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Everyone who menstruates and lives long enough experiences menopause in one form or another. Yet despite that, research into what happens during this natural cessation of menstruation and why is limited. Scientists know that menopause can cause a myriad of neurological symptoms, from hot flashes to poor sleep to depression. But what is going on in people’s brain during this period is still murky. Now, new research offers clues to a link between menopause and changes in the brain’s gray matter, as well as anxiety and depression.

Using brain scans from 10,873 people in the U.K., the researchers found that postmenopausal participants showed lower volumes of gray matter in the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus, which are involved in storing and retrieving memories, and in the anterior cingulate, which is involved in emotional regulation.

The researchers also looked at whether hormone replacement therapy (HRT), a frontline but still rarely prescribed treatment for symptoms of menopause, might ameliorate some of these changes.

Barbara Sahakian, a psychiatry professor at the University of Cambridge and an author of the study, explains that she and her colleagues theorized HRT might influence people’s experiences, tamping down their neurological symptoms, for instance. “That was the hypothesis,” she says, “but it didn’t seem to pan out completely that way.”

They found that people who were treated with HRT for menopause showed lower volumes of gray matter in some areas of the brain than those who did not receive HRT. The HRT group also showed higher rates of anxiety and depression—importantly, Sahakian says their work doesn’t find that HRT treatment causes brain changes or menopause symptoms. Previous research suggests HRT prescribed during the run-up to menopause and early postmenopause can reduce anxiety, depending on the kind of HRT and dose, in at least some women. And a subsequent analysis found that participants who were prescribed HRT were more likely to have reported anxiety and depression before HRT treatment, the study explains.

It’s unclear what kind of hormone therapy the participants received, says Roberta Brinton, director of the Center for Innovation in Brain Science at the University of Arizona, who was not involved in the study. “The type of and treatment regimen of menopausal hormone therapy is a critical factor in the efficacy, or lack thereof, for neurological [and] brain-related functions,” she says.

Sahakian and her colleagues didn’t have access to the participants’ treatment regimens or what dose of HRT they were taking, which could also muddy the findings. “They are good questions,” she agrees. “They are important. But I think the basic findings still hold, independent of that.”

One potential benefit of HRT that did emerge from the data was its beneficial effect on psychomotor slowing, or the tendency for reaction times to slow with age. Without HRT, postmenopausal women had slower reaction times in a card-matching speed game than those who were premenopausal. But study participants who were treated with HRT had similar reaction times to participants who hadn’t gone through menopause.

This indicated that the HRT may be protective for psychomotor slowing postmenopause,” Sahakian says.

She hopes the results will serve as a basis for future studies on the brain and aging, including menopause’s potential role in Alzheimer’s syndrome and dementia. Women are more likely than men to develop Alzheimer’s, although it’s not totally clear why. Women’s tendency to live longer may play a role, but a growing number of researchers, including Sahakian, wonder if menopause might, too. Indeed, the brain areas singled out in this study are also often among those affected by Alzheimer’s disease.

A next step would be to look more deeply at what’s happening in the brains of the study participants to try and figure out what, exactly, is causing decreases in brain volume—whether it’s stress, hormones, or something else.

In the meantime, Sahakian recommends people who are experiencing menopause focus on behaviors that are known to improve brain health—exercising, sleeping well, keeping your mind active, eating healthy, and maintaining a positive social network.

“If women would try to do those things, particularly during the menopause, then that would put them in the best possible shape to get through it well,” she says.

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Most of us do it without thinking: You’re done working, and so you close your laptop and walk away. No shut down — just snap the lid shut and move on.

But is that actually OK, or is it quietly hurting your laptop over time?

Like a lot of tech myths, the answer isn’t a simple “yes” or “no.” Closing your laptop usually isn’t bad, but there are situations where you should turn it off, or at least restart it.

Don’t miss: 10 Simple Ways to Improve Your MacBook’s Battery Life

What actually happens when you close your laptop

When you close your laptop lid, most modern computers automatically enter sleep mode. In sleep mode, your laptop pauses most activity, keeps your open apps, leaves your files in memory, and uses a small amount of power to stay ready. That’s why it wakes up almost instantly when you reopen it.

This is obviously very different from shutting down, which fully stops all processes, clears memory, and powers the system off completely.

Sleep mode is designed for convenience, not long-term rest. And most of the time, it works exactly as intended. Just make sure your display settings aren’t set to “never” for turning off the screen or sleeping, or your laptop will continue running even when closed.

On a MacBook, you can check this under the Battery and Lock Screen options in System Settings. For Windows laptops, look in System settings under Screen, sleep and hibernate, and Lid and power button controls. 

When closing your laptop is totally fine

For everyday use, closing your laptop is usually harmless, especially if you’re opening it again within a few hours or even a day.

Sleep mode is ideal when:

• You’re stepping away briefly
• You want to pick up right where you left off
• You’re moving between meetings or locations
• Your laptop is plugged in or has plenty of battery

Modern laptops, especially newer MacBooks and Windows PCs, are optimized for sleep mode. They manage power efficiently, pause background activity, and handle short idle periods without issue.

If your laptop feels fast and nothing seems off, there’s usually no reason to worry.

When sleep mode can cause problems

That said, relying only on closing your laptop and never shutting it down can create issues over time. Sleep mode doesn’t fully reset your system. Apps stay loaded, background processes continue to run, and small software glitches can pile up.

