The biggest trial in Meta's history starts Monday. Here's what to know by Bobby Allyn

 

The Federal Trade Commission's blockbuster antitrust case against Meta kicks off on Monday in a courtroom in Washington. It's the culmination of a nearly six-year investigation into whether the social media giant broke competition laws in acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp.

At stake is the future Meta's $1.4 trillion advertising business and the prospect of having to spin off its hugely popular services into separate companies — a corporate breakup the likes of which has not been seen since AT&T's telephone monopoly was forced to split apart more than 40 years ago. 

 

Lawyers for the FTC and Meta will deliver opening statements on Monday before U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in a trial expected to stretch for seven to eight weeks.

Reams of evidence and dozens of witnesses will be scrutinized. The government plans to call CEO Mark Zuckerberg, former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, to the witness stand.

What is the FTC's case against Meta?

The FTC argues that when Meta acquired Instagram, in 2012, and WhatsApp, two years later, that it was part of a strategy to eliminate competition and maintain monopoly power over the social media market. The government contends that a "buy or bury" strategy propelled Meta's acquisitions, leading Meta to gobble up competitors it viewed as threats, or to squash the rivals out of business altogether. In a 2012 internal email government lawyers plan to present, Zuckerberg wrote that buying Instagram was motivated by a desire to "neutralize a potential competitor." The FTC says this alleged behavior is illegal under federal antitrust laws.

 

What remedy does the FTC want? 

The government argues the only way to restore competition to the social media marketplace is for Meta to be forced to unwind its purchase of both Instagram and WhatsApp. The government says divesting those apps will allow smaller social media companies compete for consumers and ad dollars and loosen Meta's grip on the industry.

How is Meta expected to respond in court?

Meta counters that it is being punished for being an innovative and aggressive tech company. It has always competed fairly, Meta's lawyers say, and regulators are attempting to punish the tech titan's runaway success. Lawyers for Meta have also said in court filings that the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were approved by regulators more than a decade ago.

 

Yet the FTC maintains that Meta was not forthcoming to regulators who cleared the purchases, claiming Meta withheld key information about the company to win the blessing of Washington. Another important facet to Meta's defense is just how crowded the social media world is today, versus 2012 and 2014, when the company made those purchases. Meta says it faces fierce competition from Elon Musk's X, TikTok, Snapchat and many other social media platforms.

In a statement ahead of opening statements, Meta said: "its evidence at trial will show what every 17-year-old in the world knows: Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp compete with Chinese-owned TikTok, YouTube, X, iMessage and many others. More than 10 years after the FTC reviewed and cleared our acquisitions, the Commission's action in this case sends the message that no deal is ever truly final."

What would it mean for users of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp if Meta was forced to break up? 

The FTC says it would mean more robust competition among social media startups, and therefore better quality services for everyone. Government lawyers argue that Meta's services have degraded in quality in part because of its dominant position in the marketplace.

Regulators also say Meta's privacy protections have lapsed as a result of its alleged monopoly status. To the FTC, a break-up would translate into a more vibrant social media landscape, where new upstarts can go toe to toe with Meta's apps. But Meta contends the opposite: That a breakup would make each of its individual apps less integrated and worse for consumers after many years in which Meta's systems and data have become entwined.

What about the politics of the case? How does CEO Mark Zuckerberg's relationship with Trump play into this trial?

This case first started in Trump's first term, in December 2020. That's when Trump still had a bitter feud with Zuckerberg, but the two have been less confrontational of late. Before he won the November election, Trump threatened to throw Zuckerberg in prison, saying if Zuckerberg's platforms did anything to hurt Trump's chances on the campaign trail, he would "spend the rest of his life in prison." 

 

Like many other executives in Silicon Valley, Zuckerberg has recently been ingratiating himself with the Trump administration. Zuckeberg has publicly praised Trump; he donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee; he agreed to pay Trump $25 million to settle a suit Trump filed for being suspended from Facebook and Instagram in the wake of Jan. 6; and he's made company-wide shifts that align with Trump's priorities, like ending Facebook and Instagram's fact-checking program and rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Zuckerberg has also made visits to Trump's Mar-a-Lago club reportedly to lobby the president to drop the case.

