All Things Considered

For a young Donald Trump in the 1970s, the Grand Hyatt hotel on East 42nd Street was his first major development project, a chance to make a splash in the big-time world of New York City real estate.

Yet the glitzy glass-fronted hotel never would have been possible without an almost unprecedented 40-year tax abatement from the city, which was then recovering from a painful fiscal crisis.

A wooden puzzle in the silhouette of a human head might look fun if the stakes weren't so high.

Updated at 4:58 p.m. May 18 to update the status of an Ohio bill and to add the name of a group spearheading support for it.

Just like coal companies, America's nuclear power industry is having a tough time. It faces slowing demand for electricity, and competition from cheaper natural gas and renewables. And now, touting itself as a form of clean energy, the nuclear industry is lobbying state legislatures with a controversial pitch for help.

Can you rely on what White House officials say on behalf of the U.S. government to be true?

The answer, even by the account of President Trump himself, is no.

Of all the crises and controversies consuming this White House, perhaps none is more fundamental than the collapse of its credibility. And a close look at some of the administration's policies, statements and controversies suggests chief responsibility of that collapse can be laid at the feet of the man who works in the Oval Office.

The famous Renaissance painting of the goddess Venus, standing nude on a giant shell, has been appropriated, satirized and riffed on so many times — by everyone from Andy Warhol, to Lady Gaga, to The Simpsons — that it's easy to lose track of its origins.

For his first commencement speech as president, Donald Trump went back to a place that was once key to his efforts as a candidate to shore up support among the Republican base.

Standing before tens of thousands of members of the Class of 2017 and their families at Liberty University's open-air stadium in Lynchburg, Va., Trump thanked the crowd for helping him achieve the presidency.

"I wanna thank you because, boy, did you come out and vote — those of you that are old enough; in other words, your parents," Trump said. "Boy, oh boy, you voted. You voted!"

U.S. diplomats staged a rare intervention to rescue the family of a human rights lawyer held in China. The attorney was released last week, after having been swept up in a two-year-old crackdown that has put most of the country's rights lawyers and legal activists out of business.

Human rights groups have been watching to see whether the Trump administration will take a more or less muscular approach to human rights in China than their predecessors, and this case highlights some of the issues at stake.