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In hearings, McMahon faces questions about the shrinking federal role in schools and colleges
Linda McMahon, U.S. Secretary of Education, during a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing in Washington.
Eric Lee/Bloomberg/Getty Images
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Eric Lee/Bloomberg/Getty Images

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon had a complicated job this week: To explain to lawmakers the Trump administration’s new fiscal year 2026 budget proposal for a department McMahon and President Trump have both committed to close.
According to a new budget summary, the administration wants to cut the Education Department’s funding by 15%, while largely preserving the two most important federal funding streams to K-12 schools: Title I, for schools in low-income neighborhoods, and IDEA grants to states, which help support students with disabilities. It is proposing cuts to other programs instead, including TRIO, which help low-income and first-generation college students.
On Wednesday, McMahon testified before the House education committee and, on Tuesday, before a Senate appropriations subcommittee. Here are several moments that stood out:
- The definition of insanity
In Tuesday’s Senate hearing, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican, asked McMahon, “What’s the definition of insanity?”
“Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome,” McMahon answered.
Mullin’s point, based on declining test scores: Whatever the U.S. Department of Education has been doing over the years, “It’s not working. What we’re doing is not working.”
The notion that U.S. students have been failing academically and that the Education Department is to blame has been Republicans’ leading argument in support of gutting the department, and it came up time and time again in this week’s hearings with McMahon.
Critics of that argument have noted that the department does not run the nation’s schools. It can’t tell districts or states what to teach or how to teach it.
In fact, in Tuesday’s hearing, Sen. Katie Britt, Republican of Alabama, rightfully highlighted her state’s exceptional academic progress in recent years, something NPR has documented. Another state, Louisiana, has also improved remarkably.
- Colleges may be on the hook for student loans
When it comes to student loans, McMahon said colleges need to get “a little skin in the game.” She suggested that the federal government should not be responsible for all loans that go unpaid by students.
“Loans are not forgiven or just go away, they’re just shouldered by others,” she said.
A plan to force colleges and universities to repay a portion of the loans their students do not has been included in House Republicans’ big reconciliation bill. Republicans also want to make it clear when a given college program isn’t giving students a good return on their investment.
“If you want to get a student loan … you’ve got to go get a degree in something where actually you might be able to do something useful when you’re done with it,” said Rep. Randy Fine, a Florida Republican.
Such a shift would require significant changes to the student loan system and federal oversight of colleges.
In Tuesday’s Senate hearing, Democrats’ toughest questions for McMahon were about the department’s decision to stop paying out $1 billion in grants to school districts to hire mental health professionals, including counselors and social workers.
Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told McMahon: “It’s a really cruel thing to do to those kids. Did you think about the impact?”
McMahon doubled-down on the department’s explanation of the funding freeze, that some of these programs were tainted by what the administration considers toxic DEI ideology.
She also said that “the states and the local areas, I think, are the best place where we need to concentrate for these particular programs.”
The administration uses this trust-the-states approach throughout its budget: For the programs it does not want to cancel outright, the budget calls for stripping away regulations and sending the money to states in chunks, via block grants, that can be spent at the discretion of state leaders.
For example, the budget would fold federal funding for rural schools, students experiencing homelessness, literacy instruction and a host of other unrelated programs into one, generic bundle of money that would go to states.
- The fate of Upward Bound and the other TRIO programs
The department’s fiscal year 2026 budget would end a cluster of federal programs known collectively as TRIO, meant to help low-income and first-generation students access and succeed in college. And McMahon heard bipartisan support for TRIO and pleas to save the programs.
At one point during Tuesday’s hearing, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins pointed out that she was wearing a Maine TRIO pin on her lapel and that three of her staff members had gone through TRIO. Collins said she had seen first-hand how the programs had changed the lives of many vulnerable Americans for whom college might have otherwise been out of reach.
When asked by Collins why the administration thinks TRIO isn’t worth the investment, McMahon answered that the department of education lacks the ability to audit TRIO, to make sure the federal funding is being used appropriately.
Multiple senators voiced support for TRIO during the hearing and, at one point, New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen told McMahon, “if there is a problem with accountability, let’s address that … but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
- Who should pay for workforce programs?
The administration’s proposed consolidation of workforce-development programs was met with a range of responses, from slight apprehension to open hostility, from lawmakers from both parties.
Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat, pressed the Secretary to put a number on the cuts across the budget: “When the dust settles do we understand that there will be about a 33% cut across workforce development?”
McMahon did not answer the question with a yes or no, but continued to highlight the need for workforce development without the federal government shouldering the cost.
Rep. Haley Stevens of Michigan, also a Democrat, made a plea for her home state: “We are competing on a world stage,” she said of Michigan’s manufacturing apparatus. “We need these engineering jobs, we need these apprenticeship programs.”
In a later exchange with a Republican representative, Mark Messmer of Indiana, Secretary McMahon said the administration was looking into expanding public-private partnerships for career and technical education.
She cited a program in West Virginia that is a partnership between community colleges and the car manufacturer Toyota. Students there train in the auto plant and take classes at the college to develop a built-in workforce funded by the employer, she said.
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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.
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Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.
In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.
The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.
Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