There has been speculation that Trump could abandon the trial and settle with Meta but so far, all indications point to the case sticking. FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson has said his lawyers are "raring to go" against Meta. That said, he also has said he would "obey lawful orders" from the president. In other words, the start of the trial does not take a settlement off the time. The two sides could reach a settlement in the midst of the trial, though legal experts say it is highly unlikely. 

 

Egg prices increase to record high despite Trump's predictions and bird flu outbreak slowing by JOSH FUNK and DEE-ANN DURBIN

 

U.S. egg prices increased again last month to reach a new record-high of $6.23 per dozen despite President Donald Trump’s predictions, a drop in wholesale prices and no egg farms having bird flu outbreaks.

The increase reported Thursday in the Consumer Price Index means consumers and businesses that rely on eggs might not get much immediate relief. Demand for eggs is typically elevated until after Easter, which falls on April 20.

Industry experts were expecting the index to reflect a drop in retail egg prices because wholesale egg prices dropped significantly in March. University of Arkansas agricultural economist Jada Thompson said the wholesale prices did not start dropping until mid-March, so there may not have been enough time for the average price for the month to decline even though prices started to fall at the end of the month. And grocery stores may not have immediately passed on the lower prices.

The bird flu effect

 

Bird flu outbreaks were cited as the major cause of price spikes in January and February after more than 30 million egg-laying chickens were killed to prevent the spread of the disease. Only 2.1 million birds were slaughtered in March and none of them were on egg farms.

Egg prices hit $5.90 in February one month after setting a record at $4.95 per dozen, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The farms that had fall outbreaks have been working to resume egg production after sanitizing their barns and raising new flocks, but chickens must be about six months old before they start laying eggs. Thompson said those farms did not come back online as quickly as anticipated.

In the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture numbers, there were only about 285 million hens laying eggs nationwide as of March 1, down from 293 million the previous month. Before the outbreak, the flock typically numbered more than 315 million.

Since the current bird flu outbreak began, more than 168 million birds have been slaughtered, most of them egg-laying chickens. Any time a bird gets sick, the entire flock is killed to help keep bird flu from spreading. That can have an effect on the egg supply because massive egg farms may have millions of birds.

 

The disease is difficult to control because it is spread easily through the droppings of wild birds that carry the avian flu virus. Bird flu has also inflected other animals, including dairy cattle and several dozen farm workers but officials maintain it is not a significant threat to humans.

Egg price politics

Trump tried to take credit for the lower wholesale egg prices the USDA reported in recent weeks.

“The egg prices they were going through the sky. And you did a fantastic job,” Trump said to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins before he announced the details of his tariffs at the White House last week. ”Now we have lots of eggs and they are much cheaper now.”

But experts say the president’s plan to fight bird flu by focusing on strengthening egg farmers’ defenses against the virus is likely to be more of a long-term help.

 

“I think there are lots of people who are looking to see the egg prices coming down because they wanted to call it a win. And I think it’s a loss for everybody. I think we all want to see egg prices come down,” Thompson said.

Trump and Vice President JD Vance both trumpeted the overall decline in inflation last month before most of Trump's tariffs took effect, but they did not directly address egg prices.

Rollins on Thursday suggested the rise in egg prices is temporary. She pointed to the overall consumer price index showing a slight dip in prices for goods and services across the U.S. economy in March and suggested egg prices will soon follow.

“We’re also moving into the Super Bowl of eggs, which is Easter,” Rollins said. “So from the beginning, I’ve said this is sort of the high price for retail for eggs, but we feel very confident that will continue to come back down.”

Earlier this week, Trump said the annual White House egg roll would use real eggs again this year despite the high prices. Egg farmers typically donate more than 30,000 eggs for the event

 

Egg prices around the country

U.S. egg prices did began falling in mid-March, according to Datasembly, a market research company that tracks prices at thousands of stores. Datasembly said eggs averaged $5.98 per dozen the week beginning March 16 and dropped to $5.51 the week beginning March 30.

But prices vary widely around the country, depending on the location of recent bird flu outbreaks and some state laws requiring eggs to be cage-free. At a Walmart in Richmond, California, a dozen eggs were $6.34 on Thursday. In Omaha, Nebraska, Walmart was selling eggs for $4.97 per dozen. California requires eggs sold to be cage-free; Nebraska doesn't.

