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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Friday made a significant reduction in grants reserved for research institutions, a decision that may significantly impact American higher education.

The NIH said it provided over $35 billion in grants to more than 2,500 institutions in 2023, announcing that it will now limit the amount granted for “indirect funding” to 15 percent. This funding helps cover universities’ overhead and administrative expenses and previously averaged nearly 30 percent, with some universities charging over 60 percent.

The change will take effect on Monday, and will save roughly $4 billion annually, per the NIH.

Ukraine wants to collaborate with partner countries on postwar projects worth billions of dollars not just in mining rare earth elements, but also in energy and construction sectors to help rebuild the country, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Wednesday.

Sybiha responded to comments by President Donald Trump who said Monday that he wanted to gain access to Ukraine’s valuable rare earth materials as a condition for continuing support for its war against Russia.

Ukrainian officials have said Russia wants to get its hands on Ukraine’s vast natural resources.

Kyiv intends to offer “guarantees of the presence of major businesses in Ukraine and the vested interests of our closest allies — the United States — in developing these (rare earth) deposits and ensuring their protection,” the foreign minister said.

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Andrew McCabe, the former acting director of the FBI, said the agency is in “utter disarray” amid an apparent purge of law enforcement agents, officials and other employees who worked on probes into President Trump.

McCabe joined CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday to discuss the state of play at the FBI, which has seen dozens of officials removed, including those who worked on Jan. 6 Capitol riot cases.

“I’ve talked to more FBI people in the last four days than I did in the prior four years,” said McCabe, who served as acting director in 2017, until Trump appointed Christopher Wray to the post.

“It is a place in utter disarray right now.”

In just a few weeks, the Trump administration has removed dozens of Department of Justice and FBI officials and thousands more are feared on the chopping block, given the sprawling nature of the investigations into Jan. 6 in particular.

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On Thursday, the Trump administration ordered the US agriculture department to unpublish its websites documenting or referencing the climate crisis.

By Friday, the landing pages on the United States Forest Service website for key resources, research and adaptation tools – including those that provide vital context and vulnerability assessments for wildfires – had gone dark, leaving behind an error message or just a single line: “You are not authorized to access this page.”

The government website was one of many that were affected on Friday by new directives from the Trump administration on what information federal agencies can publish.

The Supreme Court declined Monday to decide whether a permanent voting ban on people convicted of felonies in Mississippi is cruel and unusual punishment.

The court, in 2023, had also rejected a different challenge to the state’s voting restriction that was based on the fact it was drafted in 1890 as part of a racist effort to disenfranchise Black voters.

Mississippi is one of eleven states that doesn't automatically restore voting rights after convicted felons finish their sentences.

Voting rights experts say Mississippi’s restrictions are among the harshest because the state bans voting by first-time offenders who commit non-violent felonies. And the process for restoring the right is onerous.

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A senior Taliban figure has urged the group’s leader to scrap education bans on Afghan women and girls, saying there is no excuse for them, in a rare public rebuke of government policy.

Sher Abbas Stanikzai, political deputy at the Foreign Ministry, made the remarks in a speech on Saturday in southeastern Khost province.

He told an audience at a religious school ceremony there was no reason to deny education to women and girls, “just as there was no justification for it in the past and there shouldn’t be one at all.”

The government has barred females from education after sixth grade. Last September, there were reports authorities had also stopped medical training and courses for women.

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