You may notice the following if you only ever put your computer to sleep:

• Slower performance after days or weeks without a restart
• Apps freezing or behaving oddly
• Battery drain while the laptop is “asleep.”
• Missed system or security updates
• Fans spinning or heat buildup inside a closed bag

This is especially common if you run heavy apps — Photoshop, Steam, or your web browser with dozens of open tabs — or connect external devices.

Sleep mode also isn’t ideal if you’re packing your laptop into a backpack for hours. Some laptops wake unexpectedly, which can lead to heat buildup and battery loss.

Check out: Best Budget Laptops I’ve Tested: Cheap Computers for Every Use

Why restarting or shutting down helps

Turning your laptop off, or at least restarting it, clears memory, stops stuck processes, and gives the operating system a clean slate. It’s one of the simplest ways to fix minor issues and keep things running smoothly.

You should always restart your laptop when your laptop feels sluggish, apps won’t close properly, updates are pending or you’ve simply gone days (or weeks) without a reboot. Now, it’s not a guarantee that shutting down your computer will fix any or all of these issues, especially if it’s a bigger problem (low RAM, high CPU usage, nearly full hard drive), but it’s still worth doing, because a lot of the time, it does help.

You don’t need to shut down every night, but restarting occasionally is still good digital hygiene.

So… what should you actually do?

Here’s the practical middle ground most experts recommend:

• Close your laptop for short breaks or daily use
• Restart it every few days or at least once a week
• Shut it down if you won’t use it for a while or you’re traveling
• Power it off if it’s acting weird, before trying anything else

No, it’s not bad to close your laptop instead of turning it off — most of the time. But sleep mode isn’t a substitute for restarting or shutting down your computer. Think of sleep mode like leaving your car parked with the engine idling. It’s fine for short stops, but you wouldn’t want to leave it that way indefinitely.

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The Justice Department said on Friday that it will conduct a civil rights investigation into the death of Alex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs nurse whose killing by federal agents in Minneapolis resulted in a national backlash against President Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown.

The announcement by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche marked a major turnaround in the Trump administration’s approach to the case, which officials had initially said would be confined to a relatively narrow use-of-force inquiry by the Department of Homeland Security.

As demonstrators fill city blocks and wind their way through downtown Minneapolis, hundreds of others are watching from the city’s elevated, enclosed Skyway, which links a variety of buildings. Some are cheering and holding anti-ICE signs. The subway stations leading to New York City’s Foley Square, across from ICE headquarters, spilled out protesters in advance of a rally. The square was packed with more than a thousand protesters bundled against the 6 degree windchill.  To fit more people, volunteers shoveled away snow — as a PA system blasted Bob Marley’s “War.” “Donald Trump’s administration is killing innocent people, arresting journalists, and destroying America’s moral authority,” Gov. Gavin Newsom of California wrote on X on Friday. He condemned the arrest of Don Lemon by federal authorities in California as the act of a “wrecking-ball presidency.” In a separate post on his personal social media account, the governor, a Democrat, compared the arrests to Russian authoritarianism, writing “Putin would be proud.”In an initial appearance on Friday afternoon, a lawyer with the federal government asked that Georgia Fort and two others indicted in connection with the Cities Church protest remain in custody, on the grounds that the allegations against them “qualify as a crime of violence.” The government lawyer further requested that all three be barred from entering Cities Church or contacting any of its congregants. The presiding district court judge denied all of those requests. All three defendants were ordered released as their cases move forward.

Florida Universities have partnered with ICE, stoking anxiety among students.

An unusual agreement between many Florida universities and federal immigration officials has caused a new wave of anxiety among students, as immigration raids around the country have swept up thousands and ignited protests.

The agreements give university police departments, after training from ICE, authority to conduct immigration enforcement and access to databases to check immigration status. It remains unclear to what extent university police departments have worked with ICE in practice.

The demonstration in downtown Minneapolis is packing the central district and moving slowly, with chants of “Who’s streets? Our streets!” Attendees are filling outdoor stairs in front of the government center and every other available public space. Light rail trains are having trouble making their way. Several Minnesota news organizations, including the Minnesota Star Tribune, criticized the arrest of the independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. “The First Amendment recognizes the press as holding a distinct and protected role in our democracy,” they said in a statement, which was also signed by Minnesota Public Radio, the Minnesota Reformer, the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, and Sahan Journal. “In America, we do not arrest journalists for doing their jobs.”Bruce Springsteen has the words “Arrest the President” plastered to his guitar. He is hugging the musicians, and the crowd is stomping.

Bruce Springsteen took the stage at a fund-raiser for Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the iconic First Avenue music venue in downtown Minneapolis. Rumors of Springsteen’s appearance had filtered through the crowd, so energy was building before he arrived. Springsteen sang his recently released song, “Streets of Minneapolis,” to protest ICE.

A crowd gathered in front of the Minneapolis courthouse as three people arrested in connection with a protest at a St. Paul church earlier this month awaited their arraignments inside. Among those arrested is the independent journalist Georgia Fort, whose name was on some of the protesters’ signs.

Becca Bollingmo, an ex-wife of the man charged with assault for spraying vinegar on Representative Ilhan Omar, said her children have been harassed since their father’s arrest. She asked that they be left alone. “They are estranged from their father and do not agree with his beliefs or actions,” she said. The two children, who are 20 and 22, said in a statement that what Anthony Kazmierczak did was “racist and dangerous” and fueled “by the hateful rhetoric he regularly consumed.” Bollingmo divorced Kazmierczak in 2009. She asked that her children not be named.

