On January 15, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced $75.1 million for humanities projects across the country. Presented as part of President Donald Trump's January 25, 2025 executive order, "Celebrating America's Birthday," the move is the latest example of how the Trump administration is increasingly using federal funding as a vehicle to achieve its broader goals of reshaping higher education.
Just before winter break, news broke that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill plans to close its centers for African, Asian, European, Middle Eastern, Latin American and Slavic, Eurasian and East European studies. Though UNC administrators said in a statement that decisions on closures are not finalized, they confirmed they are evaluating centers and institutes as part of a budget-cutting effort in response to state and federal funding changes.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that starting Feb. 1 he will deny federal funding to any states that are home to local governments resisting his administration's immigration policies, expanding on previous threats to cut off resources to the so-called sanctuary cities themselves. Such an action could have far-reaching impacts across the U.S., potentially even in places that aren't particularly friendly to noncitizens.
The Trevor Project used to get some federal funding for operating LGBTQ+ Youth Specialized Services for the federal 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. But the current administration cut funding to that initiative in July. The funding cut came after Trevor Project was targeted for years by the right with accusations of "grooming" children that had no basis in reality. Conservatives claim that the organization is somehow making kids become LGBTQ+, which is not possible. Instead, the organization provides support for LGBTQ+ youth.
The federal government signaled a new direction in federal funding this week when it announced plans to put as much as $150 million into a private semiconductor startup. Instead of a grant or a loan, the government would take an equity stake. It's a meaningful departure from how federal funding has traditionally operated. For years, federal R&D support came structured as non-dilutive grants and Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) awards that didn't require equity concessions.
The freeze applies to the "Child Care and Development Fund" worth $2.4 billion (2.2 billion), the "Temporary Assistance for Needy Families" worth $7.35 billion and the "Social Services Block Grant" worth $869 million. HHS said it had notified the five states and that they would require extra documentation to access the funds. The New York Post was the first to report the funding freeze for certain social services on Monday, citing unnamed federal officials that expressed "concerns that the benefits were fraudulently funneled to non-citizens."
Driving the news: The average award for 2026, the first of five years, is $200 million. Alaska, a rural state with unique challenges for health care access, got the second most funding after Texas, receiving $272 million. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted for the bill after being the focus of hours of negotiations with GOP leaders. The Wall Street Journal reported over the summer that officials had reassured Alaska's GOP senators that the state would do well in allotments from the fund.
2025 was a tumultuous year that tested our resolve from federal funding cuts to local road safety and climate resilience projects, a lengthy government shutdown that caused federal workers to miss paychecks and suspended nutrition assistance programs and the loss of subsidies for health insurance premiums for those who buy their insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft is the mayor of Alameda.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz said the fund is intended to improve rural health outcomes that have worsened over decades, while avoiding costly new construction. "This is a massive effort to change the unfortunate reality that has overtaken rural healthcare in America, which is that your ZIP code has started to predict your life expectancy," Oz told reporters. He said the money will also support other pilot projects across the country.
The U.S. Transportation Department slashed funds for the bullet train aimed at connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles in July. The Trump administration has said the California High-Speed Rail Authority had " no viable plan " to complete a large segment of the project in the farm-rich Central Valley. The authority quickly filed a lawsuit, with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom calling the federal government's decision "a political stunt to punish California."
The procurement consists of 16 low-floor electric buses supplied by Ebusco. Eight units have already been delivered and are currently undergoing commissioning, while the remaining eight are scheduled to follow in the coming weeks. Each vehicle is equipped with a 525 kWh battery pack, enabling an operational range between 400 and 500 kilometers under standard regional service conditions, the operator states.
In its annual "Roadmap to Safety" report, the Advocates for Highway & Road Safety once again surveyed the patchwork of statewide regulations that governs America's roads, and found a whopping 45 states had failed to adopt sufficiently aggressive road safety laws, including restrictions on text messaging behind the wheel, permitting red light cameras, and bans on open containers of alcohol in cars.
Oakwood University supports the Trump administration's controversial compact for higher education that would require signatories to make changes to their policies in order to receive a potential edge in federal funding, Religion News Service (RNS) reported. The historically Black university in Alabama wrote a Nov. 18 letter to the Education Department about its interest in the compact. Oakwood is the second HBCU to show interest in signing on.
Nurse Julianne Vidal takes vitals for Brandon Radford, 80, in his room at Oak Days, a permanent supportive housing program in a former hotel in Oakland, on May 22, 2024. Advocates for people experiencing homelessness fear this kind of housing could lose funding under federal guidelines released this month. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
