Page 5 - Trump Govt

Judge blocks labour dept from enforcing key part of Trump's anti-DEI orders

A federal judge on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the U.S. Department of Labor from requiring government contractors and grant recipients to certify they do not operate any diversity, equity and inclusion programs that run afoul of anti-discrimination laws until further order from the court. Judge Matthew Kennelly of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois issued the ruling in response to a lawsuit filed by Chicago Women in Trades, a nonprofit dedicated to training and retaining women in skilled construction trades that receives several grants from the Department of Labor. The certification provision is a key part of President Donald Trump's executive orders aimed at curbing DEI programs because contractors and grant recipients could be subjected to crippling financial penalties under the False Claims Act if they are found in violation of it. The lawsuit filed by Chicago Women in Trades argued that Trump's executive orders infringe on Fir

Federal judge allows Trump to proceed with immigrant registry rule

Judge Trevor N. McFadden of the US District Court for the District of Columbia found plaintiffs had failed to establish likelihood of standing to challenge the registry rule

Trump's pick to oversee state department personnel meets resistance

The appointment of a junior foreign service officer to serve as the senior official in the State Department's personnel office is facing opposition and concern from current and former US diplomats and their union. The American Foreign Service Association, which represents U.S. diplomats, the American Academy of Diplomacy and numerous current foreign service officers expressed concern Monday about last week's appointment, which comes amid heightened anxiety over potential widespread firings of career personnel as the Trump administration slashes federal jobs. Both organizations said the appointment of Lew Olowski, who joined the foreign service in 2021, to temporarily run the State Department's Bureau of Global Talent is an affront to the long-held standard that the post be occupied by either a current senior or retired career diplomat. The appointment of Olowski, a lawyer, has raised eyebrows among current diplomats because of his numerous pro-Trump and anti-immigrant writings in ..

Trump cuts spark deportation fears among foreign journalists in US media

After hiding in Thailand for seven years, two Cambodian journalists arrived in the United States last year on work visas, aiming to keep providing people in their Southeast Asian homeland with objective, factual news through Radio Free Asia. But Vuthy Tha and Hour Hum now say their jobs and legal status in the US are at risk after President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order gutting the government-run US Agency for Global Media. The agency funds Radio Free Asia and other outlets tasked with delivering uncensored information to parts of the world under authoritarian rule and often without a free press of their own. It fell out of sky, Vuthy, a single father of two small children, said through a translator about the Trump administration's decision, which he says threatens to upend his life. I am very regretful that our listeners cannot receive the accurate news, Hour said, also through a translator. Both men said they're worried about providing for their families and bei

Political costs of courting Trump piling up for Italian PM Giorgia Meloni

The Italian prime minister was the only European leader to attend Trump's January inauguration

US judge temporarily blocks parts of Trump's anti-DEI executive orders

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the US Department of Labour from implementing parts of President Donald Trump's executive orders aimed at curbing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts among federal contractors and grant recipients. Judge Matthew Kennelly of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois halted the Labor Department from requiring federal contractors or grant recipients from certifying that they don't operate any programmes in violation of Trump's anti-DEI executive orders. That certification provision has stepped up pressure on companies and other organisations to revisit their DEI practices because if the government were to determine they violated the provision, they would be subject to crippling financial penalties under the False Claims Act. Thursday's ruling is in response to a lawsuit filed by Chicago Women in Trades, a nonprofit founded in 1981 that helps prepare women for work in skilled construction trades and has several contracts with

Donald Trump directs Smithsonian sites to scrub content on race, gender

Trump in his second term has targeted diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the government and private sector, as well as at cultural institutions

Trump's portrait to be removed from Colorado Capitol after distorted claim

A portrait of Donald hanging at the Colorado state Capitol will be taken down after the US president claimed it was "purposefully distorted", state officials said on Monday. House Democrats said in a statement that the oil painting would be taken down at the request of Republican leaders in the Legislature. If the GOP wants to spend time and money on which portrait of Trump hangs in the Capitol, that's up to them, the Democrats said. The portrait was painted by artist Sarah Boardman during Trump's first term and unveiled in 2019. Colorado Republicans raised more than USD 10,000 through a GoFundMe account to commission the oil painting. In a Sunday night post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he would prefer no picture at all over the one that hangs in the Colorado Capitol. The Republican lauded a nearby portrait of former president Barack Obama -- also by Boardman -- saying he looks wonderful". The portraits are under the purview of the Colorado Building Advisory ...