The Justice Department has opened a civil rights inquiry into the killing of Alex Pretti.

The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti, the intensive care nurse who was killed in Minneapolis last weekend by federal immigration agents, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said on Friday.

The announcement marked a significant reversal in the department’s approach to Mr. Pretti’s killing, suggesting that after a week of lacerating criticism, it had decided to handle the high-profile incident in a manner more in keeping with how investigators have traditionally dealt with fatal shootings by law-enforcement officers. But even as Mr. Blanche disclosed the existence of the inquiry, he sought to downplay it.

The Minnesota attorney general, Keith Ellison, criticized the arrests of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort in a statement, saying that “no one should be arrested merely for holding a camera, asking hard questions or telling the public what we have a right to know.”

Ellison, a Democrat, added that “arresting the storytellers does not change the story: this dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional surge must end.”

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Protesters rallying earlier this week outside the offices of Senator Amy Klobuchar in Minneapolis. Credit…Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

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Last summer, I polled the great art houses of Europe with a seemingly straightforward question: Had they had any recent experiences with mold in their collections?

Mold is a perennial scourge in museums that can disfigure and destroy art and artifacts. To keep this microbial foe in check, institutions follow protocols designed to deter the familiar fungi that thrive in humid settings. But it seems a new front has opened in this long-standing battle. I’d recently heard rumblings that curators in my then home base of Denmark have been wrestling with perplexing infestations that seem to defy the normal rules of engagement. I wondered how pervasive the problem might be.

My survey did not make me popular. Some museums responded quickly—too quickly, perhaps, to have checked with their curators. Ten minutes after receiving my inquiry, the press office at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence assured me unequivocally that there was no mold at the Uffizi. The museum declined to connect me with the curatorial team or restoration department. Many institutions—the Louvre, the British Museum, the Musée d’Orsay—didn’t respond to my calls and e-mails at all. I eventually came to suspect the Vatican Museum had blocked my number.

Frustrating though it was, this is the reception I expected. Asking a curator if their museum has problems with mold is like asking if they have a sexually transmitted disease. It’s contagious, it’s taboo, and it carries the inevitable implication someone has done something naughty.

Consequently, mold is spoken of in whispers in the museum world. Curators fear that even rumors of an infestation can hurt their institution’s funding and blacklist them from traveling exhibitions. When an infestation does occur, it’s generally kept secret. The contract conservation teams that museums hire to remediate invasive mold often must vow confidentiality before they’re even allowed to see the damage. But a handful of researchers, from in-house conservators to university mycologists, are beginning to compare notes about the fungal infestations they’ve tackled in museum storage depots, monastery archives, crypts, and cathedrals. A disquieting revelation has emerged from these discussions: there’s a class of molds that flourish in low humidity, long believed to be a sanctuary from decay. By trying so hard to protect artifacts, we’ve accidentally created the “perfect conditions for [these molds] to grow,” says Flavia Pinzari, a mycologist at the Council of National Research of Italy. “All the rules for conservation never considered these species.”

These molds—called xerophiles—can survive in dry, hostile environments such as volcano calderas and scorching deserts, and to the chagrin of curators across the world, they seem to have developed a taste for cultural heritage. They devour the organic material that abounds in museums—from fabric canvases and wood furniture to tapestries. They can also eke out a living on marble statues and stained-glass windows by eating micronutrients in the dust that accumulates on their surfaces. And global warming seems to be helping them spread.

Most frustrating for curators, these xerophilic molds are undetectable by conventional means. But now, armed with new methods, several research teams are solving art history cold cases and explaining mysterious new infestations.

The xerophiles’ body count is rising: bruise-like stains on Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous self-portrait, housed in Turin. Brown blotches on the walls of King Tut’s burial chamber in Luxor. Pockmarks on the face of a saint in an 11th-century fresco in Kyiv. It’s not enough to find and identify the mold. Investigators are racing to determine the limits of xerophilic life and figure out which pieces of our cultural heritage are at the highest risk of infestation before the ravenous microbes set in.

Scandinavian museums have been some of the first to confront the effect of climate change on molds. Whereas certain parts of the planet are growing drier as temperatures rise, the Nordic countries are among those that are becoming wetter. Higher temperatures allow the air to hold more moisture, and extreme rainfall events called cloudbursts are occurring more frequently. Sea-bound Denmark, for example, which is already rainy, could receive more than 50 percent more winter rainfall by the end of this century.

In decades past, local museums in Denmark could get away with storing their treasures in drafty basements, sheds, and even barns—practices that are typical for small museums around the globe when funding is limited, and they don’t have the luxury of purpose-built facilities. But rising humidity and increasing floods led to runaway mold infestations at several Danish institutions in the 2000s. In response, Danish museums invested tens of millions of dollars to develop centralized, climate-controlled storage facilities.

It’s a pattern that’s playing out in many parts of the world. As the climate becomes more erratic, museums are tightening the temperature and humidity controls for their collections to prevent mold growth. But paradoxically, these efforts may be creating the perfect niche for a different kind of mold.

In 2012, Danish museum conservator Camilla Jul Bastholm was patrolling one such climate-controlled facility—a newly retrofitted warehouse about an hour outside Copenhagen—when she spotted subtle white shimmers on a variety of items, including hats and cloaks. “It was tricky to see with the naked eye,” Bastholm says of the discoloration—“a whitish, brittle layer on the surface of the artifacts.”