Egg prices are still expected to decline further later this spring, but the latest numbers could also increase scrutiny of Cal-Maine Foods, which provides 20% of the nation’s eggs, and other large egg producers.

Earlier this week, Cal-Maine acknowledged it is being investigated by the antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice, which is looking into egg price increases. Cal-Maine said it is cooperating with the investigation.

In its most recent quarter, which ended March 1, Cal-Maine said its net income more than tripled to $508.5 million compared to the same period a year ago. The company said its revenue nearly doubled to $1.42 billion, largely because of higher egg prices.

Faking it

The price of real eggs has some consumers turning to fake ones for Easter crafts this year. Craft retailer Michaels said its craft egg kit, which features a dozen plastic eggs for $2.49, is a top seller and has sold three times faster than the company expected.

Trump’s dream of bringing manufacturing jobs back is missing a few things By Jessica Calarco, sociologist

 

Many Trump supporters are celebrating his new tariffs on the hope that they’ll make America great again by bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. “For four years, Americans couldn’t afford groceries, let alone a house,” Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner wrote on X last Wednesday, “This Liberation Day, @POTUS is bringing manufacturing and jobs back. President Trump is making the American Dream achievable again!” That same day, Republican Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana said in a CNN interview that, “The decision by President Trump today to impose reciprocal tariffs will be so good for Indiana.” Banks went on to talk about his father’s job at plant making axles for cars, saying, “Those are the manufacturing jobs that President Trump is bringing back from overseas.”  

The problem is: those who credit manufacturing jobs for a glorious past America mistake correlation for causation. They think their parents and grandparents had the “good life” because of jobs in manufacturing. In reality, their parents and grandparents had that life because of unions, pensions, high marginal tax rates, and strong social policies — with a little post-War exceptionalism and a lot of racism and sexism thrown in.

 he decades following World War II represented the heyday of domestic manufacturing in the U.S., with more than a quarter of all U.S. workers employed in the sector at the time. Those decades are also the ones that Americans associate with the “good life” — getting married, living in a “nice” house in a “nice” neighborhood, raising kids on one breadwinner’s income, taking slideshow-worthy summer vacations, and retiring comfortably at age 65, all without going to college, let alone taking on mountains of debt in student loans.

 

Today, many Americans perceive that lifestyle as harder to access than it used to be, and they often assume that they can’t have it because of declines in domestic manufacturing. Yet, even in manufacturing’s heyday, that “good life” wasn’t open to just anyone, wasn’t good for everyone and wasn’t actually the product of factory jobs.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, for example, Black men and white men in the U.S. were employed in manufacturing at roughly similar rates. Yet, the average white man working the industry was paid substantially more than his Black counterpart — a difference of more than $10,000 a year in today’s dollars. On top of those wage differences, Black families also faced further discrimination in access to education, low-cost mortgages, and rapidly growing suburban neighborhoods.

 

Meanwhile, the women who had stepped in to staff the factories during World War II were pushed out of manufacturing jobs and often out of the workforce entirely. Policymakers and union leaders told women it was their womanly purpose and patriotic duty to either go back to the home front or fill the jobs that men didn’t want. Even Woodie Guthrie, in the last verse of “Union Maid,” sang, “You gals who want to be free, just take a tip from me // Get you a man who’s a union man // And join the ladies’ auxiliary. // Married life ain’t hard when you’ve got a union card // A union man has a happy life // When he’s got a union wife.”  That lack of competition from women made it easier for men — especially U.S.-born white men — to negotiate for a family wage. That family wage offered women — especially U.S.-born white women — a path out of precarity, but it also incentivized them to accept roles where they were economically dependent on and socially subservient to men.  

Even with the reduced competition, though, the negotiation of a living wage was only possible thanks to the power that trade unions wielded at the time. In the decades after World War II, roughly one in three U.S. workers were union members, compared to only about one in ten today. Unions helped increase manufacturing wages and reduce wage gaps between front-line workers, managers, and CEOs. They also helped create and maintain other employment protections, like 40-hour workweeks, health insurance, and defined-benefit pensions that guaranteed a steady income even after workers retired.

 

As unions fought to protect workers from falling at the bottom, policymakers also moved to prevent runaway wealth at the top. At the federal level, the highest marginal tax rate increased rapidly after World War II, peaked at 92% in 1953, and remained above 70% until the early 1980s, after which it fell dramatically to just 37% today.

