Trump to strip protections from millions of acres of national forests
A decades-old rule protecting tens millions of acres of pristine national forest land, including 9 million acres in Alaska's Tongass National Forest, would be rescinded under plans announced Monday by the Trump administration.
Speaking at a meeting of Western governors in New Mexico, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the administration would begin the process of rolling back protections for nearly 59 million roadless acres of the National Forest system.
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New York Times
17 minutes ago
- New York Times
Key Member of Musk's DOGE Resigns From Government
Edward Coristine, the 19-year-old high-profile operative for the Department of Government Efficiency, resigned yesterday morning, according to a White House official. Mr. Coristine, known by the online pseudonym 'Big Balls,' was a key player on Elon Musk's team that spearheaded a widespread effort to slash the federal bureaucracy. To critics and many government employees, he became a symbol of DOGE's flaws: Its technologists were young and inexperienced but brash, with a dubious background for the outsize positions of power they occupied. Mr. Coristine's government email account with the General Services Administration — the agency DOGE has used to coordinate many of its activities — was deactivated as of Tuesday afternoon. The White House official who confirmed his resignation was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Mr. Coristine could not be reached for comment. He graduated from high school in Rye, N.Y., last year and was enrolled as an engineering student at Northeastern University when he was hired by DOGE. He had previously interned at a data security firm, but was fired after an investigation into the leaking of internal information. He had also briefly interned at Neuralink, the Musk company that is developing brain implants. He appeared in a Fox News segment that aired in May on Mr. Musk and his team. The host, Jesse Watters, asked, 'Who is Big Balls?' Mr. Musk said, 'That should be obvious,' as Mr. Coristine raised his hand. 'I just set it as my LinkedIn username,' Mr. Coristine said of the pseudonym. 'People on LinkedIn take themselves, like, super seriously and are adverse to risks. And I was like, well, I want to be neither of those things.' The moniker even got a mention on 'Saturday Night Live.' Since February, Mr. Coristine moved between overseeing a long list of government agencies and working on projects of interest to Mr. Musk. Mr. Coristine had been involved in DOGE activities in the General Services Administration, the U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security. He was most recently seen working in the Social Security Administration, and had an email address affiliated with the agency. He was earlier involved in efforts to slash the State Department's budget, helping to direct plans to close diplomatic offices and fire overseas employees. He later moved on to assist in building a system for the United States to sell special immigration visas, which President Trump has labeled 'gold cards,' for $5 million apiece. Ryan Mac contributed reporting.
CNN
18 minutes ago
- CNN
Giuliani, Lewandowski among new members of Homeland Security advisory council
President Donald Trump announced his appointments to an advisory council inside the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday, with a list that includes a right-wing news commentator, former lawmakers, Trump's former attorney Rudy Giuliani and a top former campaign adviser. The announcement by Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says the council, established first in 2002, will provide 'real-time, real-world and independent advice on homeland security operations.' The list includes right-wing political commentator Mark Levin, as well as Giuliani, who helped lead efforts to try and overturn the 2020 election results and was later sued for defamation by two Georgia election workers; a lawsuit he lost before a jury in Washington, DC. 'This new-look, America First HSAC will draw upon a deep well of public and private sector experience from homeland security experts committed to fulfilling President Trump's agenda,' the press release on the new council states. The appointments also include Corey Lewandowski, a Trump campaign leader in 2016 who is currently a chief adviser to Noem. Other members of the council include South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who will chair the council, as well as other government officials, attorneys, security experts, as well as the founder of 'Bikers for Trump,' according to DHS. The council will hold its first meeting early next month.
