Even the seemingly staid Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum hasn’t escaped the mud-slinging that has dominated President Donald Trump’s two-term tenure. After a high-profile White House clash this month between the former North Dakota governor and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro over the latter’s failure to prosecute bystanders accused of marring the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which is managed by the Interior Department, Burgum finds himself sweating under an uncomfortable national spotlight.

‘Confusion and concern’
“No one is more involved” in Trump’s “fix-it spree” than Burgum, said Axios. But the reflecting pool scandal has placed the secretary in a “weird spot” that’s “overshadowing” his other projects. Pirro has “lashed out at Burgum directly” and “blamed him for misleading” Trump about the pool, said ABC. Burgum not only “pushed the narrative about vandals damaging the blue lining publicly” but also “privately” to the president himself, said The New York Times.

“Just days after his Oval Office screaming match” with Pirro over the pool prosecutions, Interior Department staffers accused Burgum of “fostering a culture of secrecy and dysfunction,” said The Daily Beast. “Morale has tanked” under his management, contributing to what officials describe as an “atmosphere of high turnover” with “leadership that ignores staff.” After trusting in Burgum’s “strong executive experience as governor of energy-rich North Dakota,” staffers have seen their hopes “replaced by confusion and concern,” said Politico. 

‘Personal project manager’
Through it all, Burgum “appears to still be in the president’s good graces,” said Axios, “settling into life as a central player in Trump’s efforts to remake D.C.” Inside “Trump world,” where it’s the “bootlicking that matters,” Burgum has “kept his tongue planted firmly” on “Trump’s Oxfords,” said Rob Port at Inforum.

The secretary’s “principal responsibilities have focused on serving as the president’s ‘personal project manager,’” said Steve Benen at MS NOW. Given the reflecting pool “fiasco,” however, “those efforts have not fared well.”

“It’s clear” that the Interior Department would “benefit from a strong and capable inspector general’s office” that can act independently, said Benen. Last week, Trump nominated Dennis Kirk, a co-author of the “far-right policy blueprint Project 2025,” to serve as the Interior’s inspector general. 

While hundreds of thousands of people rely on the U.S. government’s Head Start program for low-income children, major proposed cuts by the Trump administration have families worried about what it could mean for their kids. Even as there has been some bipartisan pushback to the slashes, aspects of children’s lives from school to home to doctor’s offices could be affected.

Why is it being slashed?
The plan for the funding cuts is overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which runs Head Start. The goal of the cuts is “removing unnecessary bureaucracy, strengthening nutrition and physical health, trusting parents and local communities, and opening Head Start to hundreds of thousands more children,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a statement.

The proposed cuts would constitute nearly a complete retooling of Head Start, which was launched in 1965 as the nation’s primary child antipoverty program. The agency’s changes would “remove most of Head Start’s 133 pages of federal requirements for math and literacy curricula, class sizes, medical screenings and home visits,” said The New York Times. Even a “requirement that children brush their teeth after meals would end.”

What effect will this have?
Many are concerned that the cuts would have a disastrous impact on the 1,600 Head Start providers who fight childhood poverty. HHS’ proposal would “weaken protections for hundreds of thousands of children,” said Joel Ryan, the director of the Washington State Association of Head Start, to the Times. 

“It wouldn’t be Head Start anymore,” said Jen Bailey, who operates several Head Start programs in Madison, Wisconsin, to The Washington Post. Even some Republicans appear worried. “Just walking away and turning a blind eye toward it — I don’t think that would be a good idea,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) to USA Today. 

“At first glance, these proposed changes might not seem so terrible,” said Yvette Sanchez Fuentes, the senior vice president at nonprofit Start Early, to The 19th. “But as you dig deeper into it, what we will find is that there really are a lot of changes that will impact what’s at the heart” of Head Start.

A man watches the moon pass in front of the sun today above Monviso Mountain near Turin, Italy. Parts of Spain, Portugal, Greenland and Iceland experienced a rare total solar eclipse, the “first time since 1999 that mainland Europe has been treated to the spectacle,” said NBC News.
Marco Bertorello / AFP / Getty Images

Fantasy literature has a long history of beckoning readers to escape into fleshed-out magical worlds, where wizards and dragons are the norm. Over the years, several titles have established themselves as pinnacles of fantasy fiction, molding the genre into the multifaceted entity it is today. 

‘The Lord of the Rings’ (1954)
When it comes to fantasy world-building, J.R.R. Tolkien set a standard with middle-earth. The author created a “great work of literature” that has the “power to engage an immense range of readers” and, “most importantly, engage them in fundamentally different ways than its predecessors, contemporaries or imitators,” said English literature scholar Michael D.C. Drout at Lit Hub. ($26, Harper Collins, Amazon)

‘A Game of Thrones’ (1996)
Thirty years ago, George R.R. Martin introduced us to Westeros, a world that has spawned a series, multiple standalones and an HBO deal. “GOT” “reshaped both publishing and television,” said Parade. And fantasy storytelling embraced his blueprint of “morally complex protagonists, political intrigue and serialized storytelling” that rewarded “long-term investment from readers and viewers alike.” ($21, Penguin Random House, Amazon)

‘The Poppy War’ (2018)
R.F. Kuang’s debut made it clear she was here to shake up the genre. “The Poppy War” is highly regarded for its “complex portrayal of a strong female protagonist” and the “heavy psychological toll of war,” said Comic Book Resources. Kuang’s “rich and intricate world-building” blends historical events with a “unique shamanic magic system.” ($10, Harper Collins, Amazon)