Those high taxes helped subsidize the “good life” for American families (especially white families) who couldn’t have afforded that life on their own. That money fueled innovations that increased lifespans and standards of those lives (including by allowing Americans to buy cheap goods produced in countries with laxer labor protections). That money also expanded access to education, making it possible for the children of factory workers to go to college and avoid the physical pain that their fathers suffered from manufacturing work.

 

Billionaire Trump backer warns of 'economic nuclear winter' over tariffs by James FitzGerald

 

A billionaire backer of Donald Trump has urged the US president to pause his recently announced trade tariffs, or risk "a self-induced, economic nuclear winter".

Amid market turmoil, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said the president should take three months to allow countries to renegotiate their trading relationships with the US.

On Monday, Mr Ackman's warning was echoed by another prominent Wall Street figure, with JPMorgan Chase chairman Jamie Dimon saying that Trump's tariffs risked pushing up prices for Americans.

Despite the shockwaves, the American president has defended his new import taxes, saying "sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something".

 

He says the move will boost his country with new jobs and investment, but economists warn that prices could rise for Americans and spark a trade war.

Share prices in Europe and Asia continued to plummet on Monday, as markets react to the sweeping, global tariffs announced by Trump last week.

In his post on X on Sunday, Mr Ackman acknowledged the Trump argument that the global trade system had "disadvantaged" the US.

But, he wrote, tariffs that Trump had imposed were "massive and disproportionate", and did not distinguish between American friends and enemies.

Mr Ackman, the billionaire founder of Pershing Square hedge fund management company, became a high-profile supporter of Trump, a Republican, in July 2024.

He had previously backed the rival Democratic Party, and his intervention was seen as an important electoral endorsement from the world of business.

 

Numerous countries have vowed to respond, and China has already retaliated with new tariffs of its own on goods imported from the US.

Trump had launched an "economic war against the whole world at once" that risked shattering investor confidence in the US, Mr Ackman commented.

Mr Ackman said the American leader now had "an opportunity to call a 90-day time out, negotiate and resolve unfair asymmetric tariff deals, and induce trillions of dollars of new investment in our country".

His post on Sunday indicated that he felt the ball was back in Trump's court - after an earlier message on X which urged leaders of other countries to "pick up the phone" to make a deal with Trump.

As stock markets around the world continue their slump on Monday, the head of banking giant JPMorgan Chase offered his own take, warning of "many uncertainties" around the new tariffs policy.

In a letter to shareholders, Mr Dimon said the tariffs will "likely increase inflation and are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession".

"The quicker this issue is resolved, the better because some of the negative effects increase cumulatively over time and would be hard to reverse," he wrote.

Trump's officials have downplayed the recession risk. The baseline 10% tariff is already in effect, with the higher rates faced by some countries due to come into effect on Wednesday.

Speaking aboard the presidential plane on a flight back to Washington DC on Sunday, Trump himself said European and Asian countries were "dying to make a deal".

 

Cost of US military offensive against Houthis nears $1 billion with limited impact byNatasha Bertrand, CNN

 

The total cost of the US military’s operation against the Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen is nearing $1 billion in just under three weeks, even as the attacks have had limited impact on destroying the terror group’s capabilities, three people briefed on the campaign’s progress told CNN.

The military offensive, which was launched on March 15, has already used hundreds of millions of dollars worth of munitions for strikes against the group, including JASSM long-range cruise missiles, JSOWs, which are GPS-guided glide bombs, and Tomahawk missiles, the sources said.

B-2 bombers out of Diego Garcia are also being used against the Houthis, and an additional aircraft carrier as well as several fighter squadrons and air defense systems will soon be moved into the Central Command region, defense officials said this week.

One of the sources said the Pentagon will likely need to request supplemental funding from Congress to continue the operation, but may not receive it — the offensive has already been criticized on both sides of the aisle, and even Vice President JD Vance said he thought the operation was “a mistake” in a Signal chat published by The Atlantic last week.

The Pentagon has not publicly disclosed what impact the daily US military strikes have actually had on the Houthis. Officials from the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, US Central Command, US Indo Pacific Command, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, and the State Department told Congress in recent days that the strikes have eliminated several members of Houthi leadership and destroyed some Houthi military sites.