Conventional wisdom would have suggested that these shimmering patches were pesticide blooms, an unfortunate legacy from past generations of conservators who sprayed their collections with pesticides such as DDT to keep insects and molds at bay. These chemicals absorbed into artifacts only to bubble up to the surface later in the form of white blotches. But Bastholm had seen these little white dots before. She was working in another repository as a contract conservator, the kind of consultant museums hire after a flood or leak. After eight hours in that facility, a colleague had “reacted like she had the beginning of the flu—her eyes running; she had a migraine.” To Bastholm, that sounded like exposure to a fungus, not a chemical.

A close examination revealed that about half of the objects in the Roskilde Museum’s facility bore these worrisome white marks. Two museum employees developed the same flu-like symptoms Bastholm had observed before. The staff were convinced they had a mold outbreak. Yet the building’s envelope was intact, with no evidence of leaks.

Twice, museum leadership called in outside technicians to test for mold, a process that involves rubbing samples of potentially contaminated material onto a fungal growth medium—a gelatinous goo packed with nutrients and moisture to jump-start mold growth in a petri dish. The dishes bloomed black, yellow, brown, and green with common molds, but nothing matched the enigmatic white marks.

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In my hometown, everybody called it the “old folks’ home.” It’s where my aunt worked long ago, and I used to tag along as a boy because I liked the people who lived there.

In the old folks’ home, ageist as that term is, people had roommates and ate community meals and maybe joined a weekly bingo game for entertainment.

Oh, how times have changed.

Four decades later, I’m an adult, and shopping for a new place for my mom, 85, and my dad, 87, to live was a stark reminder of just how much housing for older people has changed. The old folks’ home? Maybe it’s still out there, but it’s definitely not the norm.

The good news is, the marketplace has been transformed in a way that gives older people unprecedented choice over their style of living.

As a licensed nurse and CEO of a complete senior health company serving 5,500 people each day in their homes and in over 45 senior living communities, I know something about how senior living has improved over the years — and how to look for the best fit for you.

Modern options

With more Americans turning 65 now than at any time in history — more than 4 million per year, a total of 76 million people in the biggest generation of older people ever — the balance of power has shifted toward consumers, and older people are moving the market toward their wants.

After decades of transforming business, politics, music, education, arts and culture, Baby Boomers are changing the way America ages.

The biggest shift from the former days of the old folks’ home is all the choices in modern senior living.

An AARP survey found that three of every four older people want to age in place at home, but professional home health care aides are increasingly hard to find, with agencies reporting major labor shortages that will grow to as many as 2.5 million unfilled jobs in the next decade.

Many older people, instead, are opting for community life. This route has developed the newest options that far surpass the former basics of the old folks’ home.

Today, older people can move to:

• Age 55-plus communities for independent living with shared amenities
• Assisted living with staff that helps with bathing, dressing, and eating
• Memory care for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia
• Nursing homes with specialist nursing facilities and round-the-clock medical care
• Managed communities that allow people to live within all of the stages mentioned above as health changes over time

The key here is comparison shopping. It’s crucial to visit prospective senior living options before you need them — the idea is to see if the community, culture, and space feel right for you.

Though some liken the experience of shopping for senior communities to kicking the tires on a prospective car, I think it should be more like considering a college — you may be living there for years, and the experience can change your life.

Key items for your checklist

While the typical old folks’ home of my youth had a one-size-fits-all approach to the people who lived there, modern communities should be able to reflect the Baby Boomer culture that values personal control for health choices.

Most older people have numerous doctors and specialists in several different medical offices. Scheduling and transportation can be daunting, so it pays to look for a senior community with professionals who work as a point person to coordinate health care.

Today, there’s much greater priority on daily wellness and prevention. Workout facilities have become standard for both exercise and rehab; many offer staff who are physical therapists, personal trainers, and dieticians.

One of the biggest ways boomers have transformed American culture is at mealtime. Gone are the TV dinners and institutional fish sticks of Boomer youth.

Shopping for the right senior living experience means making sure the dining at any community can not only accommodate but celebrate healthy food choices and individual requirements for people who want vegetarian, gluten-free, and other options.

Another important shopping point is to see how much personal risk each community allows you to take on. Sometimes adult children who serve as caregivers at home are more interested in safeguarding their parents than letting them take on the responsibilities and choices of daily life.

However, few older people want to live like a fragile egg in a protective cocoon. How important is it for you to keep your own schedule, or be outside daily, or continue hobbies that may carry consequences, such as woodworking, swimming or pickleball? Check out the community ethic before committing to a new place to live.

Not too long ago, the old folks’ home was designed and run to be a basic safety net. In our lifetimes, though, senior living has become more than just a place to go — it can be a place to grow.

The senior living market is big enough and diverse enough that you should be able to find the right fit for you. It pays to shop around.

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The emerging blame game over the Trump administration’s handling of the deadly shooting by border authorities in Minneapolis this week has exposed the internal jockeying for power within the Homeland Security Department over President Trump’s expansive federal immigration crackdown, and left the department in what current and former officials say is a severe crisis.

In the days since federal agents fatally shot a Veterans Affairs nurse, a bellicose Border Patrol agent leading the operation in the city was cast aside. The embattled homeland security secretary scrambled to get face time with Mr. Trump amid calls to step down. And a top White House official who designed Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda said the administration was examining whether border agents had violated protocol.

