
State Department notifies Congress of reorganization plan with bigger cuts to programs and staff
WASHINGTON — The State Department on Thursday notified Congress of an updated reorganization of the massive agency, proposing cuts to programs beyond what had previously been revealed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a steeper 18% reduction of staff in the U.S.
The planned changes, detailed in a notification letter obtained by The Associated Press, reflect the Trump administration's push to reshape American diplomacy and scale back the size of the federal government.
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Wall Street Journal
9 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
‘Proof' Review: Finding Truth in Numbers
Thomas Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence read: 'We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable . . . ' It was supposedly Benjamin Franklin who suggested instead announcing the truths to be 'self-evident,' as though they were fundamental mathematical axioms providing an incontestable foundation for the new republic. The idea of self-evident truths goes all the way back to Euclid's 'Elements' (ca. 300 B.C.), which depends on a handful of axioms—things that must be granted true at the outset, such as that one can draw a straight line between any two points on a plane. From such assumptions Euclid went on to show, for example, that there are infinitely many prime numbers, and that the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal. If the axioms are true, and the subsequent reasoning is sound, then the conclusion is irrefutable. What we now have is a proof: something we can know for sure. Adam Kucharski, a professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, takes the reader on a fascinating tour of the history of what has counted as proof. Today, for example, we have computerized proofs by exhaustion, in which machines chew through examples so numerous that they could never be checked by humans. The author sketches the development of ever-more-rarefied mathematics, from calculus to the mind-bending work on different kinds of infinity by the Russian-German sage Georg Cantor, who proved that natural integers (1,2,3 . . . ) are somehow not more numerous than even numbers (2,4,6 . . .), even though the former set includes all the elements of the latter set, in addition to the one that contains all odd numbers. My favorite example is the Banach-Tarski paradox, which proves that you can disassemble a single sphere and reconstitute it into two spheres of identical size. Climbing the ladder of proof, we can enter a wild realm where intuitions break down completely. But proof, strictly understood, is only half the story here. Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Kucharski relates, taught himself to derive Euclid's proofs to give himself an argumentative edge in the courtroom and in Congress. Yet politics is messier than geometry; and so the dream of perfectly logical policymaking, immune to quibble, remains out of reach. What should we do, then, when a mathematical proof of truth is unavailable, but we must nonetheless act?

Business Insider
11 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Tesla stock plummets 11% as Musk and Trump exchange barbs over spending bill
Shares of Tesla dropped on Thursday as Trump responded to Elon Musk's criticism of the budget bill. The stock fell as much as 11% as the president and the Tesla CEO traded barbs. Tesla shares are down 24% year-to-date. Tesla shares plummeted as much as 11% on Thursday amid a spat that has been unfolding between the president and the world's richest person over the budget bill moving through Congress. Shares of the carmaker are down 19% year-to-date. Paul Hickey, the co-founder of Bespoke Investment Group, told Business Insider he thinks the Trump-Musk feud over the tax bill was the clear catalyst for Tesla's decline on Thursday. "It could lead to more bad things, punitive actions," Hickey said of Musk's fraying relationship with Trump. "Musk is already kicking himself out of the good graces of the Left. So, if you fell out of the good graces of the Right, that wouldn't necessarily be good." Tesla stock began to fall on Tuesday, shortly after Musk called the GOP tax and spending bill a " disgusting abomination." On Wednesday, he also called on his followers on X to "kill the bill." He's criticized the legislation for its potential to add to the budget deficit and has suggested it would undo the work of the Department of Government Efficiency, which Musk stepped back from last month, Speaking to reporters at the White House on Thursday, Trump responded by saying he was "very disappointed" with Musk's reaction to the tax bill, his first direct response to the Tesla CEO's criticism of the sweeping budget bill that's a cornerstone of Trump's agenda. "Elon knew the inner workings of the bill better than almost anybody sitting here. Better than you people. He had no problem with it. All of sudden he had a problem and he only developed the problem when he found out we're going to have to cut the EV mandate," Trump said. Musk fired back at the president on X, refuting the claim that he knew the contents of the tax bill. "False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!" the Tesla CEO wrote. Tesla and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider.


Fox News
22 minutes ago
- Fox News
Climate lawfare in blue-state courts could hurt US energy consumers, expert says: 'Huge impact'
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