But they acknowledged that the group has still been able to fortify their bunkers and maintain weapons stockpiles underground, much as they did during the strikes that the Biden administration carried out for over a year, the sources said. And it has been difficult to determine precisely how much the Houthis still have stockpiled, a defense official said.

“They’ve taken out some sites, but that hasn’t affected the Houthis’ ability to continue shooting at ships in the Red Sea or shooting down US drones,” said one of the sources briefed on the operation. “Meanwhile, we are burning through readiness—munitions, fuel, deployment time.”

The New York Times first reported details of the military operation shared in briefings with Congress.

The operational tempo of the strikes is also higher now that CENTCOM Commander Erik Kurilla no longer needs higher-level approval to conduct strikes—a shift from the Biden administration and a return to the policies of Trump’s first term, when military commanders were given more freedom to carry out missions in order to achieve “a strategic effect” as opposed to needing case-by-case approval from the White House for each strike and raid.

It’s still not clear, though, how long the Trump administration plans to continue the offensive, which CENTCOM has described as a “24/7” operation. Trump has said it will last until the Houthis stop attacking Red Sea shipping, but despite weeks of bombing the Houthis have continued launching missiles and drones at targets in and over the Red Sea. Earlier this week, they shot down another US MQ-9 Reaper drone—the second MQ9 shot down since the offensive began last month, multiple sources told CNN.

Another defense official noted, however, that ballistic missile attacks from the Houthis against Israel have decreased in the last week, and said the relentless US bombing campaign has made it more difficult for the Houthis to communicate and hit things accurately because they’ve been forced to “keep their heads down.”

The people briefed on the operation also all described the Houthi officials who have been killed in the US strikes as mid-level, akin to “middle management.” One exception is the Houthi official in charge of the group’s drone operations, who was killed in a strike last month, officials said.

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz referenced that Houthi leader in the Signal chat in March that was disclosed by The Atlantic. Waltz said in that chat that the Houthis’ “top missile guy” was killed when he walked into his girlfriend’s building in Yemen which “collapsed” amid US strikes.

Two of the sources briefed on the ongoing operation said that comment is indicative of how the US military under Trump is taking a more “expansive” approach to the strikes than the Biden administration did, in terms of being less concerned about collateral damage. The Houthis have long used more populated areas to conceal command and control sites, the sources said.

But one of the defense officials said the building was not a civilian apartment building, but rather a meeting place for Houthi officials, and that the US military is using precision munitions and taking other measures to mitigate the risk of civilian casualties.

The large-scale operation has also rattled some officials at US Indo-Pacific Command, who have complained in recent days and weeks about the large number of long-range weapons being expended by CENTCOM against the Houthis, particularly the JASSMs and Tomahawks, the sources said. Those weapons would be critical in the event of a war with China, and military planners at INDOPACOM are concerned that the CENTCOM operation could have a negative impact on US military readiness in the Pacific.

One of the defense officials also downplayed that concern, calling it “an exaggeration.”

“We employ precision munitions in every strike. We retain authority to use the full capacity of our deployed forces in the Middle East region against the Houthis,” the official said. “We have no concern about employment of long-range weapons when and if needed to maximize our effectiveness. 

 

'Nowhere's safe': How an island of penguins ended up on Trump tariff list by Ottilie Mitchell and Tiffanie Turnbull

 

Two tiny, remote Antarctic outposts populated by penguins and seals are among the obscure places targeted by the Trump administration's new tariffs.

Heard and McDonald Islands - a territory which sits 4,000km (2,485 miles) south-west of Australia - are only accessible via a seven-day boat trip from Perth, and haven't been visited by humans in almost a decade.

Australian trade minister Don Farrell told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that the tariffs were "clearly a mistake".

"Poor old penguins, I don't know what they did to Trump, but, look, I think it's an indication, to be honest with you, that this was a rushed process."

 

President Trump on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping import tax scheme, in retaliation for what he said are unfair trade barriers on US products.

A handful of other Australian territories were also hit by the new tariffs, in addition to the Norwegian archipelago Svalbard, the Falkland Islands and The British Indian Ocean Territory.

"It just shows and exemplifies the fact that nowhere on Earth is safe from this," Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday.

