News
Trump Halts Billions in Grants for Democratic Districts During Shutdown
Two weeks into the government shutdown, the Trump administration has frozen or canceled nearly $28 billion that had been reserved for more than 200 projects primarily located in Democratic-led cities, congressional districts and states, according to an analysis by The New York Times.
By congressional district of grant recipient
Total amount of affected funding
Each of these infrastructure projects had received federal aid, sometimes after officials spent years pleading in Washington — only to see that money halted as President Trump has looked to punish Democrats over the course of the fiscal stalemate.
The Times conducted its analysis by examining federal funding records, which include details about the city and state where each grant recipient is based. The projects include new investments in clean energy, upgrades to the electric grid and fixes to the nation’s transportation infrastructure, primarily in Democratic strongholds, such as New York and California.
Ala.
Ariz.
Ark.
Calif.
Colo.
Del.
Fla.
Ga.
Idaho
Ill.
Ind.
Iowa
Kan.
Ky.
La.
Maine
Md.
Mass.
Mich.
Minn.
Miss.
Mo.
Mont.
Neb.
Nev.
N.H.
N.J.
N.M.
N.Y.
N.C.
N.D.
Ohio
Okla.
Ore.
Pa.
S.C.
S.D.
Tenn.
Texas
Utah
Vt.
Va.
Wash.
W.Va.
Wis.
Wyo.
Circles sized by total amount of affected grant funding
Total affected funding, by congressional district
In some cases, recipients had started to receive portions of the federal aid, only to become casualties in a funding battle that has no end in sight.
Mr. Trump’s aides have offered a series of explanations for the administration’s decision to pause or terminate grants, claiming in some cases that the spending would have been wasteful or in conflict with the president’s priorities. Since returning to office, Mr. Trump has been particularly aggressive in cutting federal investments to combat climate change.
But the budgetary moves coincide with the president’s public pledges to use the shutdown to slash spending favored by Democrats. He has described the federal stoppage as an “unprecedented opportunity” to make some cuts permanent.
Many Democrats said that the announcements fit a broader pattern at the White House, where Mr. Trump has claimed vast authority to reprogram the nation’s budget, even though the Constitution gives that power to Congress.
In doing so, Democratic lawmakers said the result could harm their cities and states, upending work that would have helped residents regardless of their political party.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
N.Y. 10th Dan Goldman Ill. 7th
Danny Davis Calif. 12th
Lateefah Simon Wash. 10th
Marilyn Strickland Calif. 7th
Doris Matsui Calif. 32th Brad Sherman Minn. 4th
Betty McCollum Ill. 3rd
Delia Ramirez Colo. 2nd
Joe Neguse Mass. 2nd
James McGovern Ore. 2nd Cliff Bentz Mass. 7th
Ayanna Pressley Mass. 5th
Katherine Clark Mo. 2nd
Ann Wagner N.Y. 20th
Paul Tonko Md. 7th Kweisi Mfume Calif. 2nd
Jared Huffman Calif. 16th
Sam Liccardo Colo. 7th
Brittany Pettersen Calif. 17th
Ro Khanna Minn. 5th Ilhan Omar Calif. 5th
Tom McClintock Ore. 1st
Suzanne Bonamici Wash. 2nd
Rick Larsen Calif. 28th
Judy Chu N.M. 3rd Teresa Leger Fernandez Calif. 34th
Jimmy Gomez Colo. 1st
Diana DeGette N.M. 2nd
Gabe Vasquez N.M. 1st
Melanie Stansbury Minn. 8th Pete Stauber Calif. 6th
Ami Bera Wash. 3rd
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Calif. 47th
Dave Min Calif. 19th
Jimmy Panetta Mass. 3rd Lori Trahan Calif. 15th
Kevin Mullin Colo. 8th
Gabe Evans Ill. 13th
Nikki Budzinski Mich. 6th
Debbie Dingell Ore. 3rd Maxine Dexter Hawaii 1st
Ed Case N.Y. 23th
Nicholas Langworthy N.Y. 17th
Michael Lawler Conn. 5th
Jahana Hayes Mass. 6th Seth Moulton N.Y. 16th
George Latimer Minn. 7th
Michelle Fischbach Calif. 25th
Raul Ruiz Calif. 4th
Mike Thompson Del. Sarah McBride Mass. 9th
Bill Keating Conn. 1st
John Larson N.Y. 19th
Josh Riley Md. 4th
Glenn Ivey R.I. 1st Gabe Amo N.Y. 3rd
Thomas Suozzi Calif. 49th
Mike Levin Mass. 8th
Stephen Lynch Calif. 42th
Robert Garcia Wash. 5th Michael Baumgartner Md. 3rd
Sarah Elfreth Conn. 2nd
Joe Courtney Calif. 50th
Scott Peters S.C. 4th
William Timmons Calif. 43th Maxine Waters Calif. 39th
Mark Takano Wash. 7th
Pramila Jayapal Vt.
