” who would oversee many abortion-related policy changes, including on mifepristone and the Comstock Act. Advocates maintain that people should be concerned about what’s to come. Northup points out that Roe was in effect throughout Trump’s first presidency, offering a “really important protection” that restricted what steps his Administration could take on abortion. Now that Roe has been overturned, that constitutional right guaranteeing abortion access and limiting his authority is no longer in place, Northup says. “Everybody who cares about access to abortion care—and that is the strong majority of people in the United States—should be on red alert for what this Administration will do to try to cut off access in those states where abortion is still legal,” Northup says.

When J.D. Vance walked on the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland on Thursday, he admitted he was still a little jet-lagged. Last week, he'd traveled to Paris, where he'd called for Europe to roll back its regulations on artificial intelligence, and then Munich, where he criticized the continent's commitment to democracy but didn’t mention Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. A jovial Vance was now back in Washington, D.C. after having traveled to San Diego for a family wedding. “I’m in a good place right now, I got some sleep last night,” Vance said. European leaders likely haven’t been so lucky. Vance’s visit, his pointed criticism of European nations, and Trump’s moves signaling a willingness to align himself with Russian President Vladimir Putin have sent the continent’s leaders into urgent huddles, as they figure out how to navigate a potential world without American security guarantees against Russian aggression. While the dramatic shift in U.S. foreign policy has shocked and troubled many in Washington, there were few signs of such concerns among the MAGA-friendly attendees at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Maryland. When Vance brought up his Munich speech at the annual four-day gathering, the crowd at the conference cheered. Later in the day, when House Speaker Mike Johnson was asked in an on-stage interview about the prospect of Congress approving more funding to help Ukraine, he said, “There’s no appetite for that.” He then turned to the crowd. “What do you think?” A murmur of nos and boos moved across the room. Thirty days into his presidency, the crowd at CPAC had few complaints about Trump’s accomplishments thus far, including his turning away from the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine. In the past week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Russia’s foreign minister to discuss ending the conflict without Ukrainian officials in the room. That meeting upended three years of American foreign policy that the U.S. would do “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” Then this week, Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator,” a moniker he’s never used to describe Putin, and falsely alleged it was Ukraine that started the war, and not Russia’s 2022 tank blitz toward Kyiv. At CPAC, Johnson defended Trump’s public criticism of Zelensky, saying it was part of a strategy to lay the groundwork for Ukraine and Russia to reach a deal to end the war. “You’ve got to give him room to operate and do what he does,” Johnson said. “He’s doing a level set.” Conference speakers, which included right-wing leaders from other countries, were at times more interested in prodding Europe than delving into Ukraine’s future. Former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who is currently President of the European Conservative Reformist Party, called Europe a “continent in decline.” Liz Truss, a former British prime minister, said on Wednesday that the British state “is now failing” and she hopes to see a movement in Britain “like you have in the U.S. with MAGA.” Truss told CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp on stage that she would like to see a British CPAC conference in the future. “It’s a deal!” Schlapp said. Some of the talk echoed Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference, where he said, "The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values." Attendees at CPAC didn’t seem too upset at the prospect of Trump abruptly turning his back on a country Russia invaded. “We can’t sacrifice our own people here who are hurting, who we see every day, just to help other people in other nations,” says Indira Roberts, 58, who works in medical sales in Greensboro, N.C. Ann Kertef, 72, drove to the conference from Annapolis, Md., and said she’s concerned that the money that’s gone to Ukraine hasn’t been well spent. The U.S. has provided $65 billion in military assistance to Ukraine’s defense since the start of the Russian invasion. “Why is there no accountability for this money? Something goes wrong in this country, we do nothing, and we’re sending billions and billions of dollars to these people? I do have some compassion for these people, but not unaccountable.” Hogan Gidley, a GOP strategist and former Trump campaign spokesman, says that Trump supporters want to see the war in Ukraine end, but aren’t caught up in the details of how that happens. “They know Donald Trump kept peace around the globe the first time around and they have confidence and trust he’ll do it again.” Gidley says. “How he gets there is less important to them.”