Like the rest of Australia, the Heard and McDonald Islands, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island are now subject to a tariff of 10%. A tariff of 29% was imposed on Norfolk Island, which is also an Australian territory and has a population of about 2,200 people.

Heard Island, though, is barren, icy and completely uninhabited - home to Australia's largest and only active volcano, Big Ben, and mostly covered by glaciers.

It is believed the last time people ventured on to Heard Island was in 2016, when a group of amateur radio enthusiasts broadcast from there with permission of the Australian government.

 

Mike Coffin, from the University of Tasmania, has made the journey to the surrounding waters seven times to conduct scientific research, and is sceptical about the existence of major exports from the island to the US.

"There's nothing there," he told the BBC.

As far as he knows, there are only two Australian companies which catch and export Patagonian toothfish and mackerel icefish.

What is in abundance, however, is unique and spectacular nature.

 

The islands are listed by Unesco World Heritage as a rare example of an ecosystem untouched by external plants, animals or human impact.

"It's heavily colonised by penguins and elephant seals and all kinds of sea birds," said Prof Coffin, who studies the undersea geography of the islands.

He recalls observing from afar what he thought was a beach, only the sands "turned out to be probably a few 100,000 penguins".

"Every time a ship goes there and observes it, there's lava flowing down the flanks [of Big Ben]," he said, describing it sweeping over ice and sending up steam.

 

It is hard to get a clear picture of the trade relationship between the Heard and McDonald Islands and the US.

According to export data from the World Bank, the islands have, over the past few years, usually exported a small amount of products to the US.

But in 2022 the US imported US$1.4m (A$2.23m; ) from the territory, nearly all of it unnamed "machinery and electrical" products.

The Guardian has also reported that an analysis of US import data and shipping records suggests that tariffs imposed on the Heard and McDonalds Islands, as well as Norfolk Island, are based on incorrect data.

It found shipments had been wrongly labelled as coming from the territories, rather than their actual places of origin.

The US Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration and Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been contacted for comment.

As with many governments around the world, the tariffs have frustrated Australia's leaders, with Albanese saying they are "totally unwarranted" and "not the act of a friend."

Entire staff at federal agency that funds libraries and museums put on leave by Andrew Limbong

 

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has placed its entire staff on administrative leave.

The IMLS is a relatively small federal agency, with around 70 employees, that awards grant funding to museums and libraries across the United States.

This month, President Trump named Keith E. Sonderling — the deputy secretary of labor — the new acting director of IMLS. This followed Trump's previous executive order shrinking seven federal agencies, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

According to a statement from AFGE Local 3403, which represents IMLS workers, the agency's staff was notified by email about being placed on paid administrative leave for up to 90 days, after a "brief meeting between DOGE staff and IMLS leadership." Employees had to turn in government property, and email accounts were disabled.

 

What is the IMLS?

The IMLS is an independent federal agency that provides grants to libraries and museums across the country. According to the American Library Association, the IMLS provides "the majority of federal library funds." The IMLS says it awarded $266 million in grants and research funding to cultural institutions last year. This money goes to help staff, fund maintenance and create new programs. In comparison, the projected 2025 budget for the National Endowment for the Arts was $210 million.

For instance, in 2023 the IMLS funded projects such as a workforce training program, including internships, at the Museum of Discovery and Science in Florida, a pilot program in Iowa to help library staff address patrons' psychological needs and basic library functions (books, computers, internet) for various Native American tribes. You can find programs that the IMLS has funded to libraries and museums in your state through its dashboard.

According to the advocacy group EveryLibrary, public libraries are primarily funded by city and county taxes. And federal funds account for a much smaller portion of a library's budget. However, the group issued a statement following Trump's executive order, saying that "without this core federal funding for state libraries, museums, and archives, we risk losing critical programs and services in every state."

 

According to AFGE Local 3403, the status of grants that were previously awarded is unclear. And, the union statement said, without staff to administer the programs, it's likely most grants will be terminated.

Steve Potash is the CEO of OverDrive, which distributes digital products such as audiobooks, e-books and movies to libraries. He said in an interview that small and rural libraries will be most affected by cuts to federal funding.

"When a public library which has growing demand for their online and digital materials is getting any kind of budget cuts, hard decisions have to be made," said Potash.