The situation has engulfed the department in turmoil and prompted widespread concern among the rank and file and members of Congress over the future of an agency tasked with protecting the United States from threats at home and abroad. Current and former homeland security officials have already described a growing sense of frustration and disillusionment at the agency leading Mr. Trump’s push to arrest and deport millions of immigrants.

“It appears to be chaos,” Deborah Fleischaker, who was the assistant director for policy for ICE during the Biden administration, said of the leadership of the Homeland Security Department. “Immigration has been politicized for a long time. But what we’re seeing is such an escalation of that and such an embrace of power as the ultimate tool.”

“The morale inside the department has got to be suffering,” she added. “It’s got to be hurting. They see what’s happening.”

None of the top immigration officials appeared at imminent risk of losing their jobs. After Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, met with Mr. Trump for nearly two hours this week, he said she had done a “very good job.” And Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff who has played an outsize role in shaping and directing the immigration crackdown, remains one of the administration’s more influential figures.

Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol chief whose tactics in immigration operations in American cities have garnered lawsuits and protests, was pulled out of Minneapolis. But White House officials maintained he was not at risk of losing his position. The White House has directed Tom Homan, the president’s border czar, to replace Mr. Bovino in Minnesota and meet with local authorities to “de-escalate” the situation in Minneapolis, in Mr. Trump’s words.

And amid all the finger-pointing and pushing to overcome the political fallout of the shooting, neither Mr. Trump or any of his advisers have explained why they falsely said the man the agents killed, Alex Pretti, had been brandishing a gun before he was shot, or why administration officials labeled him as a domestic terrorist before any investigation.

The aggressive tactics and false statements have mirrored a top-down combative approach set by Mr. Trump, in which the administration immediately attacks its opponents with inflammatory language, even if it is undercut by video evidence later.

A White House spokeswoman referred to comments this week by Mr. Trump, in which he indicated he was open to an investigation into the shooting.

Still, multiple homeland security officials said the fallout over Minneapolis has revealed what one person familiar with the internal dynamic called a “Game of Thrones”-style battle over power in the department that has simmered for months and now come to a boil. Other ICE officials have expressed difficulty navigating directions from the White House and the Homeland Security Department’s leadership, with the two sometimes not being on the same page.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, disputed any assertion that there was a power struggle at the agency.

“There is only one page: the president’s page,” Ms. McLaughlin said. “Everyone’s on the same page.”

After Ms. Noem faced intense pushback for calling Mr. Pretti a domestic terrorist, a U.S. official said her messaging had been crafted in part by Mr. Miller. Mr. Miller, who called Mr. Pretti a “terrorist” over the weekend, issued a statement on Tuesday saying the Homeland Security Department had chosen its language “based on reports from C.B.P. on the ground.” Ms. McLaughlin repeated that explanation on Wednesday.

Ms. Noem’s claim that Mr. Pretti was “brandishing” a gun was also undermined by a preliminary review done by the Customs and Border Protection’s internal watchdog office. And another claim by Mr. Bovino over the weekend, that two agents involved in the shooting of Mr. Pretti were still working, was under scrutiny after a homeland security official said on Wednesday that they were on leave.

Some former homeland security officials said Mr. Trump had set up the agency for a power struggle at the start of his term when he appointed Mr. Homan, a longtime Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, as border czar. Mr. Homan was tasked with implementing the president’s campaign pledges on border policies and mass deportations — duties that would normally fall under the purview of the homeland security secretary.

Mr. Miller also has long issued directives to senior homeland security officials, dating back to Mr. Trump’s first term. He has continued to oversee Mr. Trump’s immigration operations, holding frequent calls with senior ICE officials demanding they ramp up immigration arrests.

Ms. Noem gets phone calls from Mr. Miller several times a week to discuss a range of homeland security matters, according to two U.S. officials.

Complicating matters even more, the omnipresence in the department of Corey Lewandowski, Mr. Trump’s first campaign manager and Ms. Noem’s senior adviser, has prompted significant consternation among homeland security officials.

One official who requested anonymity to speak candidly about homeland security leadership said that anything that happens at ICE must receive his blessing. And another person familiar with the matter said that any funding request for his homeland security office had to go through Mr. Lewandowski.

Mr. Homan and Ms. Noem initially won praise from the White House for driving down illegal crossings at the border to record lows.

But over the past year, as ICE unsuccessfully attempted to fulfill the White House’s massive expectations of arrests and deportations through more targeted enforcement, Mr. Bovino rose to power.

Mr. Bovino’s rise caused frustration among some homeland security officials who felt he had evaded the chain of command to run sprawling, militarized immigration raids, according to a U.S. official and one current and one former ICE official.

“It’s hard on the people in the department and in the agencies who are looking to leadership for direction if leadership is not on the same page and, even worse than that, are very much publicly at odds,” said Tim Quinn, a former senior official at Customs and Border Protection who left the agency last year. “People are watching the scenes from Minnesota and elsewhere and I think it does not reflect what they expect from federal law enforcement.”

Interviews with people inside the Homeland Security Department, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues, yielded mixed views about the situation. Mr. Bovino’s departure has frustrated some agents. Some ICE officials hope it de-escalates the situation in Minnesota, as Mr. Trump has suggested.

Others with knowledge of the situation expressed concern that Mr. Miller had undermined Border Patrol agents on the ground by suggesting on Tuesday that their tactics in Minneapolis violated White House guidance.

Rodney Scott, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said in a statement that Mr. Miller had conveyed support for border officials in the field and “the men and women of C.B.P. are deeply grateful for his unwavering support. Any suggestion otherwise is an ignorant and stupid lie.”