US Senate confirms Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Trump's labour secretary

The Senate voted Monday to confirm Lori Chavez-DeRemer as U.S. labor secretary, a Cabinet position that puts her in charge of enforcing federally mandated worker rights and protections at a time when the White House is trying to eliminate thousands of government employees. Chavez-DeRemer will oversee the Department of Labor, one of several executive departments named in lawsuits challenging the authority of billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to order layoffs and access sensitive government data. The Labor Department had nearly 16,000 full-time employees and a proposed budget of $13.9 billion for fiscal year 2025. Some of its vast responsibilities include reporting the U.S. unemployment rate, regulating workplace health and safety standards, investigating minimum wage, child labor and overtime pay disputes, and applying laws on union organizing and unlawful terminations. Several prominent labor unions, including the International Brotherhood of Teamster

What makes Greenland strategic prize at time of rising global tensions

When US President Donald Trump first suggested buying Greenland in 2019, people thought it was just a joke. No one is laughing now. Trump's interest in Greenland, restated vigorously soon after he returned to the White House in January, comes as part of an aggressively America First foreign policy platform that includes demands for Ukraine to hand over mineral rights in exchange for continued military aid, threats to take control of the Panama Canal, and suggestions that Canada should become the 51st US state. Why Greenland? Increasing international tensions, global warming and the changing world economy have put Greenland at the heart of the debate over global trade and security, and Trump wants to make sure that the US controls this mineral-rich country that guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America. Who does Greenland belong to? Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, a long-time US ally that has rejected Trump's overtures. Denmark has also ..

Scholars stranded in US, abroad amid funding freeze of govt dept programmes

Aubrey Lay a Fulbright scholar was supposed to get paid for three months of work by the U.S. government through his teaching assistantship at a school for Ukrainian refugees in Estonia. Instead, he only got about one week's pay, and no word on when he might see the rest of his grant. Lay is among scholars around the world who depend on State Department funding to participate in long-established programs like Fulbright and who say their payments have been abruptly cut off after getting a notice that officials were reviewing their activities. The move appears to be in line with the White House's initiative to sharply slash government spending - a shakeup that has affected scores of federal agencies. The government is facing even more dramatic changes in the coming weeks and months. President Donald Trump has directed agencies to prepare plans for widespread layoffs, known as reductions in force, that will likely require more limited operations at agencies that provide critical ...

Judge orders Trump govt to pay nearly $2 bn in USAID, state dept debts

A federal judge on Thursday gave the Trump administration until Monday to pay nearly $2 billion in debts to partners of the US Agency for International Development and the State Department, thawing the administration's six-week funding freeze on all foreign assistance. US District Judge Amir Ali ruled in favour of nonprofit groups and businesses that sued over the funding freeze, which has forced organisations around the world to slash services and lay off thousands of workers. Ali issued his order a day after a divided Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's bid to freeze funding that flowed through USAID. The high court instructed Ali to clarify what the government must do to comply with his earlier order requiring the quick release of funds for work that had already been done.

US House Republicans move to punish Al Green for disrupting Trump speech

A heated night on Capitol Hill has triggered a rare disciplinary move against Texas Democrat Al Green after the Congressman was removed from the House chamber for disrupting President Donald Trump during his address to Congress. Republican Representative Daniel Newhouse on Wednesday formally introduced a censure resolution against Green, who was removed by the House Sergeant at Arms after standing up and shouting during the opening minutes of Trump's speech to Congress on Tuesday. Speaking on the House floor, Newhouse, a Washington state Republican, said he was seeking punishment against Green a formal condemnation once considered rare in the House chamber for his numerous interruptions of the president's speech. The clash erupted on Tuesday night when Trump declared his 2024 election victory a mandate. Green shot up from his seat, shouting: You have no mandate! Wielding his cane, Green defied warnings from House Speaker Mike Johnson, prompting the Sergeant at Arms to remove him

Fired veterans feel betrayed, including some who voted for Donald Trump

Nathan Hooven is a disabled Air Force veteran who voted for Donald Trump in November. Barely three months later, he's now unemployed and says he feels betrayed by the president's dramatic downsizing of the federal government that cost him his job. I think a lot of other veterans voted the same way, and we have been betrayed, said Hooven, who was fired in February from a Virginia medical facility for veterans. I feel like my life and the lives of so many like me, so many that have sacrificed so much for this country, are being destroyed. The mass firing of federal employees since Trump took office in January is pushing out veterans who make up 30 per cent of the nation's federal workforce. The exact number of veterans who have lost their job is unknown, although House Democrats last month estimated that it was potentially in the thousands. More could be on the way. The Department of Veterans Affairs a major employer of veterans is planning a reorganisation that includes cutting ove

