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Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Supreme Court clears the way for Trump's cuts to the Education Department
The Education Department began the year with more than 4,000 employees. The administration also fired some probationary workers and offered employees the ability to resign. Altogether, after the terminations, the Education Department will have a workforce of about half the size it did before Trump returned to office. Advertisement The move by the justices represents an expansion of presidential power, allowing Trump to functionally eliminate a government department created by Congress, without legislators' input. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up It comes after a decision by the justices last week that cleared the way for the Trump administration to move forward with cutting thousands of jobs across a number of federal agencies, including the departments of Housing and Urban Development, State, and Treasury. The order by the court was unsigned and gave no reasoning, as is typical in such emergency applications. No vote count was given, which is usual for emergency orders, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent, joined by the court's other two liberals, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The three argued that Trump had overstepped his authority with his 'unilateral efforts to eliminate a Cabinet-level agency established by Congress nearly half a century ago.' Advertisement 'Only Congress has the power to abolish the department,' Sotomayor wrote in her 19-page dissent. The court's decision, she wrote, would have severe consequences for the country's students by unleashing 'untold harm, delaying or denying educational opportunities and leaving students to suffer from discrimination, sexual assault, and other civil rights violations without the federal resources Congress intended.' The order is technically temporary, in effect only while courts continue to consider the legality of Trump's move. In practice, fired workers whom a Boston judge had ordered be reinstated are now again subject to removal from their jobs. Trump administration officials celebrated the court's decision. Shortly after it was announced, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement that the department would press forward with terminating workers. 'We will carry out the reduction in force to promote efficiency and accountability and to ensure resources are directed where they matter most — to students, parents, and teachers,' McMahon said. She added that the administration would 'return education to the states' but would 'continue to perform all statutory duties' while 'reducing education bureaucracy.' In a statement, a union representing Education Department workers called the court's decision 'deeply disappointing.' 'This effort from the Trump administration to dismantle the Department of Education is playing with the futures of millions of Americans, and after just four months, the consequences are already evident across our education system,' Sheria Smith, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, said in a statement. Trump had signed an executive order on March 20 instructing McMahon to start shutting down the federal agency, which manages federal loans for college, monitors student achievement and supports programs for students with disabilities. Trump administration officials cited low test scores by students as the reason to dismantle the department. Advertisement 'We're going to shut it down, and shut it down as quickly as possible,' Trump said during the ceremony where he signed the executive order. The move immediately set up a legal fight over the future of the department because it was created by an act of Congress, and legislators had not given approval to eliminate it. Shortly after, two school districts, the American Federation of Teachers and 21 Democratic state attorneys general filed a legal challenge in federal court in Massachusetts. The challengers asked a judge to block the executive order and to unwind a round of layoffs that gutted the department's workforce by about half. Lawyers for the challengers argued that the administration's plans would interfere with the department's ability to carry out functions required by law. On May 22, Judge Myong J. Joun of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts ordered the Trump administration to reinstate the fired employees while the lawsuit was pending. Joun, who was nominated to the bench by President Joe Biden, said he agreed that only Congress could eliminate the department and that the administration's actions amounted to an illegal shutdown of the agency. On June 4, a panel of judges in the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Joun's ruling. Two days later, the Trump administration filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court, asking it to intervene and lift the trial judge's order. In the filing, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that Joun had 'thwarted the executive branch's authority to manage the Department of Education.' Advertisement In response, lawyers for the challengers argued that the agency's leaders had 'set out to destroy the agency by executive fiat' and without the support of Congress. In court filings, the challengers asserted that the trial judge had properly determined that the government was likely to lose its argument that it had not eliminated the department. Joun properly recognized that just because 'a skeleton crew remains' at the Education Department, that did not mean the Trump administration was 'faithfully carrying out Congress' mission' in what was effectively 'tearing the department down to the plywood,' they argued. The Trump administration replied in court filings that the department had 'determined that it can carry out its statutorily mandated functions with a pared-down staff and that many discretionary functions are better left to the states.' This article originally appeared in
New Indian Express
4 days ago
- Business
- New Indian Express
Odisha HC raps govt over Cuttack drain project, questions pvt firm's role
CUTTACK: In a scathing order, the Orissa High Court has pulled up the Housing and Urban Development (H&UD) department over serious lapses in the preparation and handling of detailed project reports (DPRs) for construction of five major storm water drains in Cuttack under the branch surface water channel (BSWC) project, worth over `335 crore. The division bench of Justices SK Sahoo and V Narasingh expressed concern over 'startling' discrepancies in the DPRs submitted by the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC). The court observed that the DPRs lacked official authentication and no names of the officials involved in their preparation were mentioned, which is a significant deviation from standard procedure. The court said more disturbingly, during a review meeting on April 30, 2025, the city engineer of CMC was represented by a private consultancy firm based in Bhubaneswar, raising questions over its authority and role. 'There is nothing on record to indicate how the private company could represent a government official,' the bench remarked.