Despite the shifting responsibility among top officials, members of Mr. Trump’s own party in Congress questioned the competency of the homeland security leadership.

Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, said he didn’t “have any confidence” in Ms. Noem and accused her department of neglecting one of its other responsibilities: disaster response.

“They’re asleep at the switch,” Mr. Tillis told reporters on Capitol Hill. “She clearly doesn’t know how to manage; she’s never managed a large organization, and she’s failing at every possible measure of the job.”

Mr. Tillis also criticized Mr. Miller’s statements after the shooting, calling him and Ms. Noem “amateurs in the strictest sense of the word.”

Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, called for an independent investigation into the shooting of Mr. Pretti.

“For people to have confidence in government and confidence in the law enforcement we have in government, we have to be very honest,” Mr. Paul said. “We have to tell the truth.”

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Just a week after their unprecedented return to Earth following a medical issue onboard the International Space Station, the four members of Crew-11 presented a united front, indicating that the future of human spaceflight was bright.

At a press conference on Wednesday, former ISS commander and NASA astronaut Mike Fincke said that the way the crew and ground teams came together to deliver the four astronauts safely back to Earth showed how well prepared humans are to continue to explore space.

“How we handled everything all the way through … nominal operations to this unforeseen operation really bodes well for future exploration,” Fincke said. “So when we’re getting ready for Artemis, I am very optimistic.”

Fincke is one of the four returned crew members—the others are NASA’s Zena Cardman, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov—who were rushed back to Earth weeks ahead of schedule. On Wednesday, the four offered scant details of what exactly happened to trigger their early return to Earth—the first in the history of the ISS.

Fincke said the issue arose as he and Cardman were preparing to undertake a space walk—which would have been Cardman’s first—outside the ISS. Fincke also said that the ISS’s portable ultrasound machine was used to respond to the medical issue.

“So when we had this emergency, the ultrasound machine came in super handy,” Fincke said, adding the caveat that the ISS does not have the ability to house larger imagers, such as magnetic resonance imaging machines.

“We do try to make sure that everybody, before we fly, are really, really not prone to surprises. But sometimes things happen, and surprises happen,” Fincke said.

JAXA’s Yui praised his international colleagues for the response to the medical issue. “We can handle any kind of difficult situation,” he said. “This is actually very, very good experience for the future of human spaceflight.”

Looking beyond low-Earth orbit, Cardman said she did not think future crews on the ISS would necessarily need new or additional training in light of what happened to Crew-11. But, she said, missions beyond the ISS, to the moon or even further out in space, presented a different question. “I think the farther afield we go as we journey beyond low-Earth orbit, having tools on board to diagnose and treat a myriad of situations is going to be a really interesting problem to solve,” she said.

Cardman emphasized the ISS’s pioneering role in human spaceflight. Looking ahead to future space exploration and science expeditions, “we’re going to need astronauts to be the eyes and ears and lab notebook for the researchers on the ground,” she said.

“We’re not always going to be the scientific experts. In fact, we rarely will be,” Cardman said. “The ISS has been an excellent proving ground for how we get science done.”

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Hmmmm … Would Trump risk civil war and World War to hide Epstein and Fascism!

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• Tonight: CNN hosts a town hall with officials and community leaders, including Frey. “State of Emergency: Confronting the Crisis in Minnesota – A CNN Town Hall” will air live at 8 p.m. ET and stream on CNN.com for subscribers.

Frey says local police won’t implement federal immigration enforcement, cites Giuliani’s NYC policy as precedent

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey reiterated that local police will do their jobs but will not carry out federal immigration enforcement, responding to criticism from President Donald Trump this morning.

Germany issues travel advisory for citizens visiting US, citing unrest in Minneapolis

Germany’s Foreign Office has issued a travel advisory for its citizens visiting the US, citing the potential for “violent clashes” with authorities.

The advisory, issued on Tuesday, highlights “Minneapolis and other cities.”

It also urges Germans in these areas to stay informed through local media, remain vigilant, and avoid crowds where violence might occur.

France’s foreign ministry updated its guidance for travel to Minneapolis last Saturday, advising French citizens to avoid the city center, to stay informed, and avoid gatherings.

Trump calls Republican Sens. Tillis and Murkowski “losers” after they criticize Noem

President Donald Trump called Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Thom Tillis “losers” and “terrible senators,” after the two Republicans voiced concerns about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s leadership following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

“Well, they’re both losers. … They’re terrible senators. One is gone and the other should be gone,” Trump said in the phone interview with ABC News last night. “In the meantime, I have a border that’s perfect — the strongest, one of the strongest borders anywhere in the world.”

Trump’s comments came in a phone interview with ABC News, with the reporter posting quotes on social media and including some of them in a video.

“So, what Murkowski says — she’s always against the Republicans anyway. And Tillis decided to drop out. So, you know, he lost his voice once he did that,” Trump said.

What the senators said: North Carolina’s Tillis, who is not seeking re-election, accused Noem of taking the administration “into the ground on an issue that we should own,” essentially saying she had nothing to be proud of during her tenure leading the Department of Homeland Security.

Tillis also had choice words for top White House aide Stephen Miller, saying he “never fails to live to my expectations of incompetence.”

Alaska’s Murkowski, meanwhile, said the decision to remove Noem would be “obviously up to the president” but expressed a “lack of confidence in her” and disappointment, adding, “We would be better served with new leadership at the department.”