Becca Balint N.Y. 22th
John Mannion Calif. 37th Sydney Kamlager-Dove N.H. 1st
Chris Pappas N.Y. 25th
Joseph Morelle Conn. 3rd
Rosa DeLauro Md. 1st
Andy Harris N.J. 6th Frank Pallone Calif. 14th
Eric Swalwell Calif. 9th
Josh Harder N.Y. 12th
Jerrold Nadler Ill. 16th
Darin LaHood Conn. 4th Jim Himes Ill. 10th
Bradley Schneider Ill. 5th
Mike Quigley Calif. 20th
Vince Fong Calif. 36th
Ted Lieu Md. 5th Steny Hoyer Ill. 9th
Janice Schakowsky Ore. 4th
Valerie Hoyle R.I. 2nd
Seth Magaziner Calif. 10th
Mark DeSaulnier N.Y. 26th Timothy Kennedy Ill. 17th
Eric Sorensen Calif. 24th
Salud Carbajal Calif. 11th
Nancy Pelosi N.J. 12th
Bonnie Watson Coleman N.Y. 13th Adriano Espaillat N.Y. 9th
Yvette Clarke N.Y. 6th
Grace Meng Ga. 5th
Nikema Williams Ill. 11th
Bill Foster Calif. 22th David Valadao Total affected funding, by congressional district
12
$17.84 bil.
9
$2.37 bil.
10
$1.40 bil.
1
$995.1 mil.
4
$655.3 mil.
1
$499.5 mil.
2
$465.9 mil.
14
$365.4 mil.
15
$352.5 mil.
3
$114.6 mil.
5
$294.3 mil.
9
$207.6 mil.
9
$180.3 mil.
1
$189.2 mil.
25
$129.3 mil.
3
$158.9 mil.
4
$129.1 mil.
16
$75.2 mil.
13
$74.2 mil.
6
$25.9 mil.
5
$76.5 mil.
2
$79 mil.
11
$73.6 mil.
3
$47.8 mil.
5
$53 mil.
2
$65.4 mil.
3
$60.3 mil.
4
$57.6 mil.
4
$56.1 mil.
3
$52.3 mil.
1
$49.8 mil.
1
$50 mil.
1
$46 mil.
3
$41.7 mil.
3
$30.8 mil.
3
$39.7 mil.
5
$31.6 mil.
2
$32.9 mil.
7
$27.6 mil.
1
$30.7 mil.
2
$15 mil.
5
$24.5 mil.
2
$27.4 mil.
2
$26.2 mil.
3
$20.1 mil.
3
$17.5 mil.
1
$20.4 mil.
1
$19.6 mil.
1
$18.4 mil.
2
$16.6 mil.
3
$15.3 mil.
3
$6.4 mil.
4
$8.2 mil.
5
$10.4 mil.
4
$11 mil.
2
$11.5 mil.
1
$11.2 mil.
2
$10.5 mil.
2
$8.8 mil.
1
$9.7 mil.
4
$8 mil.
4
$6.8 mil.
3
$7.8 mil.
1
$6.3 mil.
1
$1.7 mil.
1
$6.3 mil.
1
$6 mil.
1
$2.9 mil.
2
$2.8 mil.
1
$5 mil.
1
$3.4 mil.
1
$4.7 mil.
1
$4.8 mil.
1
$4.4 mil.
1
$4.5 mil.
2
$4.7 mil.
2
$3 mil.
2
$4.2 mil.
2
$3.8 mil.
1
$2.9 mil.
1
$3 mil.
1
$2.9 mil.
1
$2.7 mil.
1
$2.1 mil.
2
$2.4 mil.
1
$2.5 mil.
1
$2.5 mil.
1
$1.7 mil.
1
$1.9 mil.
1
$2.1 mil.
1
$1.8 mil.
1
$1.8 mil.
1
$1.3 mil.
1
$1.9 mil.
1
$2 mil.
1
$1.2 mil.
1
$1.1 mil.
1
$1.5 mil.
1
$1.1 mil.
1
$1.1 mil.
1
$1 mil.
New delays in transportation aid
So far, the administration has targeted essentially two broad tranches of federal aid. First, the White House has held up billions of dollars in previously approved transportation funding for New York and Chicago.