A slew of nonprofit organizations filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration on Wednesday in response to its Executive Orders targeting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. The case was filed by the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) and Lambda Legal on behalf of the National Urban League, the National Fair Housing Alliance, and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. The lawsuit—titled National Urban League v. Trump—alleges that the Trump Administration is infringing on the organizations’ right to free speech and due process by forcing said organizations to adopt the Trump Administration’s view regarding DEI. “Beyond spreading inaccurate, dehumanizing, and divisive rhetoric, President Trump’s Executive Orders seek to tie the hands of organizations, like our clients, providing critical services to people who need them most,” said Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of LDF, in a press release. “The three orders we are challenging today perpetuate false and longstanding stereotypes that Black people and other underrepresented groups lack skills, talent, and merit—willfully ignoring the discriminatory barriers that prevent a true meritocracy from flourishing.” The lawsuit comes after the Trump Administration filed three Executive Orders in January that called for an end to all federal DEI and asked agencies to lay off the staff working on such initiatives. Online information pages on the sites of numerous federal agencies mentioning diversity initiatives have been removed. And, per NPR, the National Park Service removed any direct mention of “transgender” from its history page on the Stonewall Uprising. Interestingly, the lawsuit is not the first of its kind questioning the constitutionality of the anti-DEI Executive orders. The National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, the American Association of University Professors, the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, and the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore also previously filed a lawsuit against Trump on Feb. 3. In both cases, plaintiffs argue that the federal funding they rely on to engage with underserved communities and provide social and health services has been compromised. “The terms of the Executive Orders are extraordinarily vague and could prohibit Plaintiffs from engaging in any targeted effort to help a specific group of people facing unfair disadvantages. said Wednesday’s case filing. “Without any discernible standards or criteria of what is and what is not ‘dangerous, demeaning,’ ‘immoral,’ and ‘illegal’ DEIA, as understood by this Administration, the future of Plaintiffs’ fiscal viability and programming are subject to the unfettered discretion of an Administration that has made clear its predisposition against any speech or action that advances equal opportunity for historically marginalized groups, including people of color, women, LGBTQ people, and/or people with disabilities.” DEI being a target has been a broadband strategy of the Republican Party, and signals a cultural switch from conversations about systemic racism that spiked in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd. In the past few months, several corporations—including Target and Walmart—have announced rollbacks to their DEI initiatives in the workplace. Meanwhile, in early February, the Attorney General in Missouri sued Starbucks claiming "systemic discrimination" as its workplaces have "become more female and less white." Lamda Legal previously sued the Trump Administration over the September 2020 Executive Order titled “Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping.” The organization challenged how the Executive Order “prohibits federal contractors and grantees from conducting workplace diversity trainings or engaging in grant-funded work that explicitly acknowledges and confronts the existence of structural racism and sexism in our society.” The court ruled in the plaintiffs favor, enjoining the Executive Order.

President Donald Trump’s Gallup Poll approval rating dipped slightly after the initial disruptive weeks of his presidency that have seen mass firings of federal workers, sudden freezes on federal spending, and new tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China. Gallup, which has tracked the opening approval ratings for American Presidents going back to Dwight Eisenhower, found Trump’s approval rating dipped slightly from 47% in late January to 45% in mid-February. That is 15 points lower than the historical average of all other elected Presidents at this point in their first terms since 1953, according to Gallup’s polling. The poll found a majority of Americans don’t like how Trump is handling the economy, with 54% disapproving, and foreign trade, with 53% who disapprove. (The Gallup poll is based on telephone interviews with 1,004 adults during the two week period ending Feb. 16, and its margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.) Despite his historically low support among Americans more broadly, Republican voters remain strongly behind Trump. His job approval among Republicans is 93%, while his approval among Democrats is 4%. Among independent voters, Trump has 37% approval. During a taped interview that aired Tuesday night, Trump acknowledged that prices are going up on his watch. “Inflation is back,” Trump told Fox News’s Sean Hannity during a friendly interview alongside Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and the person Trump has put in charge of slashing federal jobs. But Trump blamed President Biden’s policies for the increase. “I had nothing to do with it. These people have run the country. They spent money like nobody has ever spent,” he said. