Author: News Room

It is a cornerstone of American democracy, enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution: People have the right to challenge the actions of their leaders. Countless citizens, companies and others have exercised that right by filing lawsuits against the U.S. government.This has been happening for more than 200 years. But the barrage of at least 150 lawsuits against the second Trump administration, challenging many of its policies and personnel decisions, is perhaps unmatched in U.S. history. And in dozens of cases, judges have ordered the administration to pause or reverse actions at the heart of President Trump’s agenda.Mr. Trump…

Are there still options to lower my 2024 taxable income?If you qualify, you can make tax-deductible contributions to an individual retirement account or a health savings account by the April 15 tax deadline and have them apply to tax year 2024, said Eva Simpson, vice president of member value, tax and advisory services with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.You can contribute up to $7,000 to a traditional I.R.A. for 2024 and an extra $1,000 if you’re 50 or older, the I.R.S. says. The size of your deduction depends on several factors, such as your filing status and whether…

The Skadden Arps deal suggests negotiating may be getting more costly. Paul Weiss said it would provide $40 million in pro bono work, while the Skadden Arps agreement more than doubled that amount. The deals have also been met with scathing criticism by those in the legal community who see them as unnecessary capitulation in cases where the firms have the law on their side.On Thursday, after news broke that Skadden was seeking to strike a deal with the Trump administration, a group of alumni — all part of the law firm’s prestigious public interest fellowship program — began to…

Two tractor-trailers picked up some 80,000 pounds of beef from a slaughterhouse in northeastern Tennessee, and then vanished, the authorities said this week.They can’t figure out where the beef is, but a fake trucking company made off with enough meat to make about 320,000 quarter-pounders, the Grainger County Sheriff’s Office said.The meat was taken from Southeastern Provision, a processing plant in Bean Station, Tenn., a town nearly 50 miles northeast of Knoxville. It was not clear when exactly the beef was stolen, but the investigation began on Tuesday.At least two of the customers of the meat processing plant reported that…

A federal judge on Friday temporarily halted the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle Voice of America, the government-funded international broadcaster whose prospective demise has alarmed advocates for press freedoms.The judge, J. Paul Oetken of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, ruled after a hearing on a lawsuit filed by Voice of America journalists and their unions. The suit argues that the administration’s actions, like placing hundreds of journalists at the organization on paid leave, violated the journalists’ First Amendment rights.Andrew G. Celli Jr., a lawyer for the journalists who brought the suit, said the judge had made clear during the…

The private equity giant Blackstone is weighing taking a small stake in TikTok ahead of an April 5 deadline set by President Trump for the Chinese-owned app to change its ownership or face a U.S. ban under federal law, two people familiar with the situation said.Investing in TikTok would give Blackstone the chance to take a bite of one of the most popular social media applications in the world, which has over 170 million American users. It is unclear if any investment — which would likely be a fraction of the size of Blackstone’s typical deals — will move forward,…

Elon Musk said on Friday that he had sold X, his social media company, to xAI, the artificial intelligence start-up he founded in 2023, in an unusual arrangement that may raise conflict-of-interest questions.The all-stock deal valued xAI at $80 billion and X at $30 billion, Mr. Musk said on X. The price for X is a $14 billion discount from the $44 billion that Mr. Musk paid for the social media company in 2022. Both companies are privately held.“XAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Mr.…

President Trump on Friday commuted the sentence of Carlos Watson, a co-founder of the now-defunct digital media company Ozy Media, on the day he was set to surrender to prison, three people familiar with the matter said.Mr. Watson was sentenced in December to almost 10 years in prison for trying to defraud investors and lenders by lying about the company’s finances. His sentence came after a federal jury last summer convicted Mr. Watson and Ozy Media of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. The jury also convicted Mr. Watson of identity theft, following a two-month trial during which witnesses…

The nation’s legal profession is being split between those that want to fight back against President Trump’s attacks on the industry and those that prefer to engage in the art of the deal.Two big firms sued the Trump administration on Friday, seeking to stop executive orders that could impair their ability to represent clients. The lawsuits filed by Jenner & Block and WilmerHale highlight how some elite firms are willing to fight Mr. Trump’s campaign targeting those he doesn’t like, while others, like Paul Weiss and Skadden, have cut deals to appease the president.In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has issued…

Big as the U.S. stock market is, it isn’t the only place to trade stocks. Markets in Europe, Asia and Latin America have been outpacing the U.S. market in 2025. The DAX index, which tracks 40 of Germany’s most important stocks, was up nearly 15 percent for the year, led by Rheinmetall, Europe’s biggest ammunition maker, with a gain, in 2025 alone, of 113 percent. Germany is rearming, a consequence of President Trump’s America First foreign policy, and a vast anticipated increase in military spending is spurring European stock markets.In the United States, President Trump’s tariff policy, along with his…