Senate GOP to debate whether to give in to Democrats’ ICE demands to avoid shutdown

Senate Republicans are weighing whether to allow changes to a must-pass spending bill to give in to Democratic demands to put new restrictions on immigration-enforcement practices, according to a source involved in the talks.

Republicans are split on whether to allow Democrats to change the bill — which would force the House to return to session and set up a tricky vote in that chamber — or hold firm and force Democrats to block the bill that funds major federal agencies and must be approved by the end of the day on Friday to avoid a damaging shutdown.

The issue will be a prime debate at the Senate GOP lunch next Tuesday, the source said. It comes as Republicans are seeing a backlash over President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

Democrats are expected to coalesce around a series of demands about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that they plan to propose as an amendment to the funding bill, which they’ll discuss in their lunch today, senators said.

Trump warns Minneapolis mayor he’s “playing with fire” if he doesn’t enforce federal immigration law

President Donald Trump once again shifted his tone toward Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, warning him that he would be violating federal law by not enforcing immigration operations.

Rep. Omar unhurt after man sprays unknown substance at Minneapolis town hall — see moment it happened

Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar was sprayed with an unknown substance by a man at a town hall in Minneapolis yesterday. She declined to end the meeting early for a medical check.

Omar, who was not injured in the attack, said after the town hall ended that she has “survived war” and that she is “definitely going to survive intimidation and whatever these people think that they can throw at me because I’m built that way.” The congresswoman immigrated to the US as a refugee who fled Somalia’s civil war.

The man accused of attacking Omar has been identified as 55-year-old Anthony J. Kazmierczak, a Minneapolis Police Department

Trump says he plans to “de-escalate” the situation in Minneapolis. Catch up on his latest remarks

President Donald Trump has made a number of remarks in the past day about his immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, calling for an “honorable and honest” investigation into federal agents’ fatal shooting of ICU nurse Alex Pretti and saying he plans to “de-escalate” the situation in the Democratic-led city.

Catch up on some of his latest comments below:

• In saying he plans to “de-escalate” the situation in Minnesota, Trump praised White House Border Czar Tom Homan, whom he sent to the oversee operations there. “We put (Homan) in there, he’s great. And they met with the governor, the mayor, everybody else. … We’re going to de-escalate a little bit,” Trump told Fox News yesterday.
• The president also described Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino as “a pretty out-there kind of guy,” pushing back against the notion pulling Bovino from Minneapolis constituted a “pullback.” “I don’t think it’s a pullback – it’s a little bit of a change,” Trump said.
• Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is not stepping down, Trump said, responding to reporters. “She’s doing a very good job,” he said later.
• Trump said he hadn’t heard anyone call Pretti a “domestic terrorist.” Both Noem and top White House aide Stephen Miller had described the 37-year-old ICU nurse that way.
• The president also said Pretti “shouldn’t have been carrying a gun” when he was killed. “I don’t like that he had a gun. I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines. That’s a lot of bad stuff, and despite that I say that’s a very unfortunate incident,” Trump said. No Minnesota or federal law bars participation in peaceful protest with a concealed weapon.
• Asked whether he believes Pretti’s death was justified, Trump indicated he would be involved with its investigation. “Well, you know, we’re doing a big investigation. I want to see the investigation. I’m going to be watching over it. I want a very honorable and honest investigation. I have to see it myself,” he told reporters.

CNN’s Aleena Fayaz, Donald Judd, Kit Maher, Adam Cancryn and Betsy Klein contributed to this reporting.

Witness who recorded Pretti’s killing speaks out

From CNN staff

CNN’s Anderson Cooper spoke with Stella Carlson, the witness who captured crucial video showing exactly what happened when Alex Pretti was shot and killed by DHS officers. Here’s what she had to say:

Bovino left Minneapolis yesterday, source tells CNN

Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino left Minneapolis yesterday, a federal law enforcement source has told CNN, amid questions on his whereabouts following his pullback from the city.

Bovino is on his way back to California’s El Centro Sector, where he holds the title of chief patrol agent, the source told CNN.

Correction: An earlier version of this post gave the wrong name for the federal agency Bovino works for.

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Hmmmm … Would Trump risk civil war and World War to hide Epstein and Fascism!

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The Minneapolis and U.S. Capitol Police were investigating on Wednesday after a man attacked Representative Ilhan Omar with an unknown substance during a public event the previous evening in the city. The attack was the latest reflection of the charged political climate over an aggressive federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota that has prompted an outpouring of anger.

Ms. Omar, a Democrat who represents part of Minneapolis and has been a frequent target of President Trump, was sprayed with a strong-smelling liquid during a town hall she was holding in her district on Tuesday evening to criticize U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the city.

The immediate reaction of Representative Ilhan Omar when she was squirted with a liquid at a town hall last night is getting attention. Instead of rushing to aides or fleeing, as one might expect, she moved toward the man with her right fist raised, before he was tackled by security officers. Seconds later, she told aides and a security guard that she wanted to keep speaking at the event, even as they advised her to get evaluated. Defiant, Omar told them, “We will continue.”A South Minneapolis neighbor of Anthony Kazmierczak, the man arrested after the attack on Representative Ilhan Omar during a town hall on Tuesday night, said that Kazmierczak had recently told him he was going to go to the town hall and “might get arrested.” The neighbor, Brian Kelley, said he didn’t think Kazmierczak meant he would attack the congresswoman.