In New York, the administration stopped the delivery of about $18 billion in pledged investments for two major projects: the Second Avenue subway, which traverses the east side of Manhattan, and the Hudson River tunnel, which serves as the primary rail route through New York City and along the northeast corridor. Funding for the tunnel, in particular, came only after years of wrangling, as New York officials and their counterparts in New Jersey looked to repair a roughly 115-year-old passage from damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy while improving rail capacity.
In Chicago, the Trump administration said it paused about $2.1 billion in money pledged for the city’s own transit upgrades, including an extension of its rail system into the South Side. Groundbreaking was expected to begin in 2026 after years of work to shore up federal funding for the expansion.
In both cases, the White House said it was pausing the delivery of federal dollars so that it could review the cities’ contracting policies. The administration sought to determine if leaders had made construction-related decisions on the basis of race, diversity or inclusion.
The moves came at a moment when the president was at war with key leaders from those states. Mr. Trump has frequently attacked Representative Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Chuck Schumer, two New York Democrats who lead their party in the House and Senate, for refusing to bow to his demands on spending. The Transportation Department claimed that the two men were to blame for the slowdown in aid, since the agency could not complete its review quickly during the shutdown.
Separately, federal officials have repeatedly tried to withhold security and counterterrorism funding from New York, though the state won back some of the money.
Mr. Trump has similarly gone after Chicago and its Democratic mayor, Brandon Johnson, along with the Democratic governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, saying this month that both should be jailed.
Deep cuts to energy funding
The Trump administration also moved to terminate another tranche of money outright. Two days into the shutdown, it announced it would end roughly $7.6 billion in previously approved grants for 223 energy-related projects in 16 states, 14 of which are led by Democrats. Those cuts were later expanded.
The cancellations were the latest attempt by Mr. Trump and his top aides to revoke climate- and infrastructure-related funding adopted under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a series of actions that have been challenged in court. The Energy Department said that it made its decision because the projects were “not economically viable” or did not advance Mr. Trump’s energy policy agenda.
Many of the projects are located in Democratic-led congressional districts, prompting lawmakers to question in recent days if there might be political motivations behind the administration’s actions.
The cuts targeted a vast range of projects, including efforts to prevent power outages and modernize energy grids — a bipartisan goal — as well as investments in newer energy sources, like hydrogen. The Trump administration revoked its plan to provide up to $1.2 billion for the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems, known as ARCHES, which aimed to help develop a clean-burning power source for heavy-duty trucks, port operators and other major drivers of harmful emissions.
The Biden administration announced the award in 2023, nearly two years after Democrats and Republicans adopted a bipartisan package to improve the nation’s infrastructure.
More cuts to come
As the shutdown enters its third week, Mr. Trump and his aides have threatened additional cuts. The president in recent days has described the closure as an opportunity “handed to us on a silver platter” to lay off federal workers, slash federal agencies and reduce other funding, perhaps in permanent ways.
One potential target is Portland, Ore. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, signaled this month that the Trump administration could block some unspecified federal aid to the city, which is led by a Democrat, because of ongoing protests of the president’s immigration crackdown.
Methodology
To analyze the impact of cancelled and paused grants, The Times began by compiling a list of affected grants. The list was then cross-referenced against data from USAspending.gov, where detailed information about each grant was collected. The figures shown on the page reflect the total amount of known funding that has not yet been outlaid.
To determine the impact by congressional district, each grant was grouped into the district where the grantee is located. In some cases, the work being funded by the grant may not occur in the same district, or could occur across multiple districts and states. The exact monetary allocation across those work sites is not known. Grants where the recipient could not be matched to a congressional district are not shown.
For some large projects, government data only shows currently allocated funds, instead of the entire cost of the project. In cases where this is known, the grant data was supplemented by additional reporting to better reflect the amount of affected funding.
News
Newsom declares State of Emergency for Boyle Heights warehouse fire
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a State of Emergency Saturday night as plumes of black smoke continue to rise from the Lineage Logistics warehouse fire, still burning on the 1400 block of South Los Palos Street in Boyle Heights.
The fire started inside a freezer area at the cold storage facility Wednesday afternoon and was initially extinguished before reigniting on Thursday, according to officials.
Newsom’s declaration allows the state to use additional funding for firefighting efforts, public health services and disaster recovery as Los Angeles continues to deal with the emergency.
“California is mobilizing to support Los Angeles as firefighters and emergency personnel continue their work to contain this fire and protect surrounding communities,” Newsom said in a statement Saturday. “While local officials continue to lead this response, the State of California is prepared to help safeguard public health, support emergency operations, and assist impacted residents. We are coordinating closely with our local partners, deploying specialized expertise, and pre-positioning critical supplies so communities have the support they need both now and throughout recovery.”
