Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Thursday.
Trump fires his attorney generalAfter souring on her for months, President Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi today. The president had privately complained about Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files, her shortcomings as a TV surrogate and her failed efforts to prosecute his political enemies. “We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector,” Trump posted on social media. Bondi, Trump said, will be replaced by Todd Blanche, her deputy, on an interim basis. Her departure — the second cabinet member ousted in a month — ends a turbulent 14-month tenure in which she tried desperately to appease a boss who demanded unimpeded control of the Justice Department. My colleague Tyler Pager reported that Bondi spent much of the last day making her case to stay. But her team could sense that her time was likely over after Trump offered only a lukewarm statement yesterday in response to reporting that she was about to be fired. In other Trump administration news:
Allies respond to Trump’s Iran plans with skepticismEmmanuel Macron, the president of France, bluntly criticized Trump for repeatedly shifting his goals for the Iran war and berating the NATO alliance. “When we’re serious,” Macron said today, “we don’t say the opposite of what we said the day before every day.” Britain said it would hold talks for securing the Strait of Hormuz with about 30 countries, but not the U.S. While resisting direct involvement in the war, Britain and France are seeking to coordinate an international intervention after it ends. In Iran, commanders and political officials were defiant a day after Trump threatened in a televised address to bomb the country “back to the Stone Ages.” The speaker of Iran’s Parliament taunted Trump and insisted that Iran was still up for the fight: “Come on in, we’re waiting.” For more: Some estimates peg the U.S. spending on the war at as much as $1 billion a day.
Investigators examine LaGuardia controller staffingOfficials are looking into whether an air traffic controller at LaGuardia Airport had to step away to use an emergency telephone before an Air Canada Express jet and a fire truck collided last month, killing two pilots. The question is one of several that federal investigators are pursuing in an effort to determine what led to the crash. Other areas of focus include the positioning of the fire truck, the communication devices that it had, and the role of weather and light pollution. For more: The collision raised questions about how many air traffic controllers are enough.
A.I. could change the world. But first, it’s changing Silicon Valley.Tech executives have long predicted that artificial intelligence would eventually wipe out many white-collar workers. The tech industry itself is already getting a taste of that future. Already this year, at least 40,000 jobs have been eliminated across 70 tech companies. Several tech executives have acknowledged that A.I. tools are allowing them to reduce the number of people needed for a single project. And Wall Street is spooked: A.I. anxieties have erased roughly $3 trillion in market capitalization from software companies. Related: A.I. systems helped one man (and his brother) run a $1.8 billion company all by themselves. More top news
The case of a 13-year-old girl’s murder in the Bronx went cold for 20 years. A last-resort DNA test and a clever ploy led police to an amateur astronomy enthusiast.
A soundtrack for springEvery year around this time, our critic Wesley Morris searches for music that captures the breezy feeling that comes with the end of winter. This year, he said, the album of the season was obvious: It’s Harry Styles’s “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally.” “Times are heavy,” he said on his podcast, “Cannonball.” “It just makes it a lot easier to start your spring off with something that is conscious of how little it wants to weigh.”
Powdered wigs are suddenly hot in New York CityTo be clear, you shouldn’t expect to see many people in elaborate hairpieces strolling down Fifth Avenue. Instead, the powdered wigs are all over the Frick Collection’s absorbing new exhibit of Thomas Gainsborough’s masterworks. Gainsborough was considered one of England’s greatest 18th-century portrait artists, depicting the ruffle-laden fashion of Britain’s upper class. He was the Warhol of his era, celebrating the 1 percent with his factory-like output. He could complete a painting in a day. For more great art, go to the Met for the work of Iba Ndiaye, a Senegalese artist who drew influences from around the world.
Dinner table topics
Cook: This creamy basil pasta gets its silkiness from blended cottage cheese. |