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that inflation has ticked up slightly at the beginning of the year, driven by rising costs for car insurance, used cars, health care, Internet and phone bills and airline tickets. U.S. prices rose 3% in the 12 months ending January, compared with a 2.9% rise over the 12 months ending in December. Fuel import prices alone rose 3.2% in January, the largest one month increase since April.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration moved to end New York’s congestion pricing on Wednesday, just one month after the program had been rolled out. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy delivered the news in a letter to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, rescinding the approval of the program. The decision rolled back a previous agreement between Hochul and the agency for the Value Pricing Pilot Program (VPPP) that charged drivers tolls for coming into Manhattan. "CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!” The White House posted on X on Wednesday accompanied by an image of Trump wearing a crown on a fake TIME-inspired magazine cover. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) called the program “unprecedented” in scope and cited the lack of a toll-free option for drivers as the reason for its impending termination. Duffy also said that since the toll rate was chosen to increase revenue for transportation as opposed to reducing congestion, the “pilot runs contrary to the purpose of the VPPP.” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy thanked President Trump and Secretary Duffy in a statement Wednesday, but Gov. Hochul indicated that legal action against the President is already in motion. “We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king,” she said on X in response. When did NYC congestion pricing start? The VPPP was first approved by lawmakers in 2019, but proponents had to wait for a federal environmental review. The program was later approved by the Biden Administration last year, on Nov. 21, but congestion pricing did not officially begin until Jan. 5. The initial summer rollout of the program was paused in June due to concerns about the toll’s impact on the local economy. A revised version of congestion pricing lowered the toll from $15 to $9. How is NYC congestion pricing funded? Under congestion prices, drivers are charged $9 when they enter Manhattan’s Congestion Relief Zone, which falls below 60th Street, between 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays. That means that drivers traveling through the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, and Queensboro bridges, and the Holland, Hugh L. Carey, and Queens Midtown tunnels, will have to pay the higher toll price. The Federal Highway Administration said Wednesday that it would work with the leaders behind the project to oversee an “orderly termination of the tolls,” though the timeline for that is unclear. How has Hochul responded? In response, New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday to keep the program in place. “It’s mystifying that after four years and 4,000 pages of federally-supervised environmental review—and barely three months after giving final approval to the Congestion Relief Program—USDOT would seek to totally reverse course,” said MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber in a statement on X. Hochul said the first-in-the nation program has already benefitted the city’s transportation system, pointing to faster commute times, greater “foot traffic” to local businesses, and an increase in yellow cab trips. Public transportation ridership has also increased, Hochul said in a statement on X. “Congestion pricing is a meticulously studied, globally-proven program that is enshrined in New York State law,” said Julie Tighe, President of the NY League of Conservation Voters. “We need the federal government to be a partner in solving congestion pricing, not a roadblock. New Yorkers deserve relief from traffic, better transit, and cleaner air—we will keep fighting for it every day.” Can Trump stop congestion pricing? Congestion pricing has been subject to lawsuits before by neighboring New Jersey, which sought to stop the program because it placed an unfair burden on its residents. Murphy wrote to Trump—who had promised to end congestion pricing on the campaign trail—on his first day in office, asking the President to give congestion pricing the “close look it deserved.” But others have expressed skepticism at whether the President can actually stop congestion pricing. Congressman Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York, criticized the Department of Transportation, arguing that the agency bears no authority to pause the program. “The Value Pricing Program is solidly established under federal law, and its approval cannot be arbitrarily revoked, especially when it is clearly delivering tangible benefits,” Nadler said on X on Wednesday. “Mr. President, we’ll see you in court.” The MTA called the Administration’s decision to terminate the program unlawful, arguing that the Trump Administration took action without an environmental review on the effects of pausing VPPP. “If FHWA had the right to unilaterally terminate a VPPP program that had already been approved and implemented, it would create uncertainty around the future of such programs any time leadership at FHWA, USDOT, or the White House changed—uncertainty that may make it difficult to issue bonds for other projects and would clearly undermine the purposes of the VPPP,” the legal complaint says.