Although local officials have not asked for additional state resources at this time, Newsom preemptively made the declaration to provide the region with resources as soon as they are needed, California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services Director Caroline Thomas Jacobs said.
“Cal OES is working side-by-side with the City and County of Los Angeles and our regional partners to ensure they have the resources, information, and support necessary to respond to this incident,” Jacobs said. “The State of Emergency allows us to further streamline coordination efforts and leverage additional state capabilities as needed. Our focus remains on protecting communities and supporting locally led response operations.”
Resources available to Los Angeles following the declaration include:
- 5.5 million N95 respirator masks available for distribution to impacted communities.
- Commercial-grade air purifiers available for deployment to evacuation centers, community facilities, and other public spaces.
- Bottled water and other emergency supplies available through the state’s logistics network.
- Enhanced air quality monitoring and technical support resources.
Cal OES Fire and Rescue Branch leaders with specialized technical expertise are also available to consult L.A. fire officials on how to deal with the warehouse fire, if necessary. The state provided similar expertise to officials during the chemical tank failure in Garden Grove.
Air quality remains unhealthy in parts of Los Angeles due to the large amount of smoke produced by the fire.
“The warehouse fire has produced significant smoke and particulate matter that may affect air quality in surrounding neighborhoods,” the governor’s office stated. “To support public health monitoring efforts, the California Air Resources Board is coordinating with local and regional partners to ensure access to air quality information and technical expertise. State agencies continue to monitor conditions and stand ready to deploy additional monitoring resources if requested.”
News
DOJ memo stokes fear among disability advocates of a return to institutionalization
The exterior of the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice building is pictured on May 4, 2021, in Washington, D.C.
Patrick Semansky/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Patrick Semansky/AP
The Justice Department released a memo this week that quietly calls into question decades of civil rights protections for Americans with disabilities and stirred fear and anger among advocates and families.
The memo, an opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel, argues that states do not have to provide in-home or community-based care to people with disabilities who need support. These services allow many disabled Americans to continue to live, learn and work at home or in their own communities, among family and friends.
“It is now the position of the United States government that people with disabilities don’t have a right to be part of their communities,” says Alison Barkoff, a health law and policy professor at George Washington University who led disability law and policy efforts during both the Obama and Biden administrations. “I can’t overstate how significant this change in position is.“
Without the federal government requiring that states provide these services – to help disabled people integrate into their communities – advocates and legal experts warn that cash-strapped states could cut them and return to what was once common practice: de facto segregation of Americans with disabilities in nursing homes and large institutions.
Pushback from the disability community was swift.
“As America prepares to celebrate 250 years of independence, [this memo] threatens to drag our nation back to a dark and shameful era of ignorance and cruelty,” said the American Association of People with Disabilities. “This interpretation will open the doors for states to revert to warehousing people with disabilities out of sight and out of mind in institutions.”
“This opinion is a direct threat to decades of progress toward community living for people with disabilities,” said Shira Wakschlag of The Arc of the United States, a nonprofit disability advocacy group. “People with disabilities shouldn’t be forced into institutions because a state refuses to provide services in the community.”
The Justice Department did not respond to an NPR request that it explain its position as well as why it is changing course after decades of legal and bipartisan support for community services.
What the law says
This new memo calls into question what legal experts say has been settled law for decades.
Both Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act have long been interpreted to require that states provide services to Americans with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate. In short: Institutionalization should be a last resort.
In 1999, a case testing these protections made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Olmstead v. L.C., two women with mental disabilities sued Georgia, arguing that the state had failed its obligation to provide services that would allow them to return to their communities and that it had continued to institutionalize the women instead, thus violating their civil rights.
The court agreed that states have a legal responsibility to provide support that integrates disabled Americans into their communities, and for nearly three decades, courts across the country have embraced that interpretation.
By 2023, 8.4 million Americans were receiving home- and community-based services through Medicaid.
The new memo, written by Lanora Pettit, principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, argues that, while federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability, it does not impose an “integration mandate” on states to provide these community services.
What’s more, the memo argues, the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision “held only that a state cannot institutionalize such patients without justification.”
But, the memo adds: “What counts as adequate justification remains an open question.”
At one point, Pettit acknowledges the novelty of this reading: “We recognize that this view of Olmstead‘s import is out of step with the common understanding of that decision within the federal courts.”