New Indian Express
4 days ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Consecration done at 3,325 temples in Tamil Nadu in last four years: Minister Sekarbabu
ERODE: Under the Dravidian model of governance, temple renovations have been prioritised, and nearly Rs 1,400 crore has been received through sponsors for such renovations, said Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department Minister PK Sekarbabu, in Erode on Sunday. Speaking to reporters, he said, 'Kumbabhishekam has been performed in 3,325 temples under the DMK regime. Further, consecration will be conducted in 46 temples, including at the Thiruparankundram temple on Monday. By the end of this year, renovation work will be completed at 3,500 temples and Kumbabhishekam will be performed. Renovations are under way at Palani and Tiruchendur temples, and Rs 54 crore has been allocated to create an alternative route at Tiruttani temple. Steps are also being taken to install elevators at Swamimalai and Marudhamalai.' 'After the DMK came to power, renovations are under way at many temples. More temple renovations are taking place under the DMK government than during the regime of kings. The government is going to erect the tallest Murugan statue, at 186 feet, at the Velayudhaswamy Temple in Thindal of Erode district, and the work will begin soon.' Earlier, Sekarbabu and Housing and Urban Development Minister S Muthusamy visited the Velayudhaswamy temple.
Newsweek
7 days ago
- Politics
- Newsweek
Log Off Social Media and Return to the Real Things
A lot of people online have been very, very upset over the Trump Department of Justice's two-fold conclusion, announced last Sunday, that Jeffrey Epstein's death in jail in 2019 was a suicide and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had no "incriminating 'client list'" among its Epstein files. The tremendous uproar against the Justice Department and FBI has crossed partisan lines; if anything, it has been many conservative commentators and some Republican elected officials who have expressed the most outrage, with accusations and implications that the government is hiding something about the case to protect powerful individuals. Given the sordid nature of the underlying subject matter and the fact that the feds closely examined "over ten thousand downloaded videos and images of illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography," the obsession with the "Epstein files" gives off a vibe that is, frankly, somewhat creepy. To be sure, it is always righteous to seek justice for victims, but many of those victims don't want public scrutiny. The Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files has certainly not been its finest hour. During a February interview on Fox News, Attorney General Pam Bondi said, in response to host John Roberts' question about whether the Justice Department would release a "list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients," that the list was "sitting on (her) desk right now to review." It is an astonishing about-face for Bondi to now disavow that investigators have any such list. The Trump administration owes us all a clear explanation. With that large caveat aside, though, the fact remains: This is just not the biggest deal in the world—and if you think it is, then you probably need to log off social media. The midterm elections next fall are not going to be determined by the existence—or absence—of a "client list" for an extravagantly wealthy dead pedophile. Nor will they be decided on the absurd grounds of whether FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino have somehow been "compromised." (They haven't.) Instead, the election—and our politics—will be contested on typical substantive grounds: the economy, inflation, immigration, crime, global stability, and so forth. This is as it should be. From left to right, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner and Attorney General Pam Bondi look on as President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the... From left to right, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner and Attorney General Pam Bondi look on as President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on July 8, 2025. More Getty Images/AFP More to the point: There are simply better uses of your time than fuming over the government's avowed nonexistence of the much-ballyhooed Epstein client list. You might, for instance, consider spending more time, during these midsummer weeks, with your family. Maybe you can take the kids camping or fishing. Maybe you can take them to an amusement park or to one of America's many national park treasures. You can spend less time scrolling Instagram and TikTok and more time reading a good old-fashioned book; you will learn more, you will be happier, and you will be considerably less likely to traffic in fringe issues and off-putting rhetoric that alienates far more than it unifies. Instead of finding meaning in the confirmation biases and groupthink validations of social media algorithms, perhaps you can locate meaning where countless human beings have found it since time immemorial: religion. Spend more time praying, reading Scripture, and attending services at your preferred house of worship. All of these uses of your time will fill you with a sense of stability, meaning, and purpose that you will never find deep in the bowels of an X thread on the Epstein files. Too many people today who are deeply engaged in America's combustible political process have forgotten that there are more important things in life than politics. And even within the specific realm of politics, there are plenty of things that are more deserving of attention and emotional investment than others. Above all, it is conservatives—those oriented toward sobriety and humility, not utopianism and decadence—who ought to be able to properly contextualize America's political tug-of-war within our broader lives and who ought to then be able to focus on the meaningful political issues to the exclusion of tawdry soap opera drama. Like many others, I expect that the Justice Department's recent—and seemingly definitive—waving away of the Epstein files saga will not actually prove to be the final word on the matter. To the extent that I think about this sideshow, I certainly hope that the administration squarely addresses the many legitimate and unanswered questions now being asked by a frustrated citizenry that has seemingly been misled. But I also hope that the extent of this past week's rage might serve as an edifying moment. Let's return to the real things in life and focus on what matters most. Josh Hammer is Newsweek senior editor-at-large, host of "The Josh Hammer Show," senior counsel for the Article III Project, a research fellow with the Edmund Burke Foundation, and author of the new book, Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West (Radius Book Group). Subscribe to "The Josh Hammer Report," a Newsweek newsletter. X: @josh_hammer. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
New Indian Express
7 days ago
- General
- New Indian Express
Two lakh saplings to be planted in, around Bhubaneswar this year
BHUBANESWAR: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) will plant two lakh saplings in the state capital and its periphery this year. Housing and Urban Development minister Krushna Chandra Mahapatra, who inaugurated the plantation programme on Thursday, said developing urban forests using Miyawaki method will be given priority. The minister planted saplings at Nagar Van project area in Kalinga Nagar. Mayor Sulochana Das said keeping in view the success of Miyawaki forests at six places last year, this year's programme will include development of 20 more mini urban forests using the same method. 'The technique will help us plant more trees within small spaces and create small urban forests while addressing the constraints of open space in the city,' she said. In 2024-25, the BMC had set a target of planting one lakh saplings. However, the civic body could plant only around 60,000 due to space constraints. Over 20,000 saplings had been planted in Miyawaki forest project.