Patrice Benoit, who was married to Anthony Kazmierczak, the man accused of spraying liquid at Representative Ilhan Omar, for a little less than four years until 2017, said that she was “heartbroken to hear of” the attack and wanted to “wish peace, strength and healing to everyone affected, including Ilhan’s family and community and Anthony’s family.” Benoit said she had not had any interactions with Kazmierczak since 2017. newly filed federal lawsuit claims that people arrested by ICE in Minnesota are sometimes denied access to lawyers until after they are moved out of the state. The plaintiffs are asking a judge to order that detainees have access to lawyers.

President Trump criticized Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska after the two Republicans became the first in their party to call for Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, to lose her job after two U.S. citizens were killed by federal agents in Minneapolis in recent weeks. “They’re terrible senators,” Trump told ABC News in an interview on Tuesday night, calling them both “losers.”

The attacks are risky for Trump, whose narrow margins in the Senate mean he will need their votes on most congressional actions.

President Trump told ABC News on Tuesday night that he had not seen video footage of the attack on Representative Ilhan Omar, but suggested without evidence that she had staged it. “I don’t think about her. I think she’s a fraud,” said Trump, who has targeted Omar, a Democrat, for years. “She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her,” he claimed.

Miller suggests federal agents may have diverted from ‘protocol’ before Pretti was killed.

Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump, has suggested that federal agents “may not have been following” protocol before the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, after days in which he and other Trump administration officials portrayed the shooting as justified.

Mr. Miller said in a statement that the White House had provided “clear guidance” to the Department of Homeland Security that federal agents deployed to Minnesota as part of the administration’s immigration crackdown be used to protect “arrest teams” from people he described as “disruptors.”

Who is Representative Ilhan Omar?

Ilhan Omar, the Democratic member of Congress who was attacked at a public event in Minnesota on Tuesday, has come under fire for years, including from President Trump.

“I’ve survived war. And I’m definitely going to survive intimidation and whatever these people think they can throw at me,” Ms. Omar said after the attack, in which the assailant sprayed her with an unknown substance. She appeared unharmed after the episode. A suspect, later identified by the police as Anthony J. Kazmierczak, 55, was arrested at the scene; his motives were unclear on Wednesday.

Ecuador lodges a formal protest after an ICE agent attempted to enter its Minneapolis consulate.

Ecuador’s foreign ministry said it lodged a formal diplomatic protest with the United States after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent attempted to enter the country’s consulate in Minneapolis without permission on Tuesday morning.

Employees of the consulate stopped the agent from entering, the Ecuadorean foreign ministry said in a statement Tuesday night. Under the Vienna Conventions, to which the United States is a party, foreign consular buildings are off-limits to law enforcement from the host country without authorization from consular officials.

Dozens are arrested after an anti-ICE protest at a Manhattan Hilton.

Dozens of demonstrators were arrested in Manhattan on Tuesday evening after occupying the lobby of a TriBeCa hotel where, they said, federal immigration agents were staying while carrying out the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

More than 100 people crammed into the hotel, a Hilton Garden Inn on Sixth Avenue near Canal Street, at about 6 p.m., condemning the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency with chants and anti-ICE slogans on their black T-shirts.

A man rushes at Ilhan Omar at a town hall meeting and sprays her with fluid.

During a town hall with Representative Ilhan Omar in Minneapolis on Tuesday evening, a man rushed the lectern and appeared to spray her with a strong-smelling liquid before he was tackled by security.

The man, who had been seated directly in front of the lectern in the front row, suddenly jumped up as Ms. Omar was speaking and ran toward the podium. He used a syringe to spray her shirt with a substance that smelled strongly of vinegar. As he stumbled backward and pointed at her, a security officer tackled him to the ground, handcuffed him, and removed him from the room.

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Representative Ilhan Omar leaving a town hall after being attacked by an assailant in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Tuesday. Credit…Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

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Microplastics are pervasive, found everywhere on Earth, from the Sahara Desert to patches of Arctic sea ice. Yet despite these plastic particles’ ubiquity, scientists have struggled to determine exactly how many of them are in our atmosphere.

Now, a new estimate published in Nature suggests that land sources release about 600 quadrillion (600,000,000,000,000,000) microplastic particles into the atmosphere every year, about 20 times more than the number of particles contributed by oceans (about 26 quadrillion).

The median concentration of microplastics is 0.08 particle per cubic meter (m³) over land and 0.003 particle per m³ over sea, the study found.

These estimates are between 100 and 10,000 times lower than previous accountings of atmospheric microplastics—a discrepancy that the researchers behind the new study say underscores the need for better global measures of these pollutants.

“We knew that uncertainties of existing emission estimates were very large,” says Andreas Stohl, senior author of the study and an atmospheric scientist at the University of Vienna. “They are even still large after our study, but we could at least narrow down the uncertainty range, especially when it comes to the importance of land-based versus ocean-based emissions.”

A microplastic is any plastic particle sized between one micron and five millimeters. Easily swept up by wind and carried long distances by water, these tiny motes are also exceedingly difficult to detect and almost impossible to remove from the environment.

Past estimates have focused on accounting for microplastics generated by human activity or directly measuring their concentration in the air in any given area. But these measures are highly variable: along the southeastern coast of China, for example, atmospheric microplastic estimates have ranged from 0.004 to 190 particles per m³. To try and get at a more global estimate, Stohl and his team compiled 2,782 measurements collected at 283 locations worldwide.

The researchers hope the findings will act as a baseline for future studies of global microplastic levels, including new measures that will be able to account for even smaller particles than they did.

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