For a moment, it looked like New York City Mayor Eric Adams might walk away scot free. But as pressure mounts amid concerns that his ability to govern is compromised, Governor Kathy Hochul said Monday she would weigh whether to remove the Democratic mayor from his office in what would be an unprecedented action in New York State history. On Feb. 10, the Justice Department ordered federal prosecutors to drop corruption charges against Adams on the basis that the case “unduly restricted” Adams’ ability to execute President Donald Trump’s agenda to crack down on illegal immigration. The news was followed by a series of resignations from high-ranking Justice Department officials as well as the city’s four deputy mayors. Now, more and more Democratic politicians are joining calls for Adams to resign—or for Hochul to remove him if he doesn’t. Here’s what to know about how that would work—and what might come next. How could Adams be removed from office? The governor of New York is empowered to remove the New York City mayor from office by both state law and the City Charter. In accordance with the City Charter, Hochul can remove Adams from office after providing him with a “copy of the charges and an opportunity to be heard in his defense.” In that case, Adams would be suspended from his post for up to 30 days, during which Adams would need to present his defense. Once Adams has had a chance to make a case for himself, the governor could either restore him to his office or permanently remove him as mayor. What these proceedings might look like isn’t entirely clear, primarily because this has never happened before. Adams is the first New York City mayor to face criminal charges while in office, and if Hochul discharges him of his duties, he would be the first to be removed from office. Two former mayors—Jimmy Walker in 1932 and William O’Dwyer in 1950—resigned. There’s also another path to removing Adams: the City Charter says that an “Inability Committee”—consisting of the corporation counsel, the comptroller, the City Council speaker, a deputy mayor designated by the mayor, and the borough president who has served for the longest consecutive period of time—could convene to vote on whether the mayor is temporarily or permanently unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. If four of five members of the committee declare that the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, then a panel consisting of the 51-member City Council will have 21 days to vote on whether or not to remove the mayor, which requires a two-thirds majority. Until that vote, the mayor can remain in office if he declares within 48 hours of the five-member committee’s declaration of his inability that he believes he is able to carry out his duties. The provision for the “Inability Committee” was established in 1987 after former Mayor Ed Koch had a stroke. But in the wake of Adams’ indictment last September, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said she believed the removal process wouldn’t apply in Adams’ case because precedent suggested it was reserved for physical inability. Who would replace Adams? If Adams is removed from office, or if he resigns, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, the official next in line of succession, would become acting mayor. Williams has already indicated that he is prepared to serve. The office, however, would officially be vacant, and Williams would need to call a special election within 80 days to elect a new mayor for the rest of Adams’ term, which runs through the end of the calendar year. Such a scenario would not logistically impact the mayoral election in November to elect Adams’ successor for a new four-year term. Eight Democrats have already launched bids to challenge Adams in the June 24 Democratic primary: New York City comptroller Brad Lander; Jessica Ramos and Zellnor Myrie, the state senators representing Queens and Brooklyn respectively; Zohran Mamdani, a state assembly member representing Queens; Scott Stringer, a consultant and former comptroller; Michael Blake, the founder and CEO of Kairos Democracy Project; lawyer Jim Walden; and investor Whitney Tilson.Anticipation is also building around whether or not former Governor Andrew Cuomo will throw his hat in the ring, after former state comptroller Carl McCall penned an open letter on Feb. 15 backing him to be Adams’ replacement. Cuomo released a statement thanking McCall, but as of Feb. 18 has not yet announced a mayoral bid.