Why it matters
“The United States government since 1977 has taken the position that [federal law] includes an integration mandate that requires services to be provided in the most integrated setting appropriate,” says professor Barkoff, who worked in the Obama Justice Department leading its Olmstead enforcement efforts.
For decades, Barkoff adds, both Republican and Democratic administrations, including the first Trump administration, proactively enforced federal disability law and repeatedly brought actions against states that relied too heavily on care in large, segregated settings that the law says should be a last resort.
The courts and Congress decided institutionalization should be a last resort because people’s personal liberty is at stake, says Jennifer Mathis of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law: “Who you can see, when you can go out, when you eat, what you eat. Who your roommate is, who you talk to, what your environment is. And for so many people who are institutionalized, their life is literally a hallway. I have been on those hallways with people. It is deadening.“
This memo signifies a dramatic change in the U.S. government’s official position.
“We are incredibly concerned that the message coming from the federal government in this memo is, ‘It’s fine to go back to the days that people were placed in institutions,’ even though they can be served in the community, even though they want to be and even though it’s more cost-effective,” Barkoff says.
The timing matters too. The memo arrives as a new case, Texas v. Kennedy, is making its way through the courts. The case, brought by Texas and several other states, is essentially a fresh challenge to the integration mandate on states.
With this memo, the federal government is aligning itself with the plaintiffs in the case. Though Mathis cautions: “It’s important to understand that [this memo] is not the law, that the Justice Department can’t change the law. Congress makes laws, not agencies.“
For now, it’s not clear what the immediate impact of the memo will be, though it seems the Justice Department will stop its enforcement efforts around Olmstead.
Why now?
The Justice Department memo appears to be the latest salvo in a broader effort that began on July 24, 2025, when President Trump issued an executive order intended to make it easier for state and local governments to police homelessness.
“Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe,” the order argues, going on to claim that “the overwhelming majority of these individuals are addicted to drugs, have a mental health condition, or both.”
The administration’s solution: Involuntary institutionalization. “Shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order,” the order reads.
In a 2023 campaign video, President Trump himself pledged: “For those who are severely mentally ill and deeply disturbed, we will bring them back to mental institutions, where they belong.”
A conservative Texas think tank, the Cicero Institute, has been a driving force behind recent efforts to forcefully combat homelessness, including through institutionalization.
One serious obstacle to large-scale institutionalization of the unhoused is federal disability law that has long required home- or community-based services instead, when appropriate. A footnote in the Justice Department’s new memo appears to suggest these laws have contributed to the rise in chronic homelessness.
To the contrary, Barkoff says, the Olmstead decision “has been one of the most effective tools in providing services and stable housing to people who are homeless.”
NPR has previously reported that the Trump administration’s push for institutionalization faces another big obstacle: An acute shortage of beds at these specialized facilities.
The memo arrives as Republicans have also passed deep cuts to Medicaid, which is the primary source of funding for community-based services many disabled Americans rely on.
Multiple legal experts tell NPR that, in response to last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, states must now make deep cuts to a whole range of services previously funded by Medicaid. The Trump administration’s memo, they add, essentially gives states permission to cut these localized supports and, instead, rely on institutionalization – even though research shows the latter is considerably more expensive for states to provide.
This comes as disability advocates were already pushing back against the Trump administration’s announcement on Tuesday that it would move federal administration of special education programs out of the Department of Education and into the Department of Health and Human Services – a change that, as with the new Justice Department memo, raised fears of a rollback of the enforcement of longstanding civil rights protections.
News
Video: The Sacred Catholic Site Where Trump Wants a Border Wall
new video loaded: The Sacred Catholic Site Where Trump Wants a Border Wall

By Reis Thebault, Christina Shaman, Jon Miller, June Kim and Melanie Bencosme
June 20, 2026
-
Rhode Island43 seconds agoNewport’s fourth annual Juneteenth celebration returns to Fort Adams – What’s Up Newp
-
South-Carolina4 minutes ago
South Carolina is in for the longest day of year as summer 2026 starts
-
South Dakota9 minutes agoBoard approves higher income limit, higher prices for inmate-built affordable housing
-
Tennessee16 minutes agoVoting rights ruling echoes Tennessee’s Jim Crow past | Opinion
-
Texas19 minutes agoHot and humid Father’s Day for North Texas to kick off summer equinox
-
Washington24 minutes ago
Where to watch Washington Mystics vs Minnesota Lynx on June 21: TV channel, start time and streaming
-
Utah24 minutes agoFirefighters protect homes in Eureka as Iron Fire burns uncontained in Juab County
-
Vermont31 minutes ago
VT Lottery Powerball, Pick 3 results for June 20, 2026