The disclosures also report gifts, travel, food and lodging that the justices received in 2025. Jackson and Sotomayor were the only two to report gifts. Jackson was given a painting for her chambers valued at $2,500, and Sotomayor reported a trip to Kansas City to watch the opening of a musical based on her children’s book, Just Ask.
In addition, she reported receiving free tickets worth $4,333 while on “a private trip to Puerto Rico.” The tickets were from the record label that represents Bad Bunny, and her trip coincided with the artist’s months-long concert series in San Juan. Sotomayor’s parents were from Puerto Rico, and she has spent much time there over the years.
The justices also disclosed significant reimbursements for travel throughout 2025. Thomas’ travel, food and lodging expenses were paid for by the Hoover Institution for speaking at a celebration of conservative economist Thomas Sowell.
Sotomayor, Gorsuch, Barrett and Jackson were reimbursed for international travel, where they gave speeches, spoke about their books or taught. Roberts was the only sitting member of the court not to report any gifts or travel reimbursements.
The annual filings also shed some light on the justices’ activities off the bench. Kavanaugh reported that in addition to his duties as a Supreme Court justice, he serves as a coach to multiple D.C.-area Catholic Youth Organization girls’ basketball teams. Coach K, as he is known by his players, wrote the court’s June decision declaring that states can ban transgender women and girl athletes from playing on women’s and girls’ sports teams.

The justices’ salaries are established by law. The chief justice earns the most, at $320,700 per year. The eight associate justices earn $306,600 per year. While that is a lot of money to most Americans, the justices and even their law clerks could earn more the minute they leave their Supreme Court jobs for large law firms.
Roberts was the only member of the court to report investing in individual stocks. Alito in the past has also owned shares of individual stocks, but his report is not due for three months when his extension runs out. For the most part, the justices do not own individual stocks, but do invest in index funds, mutual funds and other such investment programs in order to both make money and limit potential conflicts of interest that would require their recusal from certain cases.
However — and this is a big however — the financial reporting forms the justices are required to fill out are so unspecific and the reporting ranges for investment earnings are so broad that it is impossible to determine any justice’s overall wealth. In addition, the current value of the justices’ homes isn’t reported. Neither is their spouses’ income, which in the case of the chief justice, for instance, likely far exceeds his take-home pay.
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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show
At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.
A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.
City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”
Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.
Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.
“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.
Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.
Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.
“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.
The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.
Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.
“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.
Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”
He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.
Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.
On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.
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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote
The Justice Department sent letters warning election officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia that they could face criminal prosecution over noncitizen voting, a spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday.
The letters, signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads up the department’s Civil Rights Division, give states five days to explain how they will comply with federal voter eligibility laws and how they will maintain “clean voter lists.”
“The Department sent these letters to all 50 states and the District of Columbia, asking for voluntary compliance in a timely manner with their obligations under federal law to ensure only citizens vote in federal elections,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement.
Noncitizen voting in federal elections is extremely rare, but Trump and his administration have falsely portrayed it as a widespread issue.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar and Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson are among those who said they received the letters from the Justice Department.
The letters say state election officers “could be criminally prosecuted for aiding and abetting” noncitizen voting. They further specify that any election officer who knowingly retains noncitizens on a statewide voting registration list or who facilitates noncitizens’ receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability.
“An intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens could also constitute a violation” of federal law, the letters said.
Henderson wrote on social media that the threats constitute “truly bizarre behavior.”
“Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution,” she wrote. “I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts.”
The letters are the latest move in the Justice Department’s campaign to assert more federal control over state elections.
While some states have complied with the administration’s demands that they hand over voter roll data, the Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for resisting. So far, 11 different federal courts have dismissed the Justice Department’s efforts to seize voter rolls.
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