The nation’s top aviation regulator was thrust back into the spotlight this weekend as the Trump Administration fired hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, just weeks after the midair collision over Washington, D.C. that killed 67 people. The firings, which primarily targeted probationary employees, are part of a broader push spearheaded by the newly-established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an initiative associated with billionaire Elon Musk to streamline government operations. While no air traffic controllers were let go, the firings have raised concerns about the agency’s ability to maintain essential functions at a time when it’s already facing staffing shortages and increasing pressure from a recent string of incidents. On Monday, at least 18 people were injured after a Delta Air Lines passenger jet from Minneapolis made a crash landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport, flipping upside down on the tarmac. Aviation safety experts and union representatives are warning that the cuts could further strain an agency that has long been under pressure to improve its safety record and address gaps in its workforce. The union representing some of the employees called the firings a “hastily made decision” that would “increase the workload and place new responsibilities on a workforce that is already stretched thin.” The union’s statement added that “it is especially unconscionable in the aftermath of three deadly aircraft accidents in the past month.” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy responded Monday night in a post to X that "the FAA alone has a staggering 45,000 employees. Less than 400 were let go, and they were all probationary, meaning they had been hired less than a year ago. Zero air traffic controllers and critical safety personnel were let go.” Here’s what to know about the FAA. What is the FAA and what does it do? The FAA is the nation’s primary authority for maintaining aviation safety. It’s an agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation tasked with regulating civil aviation and overseeing air traffic control, airport management, and the certification of aircraft. The agency was established by Congress shortly after a military jet from Nellis Air Force Base collided with a passenger plane 21,000 feet over Las Vegas in 1958. Beyond overseeing day-to-day air traffic, the FAA also plays a lesser-known role in national security. The agency helps defend U.S. airspace against potential threats through programs like the National Airspace System Defense Program, which manages radar systems designed to detect missile threats or unauthorized aircraft activity. It is also responsible for regulating the operation of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), commonly known as drones, within U.S. airspace. In December, the agency temporarily banned drones in the New Jersey area in the wake of complaints about unexplained, brightly colored flying objects. The FAA also regulates rocket launches, including those by Musk’s aeronautics company SpaceX. Last year, the agency proposed civil penalties against SpaceX for allegedly failing to follow license requirements. Musk threatened to sue the FAA for “regulatory overreach.” According to a report last year from the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog, the FAA has struggled with workforce shortages and outdated technology for years. The report found that more than a third of the FAA’s systems were “unsustainable,” either due to being outdated or a shortage of spare parts. The GAO noted that the agency has been slow to modernize and, in some cases, lacked clear plans to address certain critical systems. The impact of recent firings Department of Transportation officials were quick to downplay the significance of the latest cuts, stating that they primarily affected probationary workers and did not include air traffic controllers. Yet they come as the agency has faced criticism from President Donald Trump and others about its ability to function effectively. Union representatives say the layoffs disproportionately impacted staff in technical positions, including those involved in radar maintenance and other key infrastructure roles. “This decision did not consider the staffing needs of the FAA, which is already challenged by understaffing," David Spero, the national president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO, said in a statement. “Staffing decisions should be based on an individual agency’s mission-critical needs. To do otherwise is dangerous when it comes to public safety. And it is especially unconscionable in the aftermath of three deadly aircraft accidents in the past month.” The FAA employees laid off over the weekend were among thousands of federal workers across the country hit with layoffs that began on Thursday with little prior notice, targeting probationary workers—those who have been employed in their current positions for less than one or two years and are easier to fire. The Trump Administration has ordered most agencies to let go of nearly all probationary employees who haven’t yet gained civil service protection. One of the individuals let go, Charles Spitzer-Stadtlander, worked for the FAA National Defense Program. In a post on LinkedIn, he said his program was “tasked with protecting the National Air Space from threats such as missiles, enemy drones, aircraft used as weapons (think 9-11), and so forth.” “FAA NDP is a small, yet critical part of protecting the American public and many of our border states that are at risk of attack from our foreign adversaries such as China and Russia,” he said. Musk allies reviewing air traffic control system Duffy, the Transportation Secretary, said that he intends to overhaul the air traffic control system with help from a team of engineers from Musk’s aeronautics company, SpaceX, whose rocket launches are regulated by the FAA and which currently faces proposed civil penalties by the agency. On Monday, the team visited the FAA's command center in Virginia “to get a firsthand look at the current system, learn what air traffic controllers like and dislike about their current tools, and envision how we can make a new, better, modern and safer system,” according to Duffy. It was not immediately clear what expertise the SpaceX engineers could bring to the FAA. Trump’s criticism of the FAA President Donald Trump made clear his dissatisfaction with the FAA after the D.C.