New York Times
22 minutes ago
- New York Times
Live Updates: New Yorkers Hurry to Vote Before Polls Close in Democratic Primary for Mayor
Anthony Weiner, after serving a prison sentence for sharing explicit photos with a minor, is running for City Council in Manhattan. Anthony Weiner, posted on a sunbaked corner of the East Village on Tuesday, had stooped to hear an older woman tell him that she had just voted for him when a much younger woman stopped, took a quick selfie in front of the candidate and muttered 'pedophile.' 'What did she say?' the older woman asked. 'Supports another candidate,' Mr. Weiner deadpanned. That he is himself a candidate is a plot twist in a story that many believed had ended badly. Mr. Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011 following a sexting scandal. A second sexting scandal cost him a run for mayor in 2013. Four years later, he was convicted of a felony and served 18 months in prison for sharing sexually explicit photos and texts with a 15-year-old girl. He is now seeking an improbable comeback, running for a City Council seat in Lower Manhattan, asking voters to return him to an office he first won in 1991, in his mid-20s, in a Brooklyn district. During his campaign, he has owned those dark episodes without, as he put it, 'wallowing' in them — 'contrition, but not scraping.' He hopes his practical, street-level ideas to fix what ails the city — hire more police officers, find proper care for the mentally ill and homeless living in parks — attract voters ready to set aside his past. 'I can't think of another political campaign that's quite like this,' he said. One thing that is undeniable, watching him greet person after person under a punishing midday sun that reduced his pole-thin shadow to a sliver, is that Mr. Weiner loves this part of the game. He is a tireless retail politician. 'You guys vote yet?' he asked a passing couple. 'We're not from here.' 'Maybe someday!' he replied. He recalls running for the Council in 1991 and has pictures of himself that year, looking gaunt and strung out. 'I'd be out at 2 in the morning at a 24-hour-supermarket, walking the aisles,' looking for voters, he said. 'I always thought to be good at this job, you have to like this stuff — I do,' he said between greetings. 'When I was cranky, my staff would send me to a senior center.' He said the idea of running for office again sounded ridiculous just months ago. 'Did you forget how that turned out the first time?' he'd ask people urging him to step forward. Then he found himself running out of reasons to say no. He felt the city needed to move in new directions and urged others to run for office. 'But I wasn't willing to do it, because someone might say something mean to me. It didn't seem fair,' he said. And he looked around and found himself in ample company of fallen politicians from the #MeToo movement testing the waters of voter forgiveness. Why not him as well? On the corner, a woman asked for a selfie. He smiled for the camera and asked, 'Did you vote for me?' 'Yes,' she said. 'If I win by one vote, I'll know who to thank.' The woman, a 34-year-old high school teacher who did not want to give her name, walked away down the block, and confided, 'I did not vote for him. What was I going to say? I grew up here, and I know the history of Anthony Weiner.' And, she said, she wants a woman in that seat. Image A 34-year-old high school teacher hesitated to tell Mr. Weiner that she had not voted for him. Credit... Dave Sanders for The New York Times The woman who had called him a pedophile stepped out of a nearby bagel shop with her order and ignored the candidate on her return trip. By then, Kevin Mahon, a lifetime New Yorker, had stopped to tell Mr. Weiner he appreciated his nuanced thoughts on crime — that while it is down overall, isolated incidents continue to make people uneasy. 'The pandemic, the homeless on the street, rattled everyone,' Mr. Mahon said. As for Mr. Weiner's past, 'Everyone's got it,' he said. 'He did his time, whatever. He deserves a shot.' Mr. Weiner, who is facing four other Democrats in the primary, was wearing his third shirt of the day by 10 a.m., having sweated through the first two. He and his team — 'the pirates,' he calls them — were on the streets at 4 a.m. posting campaign signs outside the district's more than two dozen polling places. The election capped a surreal couple of weeks. Earlier this month, his former wife, Huma Abedin — she divorced Mr. Weiner during the scandals — married Alex Soros, the son of the billionaire donor George Soros, in a lavish wedding in the Hamptons that attracted Democratic royalty. 'I didn't go,' Mr. Weiner quipped, then softened. 'I'm very, very happy for her,' he said. Another woman asked for a selfie, guiding Mr. Weiner to face the sun for better lighting. 'Let's take a whole montage,' he said, and she walked away smiling. 'He's an interesting New Yorker,' she said. There was a time when his friends suggested Mr. Weiner should pack up and leave the city for someplace where he could lie low and be anonymous. He had a standard reply. 'Do I look like I would fit in anywhere else?'