Trump admin deletes list of federal buildings targeted for potential sale

The Trump administration on Tuesday published a list of more than 440 federal properties it had identified to close or sell, including the FBI headquarters and the main Department of Justice building, after deeming them not core to government operations." Hours later, however, the administration issued a revised list with only 320 entries none in Washington, DC And by Wednesday morning, the list was gone entirely. Non-core property list (Coming soon) the page read. The General Services Administration, which published the lists, did not immediately respond to questions about the changes or why the properties that had been listed had been removed. The initial list had included some of the country's most recognisable buildings, along with courthouses, offices and even parking garage and spanned nearly every state. In Washington, DC, it included the J. Edgar Hoover Building, which serves as FBI headquarters, the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building, the Old Post Office ...

Greenland PM rejects Trump's bid, says 'island isn't for sale, it is ours'

Greenland's prime minister has a message for President Donald Trump: Greenland is ours. Mte Bourup Egede made the statement on Facebook Wednesday, just hours after Trump declared in his speech to a joint session of Congress that he intends to gain control of Greenland one way or the other. Kalaallit Nunaat is ours, Egede said in the post, using the Greenlandic name for his country. We don't want to be Americans, nor Danes; We are Kalaallit. The Americans and their leader must understand that. We are not for sale and cannot simply be taken. Our future will be decided by us in Greenland, he said. The post ended with a clenched fist emoji and a Greenlandic flag. On the streets of Nuuk, Greenland's capital, where the temperature was 4 degrees blow zero (minus 20 Celsius) at midday Wednesday and the bright sunshine reflected blindingly off a layer of fresh-fallen snow, people are taking Trump's designs on their country seriously. Since taking office six weeks ago, Trump has repeatedly

Demonstrators across 50 states unify against Trump and his sweeping agenda

As Donald Trump prepared Tuesday to address a joint session of Congress, protest groups gathered at parks, statehouses and other public grounds across the country to assail his presidency as dangerous and un-American. The rallies and marches set in motion by the fledgling 50501 Movement, a volunteer-driven group organised in the weeks after Trump's inauguration mark the latest attempt at national resistance to the hardened support of Trump's Make America Great Again base and the success it has had in reshaping the Republican Party in the president's populist image. Yet some early scenes Tuesday vividly demonstrated the difficulty Democrats, progressives and everyday citizens face in marshalling a tangible response to Trump and the swift, sweeping actions of his second administration. Protesters have so many things to push back against from tariffs to Trump's reset on the war in Ukraine to the aggressive and sometimes legally dubious actions of the Department of Government ...

FBI New York chief James Dennehy retires after being ordered to step down

The head of the FBI's New York field office who was reported to have resisted Justice Department efforts to scrutinise agents who participated in politically sensitive investigations has told coworkers that he has retired from the bureau after being directed to do so. James Dennehy said in a message on Monday to colleagues obtained by The Associated Press that he was told late Friday to put in his retirement papers but was not given a reason. The move comes in a period of upheaval at the bureau as new FBI Director Kash Patel took office last month and as conservative podcast host and Trump loyalist Dan Bongino has been named to serve as deputy director. The bureau also remains in turmoil over a highly unusual demand by the Justice Department for the FBI to turn over a list of the thousands of agents who participated in investigations related to the Jan 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol. The January directive was seen by some in the bureau as a possible precursor to mass ...

Trump's next first speech to Congress will differ sharply from his last one

The nation will hear a new president sing a far different tune in his prime-time address before Congress on Tuesday night. Some Americans will lustily sing along. Others will plug their ears. The old tune is out the one where a president declares we strongly support NATO, I believe strongly in free trade and Washington must do more to promote clean air, clean water, women's health and civil rights. That was Donald Trump in 2017. That was back when gestures of bipartisanship and appeals to national unity were still in the mix on the night the president comes before Congress to hold forth on the state of the union. Trump, then new at the job, was just getting his footing in the halls of power and not ready to stomp on everything. It would be three more years before Americans would see Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, then the House speaker and his State of the Union host in the chamber, performatively rip up a copy of Trump's speech in disgust over its contents. On Tues

Trump sows confusion over Canada, Mexico, floats 25% duty on EU goods

Trump has targeted early April for imposing reciprocal tariffs matching import duty rates of other countries and offseting their other restrictions