-area crash in late January, which Trump blamed on diversity efforts despite no evidence to suggest any such connection. “Brilliant people have to be in those positions,” the President said, claiming that the agency changed its standards under former President Joe Biden and was “actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities and psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under diversity and inclusion hiring initiatives.” Trump’s comments have been widely criticized, as opponents say the President is overlooking the critical, technical work done by FAA employees across various departments, and that the air controller diversity program he criticized was launched during his first term. Trump has also faced backlash for eliminating all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, a panel mandated by Congress after the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing to advise the Department of Homeland Security on aviation safety. While the committee technically remains in existence, it has no members to carry out its work of reviewing safety concerns and offering recommendations to improve airport and airline security.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul is considering removing New York City mayor Eric Adams from office after four of his top aides resigned on Monday. Hochul said in a statement that she plans to meet with key leaders in Manhattan on Tuesday to discuss “the path forward,” and that the resignations of four deputy mayors raises “serious questions about the long-term future” of his administration. It’s the latest update in what for Adams has been a succession of overlapping scandals that has left a power vacuum in the city’s government. The news comes after the Justice Department on Feb. 10 ordered federal prosecutors to drop corruption charges against Adams, stating that the case was interfering with the Democratic mayor’s ability to follow through with the President’s agenda to crack down on illegal immigration. The dismissal “without prejudice,” however, means that the charges could be revived should the Justice Department choose to do so, worrying constituents and other politicians that it gives the Trump Administration leverage over Adams’ administration. “I refuse to go back to the days where our constituents are caught in the crossfire of political turf wars,” Hochul said in her statement. First deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer as well as deputy mayors Meera Joshi, Anne Williams-Isom, and Chauncey Parker resigned Monday as calls for Gov. Kathy Hochul to remove Adams—or for Adams himself to step down—have grown. Their actions follow the resignations of U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon and five high-ranking Justice Department officials last week after Sassoon refused to drop the charges against Adams. In a statement to NBC New York, the mayor’s office confirmed the latest resignations, stating that the deputy mayors were “extraordinary public servants who have been vital to our work reshaping New York City.” The statement continued: “Together, we’ve broken housing records, created the most jobs in the city’s history, provided for hundreds of thousands of longtime New Yorkers and migrants, built unprecedented public spaces, and made our city safer at every level. New Yorkers owe them an enormous debt of gratitude for their service to our city.” NBC also reported that Adams attempted to convince the aides to stay via a Zoom call over the weekend, though they ultimately decided to follow through with their resignations. Joshi, who worked as deputy mayor of operations, reportedly sent a joint statement on behalf of the deputies in an email to agency commissioners. “Due to the extraordinary events of the last few weeks and to stay faithful to the oaths we swore to New Yorkers and our families, we have come to the difficult decision to step down from our roles,” the statement read. Hochul, a Democrat like Adams, has the power to remove the New York City mayor from office but previously opted not to at the time he was initially charged. In her latest statement, however, she said: “In the 235 years of New York State history, these powers have never been utilized to remove a duly-elected mayor; overturning the will of the voters is a serious step that should not be taken lightly. That said, the alleged conduct at City Hall that has been reported over the past two weeks is troubling and cannot be ignored.” Hochul’s consideration of taking what would be an unprecedented action comes at a time of mounting pressure from Democrats to remove Adams if he himself doesn’t resign. New York Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado called for Adams’ resignation, as did Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, adding that “If Adams won’t resign, he must be removed.” And while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries did not go so far as to call for a resignation, he expressed concerns about the Adams administration’s future. If Hochul removes Adams from office—or if Adams resigns—Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who has indicated that he is prepared to serve, would become acting mayor. Within 80 days, Williams would need to call a special election to elect a new mayor for the rest of Adams’ term, which runs until Dec. 31. The mayoral election in November to succeed Adams for a new four-year-term would still take place as planned. Former state comptroller Carl McCall released an open letter on Feb. 15 endorsing former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to be Adams’ replacement. “Donald Trump wants us to fail as a community. For that reason, the leadership of New York City has rarely, if ever, been as vital as it is today,” McCall wrote. “The people of New York cannot be represented by someone whose loyalty to the city is compromised—we deserve a Mayor of New York to be for New York.” Cuomo responded in a statement that he and McCall had a “special bond” and that McCall’s voice is “needed more than ever—for his is one of moral clarity, experience and guided by what is right for the people above all else.” Adams, meanwhile, insists that his leadership is not compromised by the Trump Administration’s dropping of his charges. In a Feb. 14 statement, he wrote, “I want to be crystal clear with New Yorkers: I never offered—nor did anyone offer on my behalf—any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case. Never.”