Page 11 - Us Government

US govt's new policy terminates legal status of international students

The US government has begun shedding new light on a crackdown on international students, spelling out how it targeted thousands of people and laying out the grounds for terminating their legal status. The new details emerged in lawsuits filed by some of the students who suddenly had their status cancelled in recent weeks with little explanation. In the past month, foreign students around the US have been rattled to learn their records had been removed from a student database maintained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some went into hiding for fear of being picked up by immigration authorities or abandoned their studies to return home. On Friday, after mounting court challenges, federal officials said the government was restoring international students' legal status while it developed a framework to guide future terminations. In a court filing Monday, it shared the new policy: a document issued over the weekend with guidance on a range of reasons students' status can be ...

As Elon Musk gained power in Washington, his popularity fell, shows poll

Elon Musk spent years building cachet as a business titan and tech visionary, brushing aside critics and sceptics to become the richest person on the planet. But as Musk gained power in Washington in recent months, his popularity has waned, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research. Just 33 per cent of US adults have a favourable view of Musk, the chain-saw-wielding, late-night-posting, campaign-hat-wearing public face of President Donald Trump's efforts to downsize and overhaul the federal government. That share is down from 41 per cent in December. It was a shame that he crashed and burned his reputation, said Ernest Pereira, 27, a Democrat who works as a lab technician in North Carolina. He bought into his own hype. The poll found that about two-thirds of adults believe Musk has held too much influence over the federal government during the past few months although that influence may be coming to an end. The billionaire entrepreneur i

100 days of DOGE: Deep cuts spark chaos and delays across US agencies

Nearly 100 days into what Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk have called a mission to make the federal bureaucracy more efficient

Trump admin begins State Department overhaul to cut redundancy: Rubio

Work that fell to the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Human Rights, and Democracy will now be placed under a new Coordinator for Foreign Assistance and Humanitarian Affairs

Google to face US govt in court over search monopoly breakup attempt

Google will confront an existential threat Monday as the US government tries to break up the company as punishment for turning its revolutionary search engine into a ruthless monopoly. The drama will unfold in a Washington courtroom during the next three weeks during hearings that will determine how the company should be penalised for operating an illegal monopoly in search. The proceedings, known in legal parlance as a remedy hearing, feature a parade of witnesses that includes Google CEO Sundar Pichai. The US Department of Justice is asking a federal judge to order a radical shake-up that would ban Google from striking the multibillion dollar deals with Apple and other tech companies that shield its search engine from competition, share its repository of valuable user data with rivals and force a sale of its popular Chrome browser. The moment of reckoning comes four-and-half-years after the Justice Department filed a landmark lawsuit alleging Google's search engine had been abusi

Trump draft order proposes radical reshaping of US State Department

Some employees writing on a foreign service-dedicated Reddit page also expressed doubt about how such an order could be implemented

White House proposes significant cuts to State dept, UN, Nato funding

The White House's Office of Management and Budget has proposed gutting the State Department's budget by almost 50 per cent, closing a number of overseas diplomatic missions, slashing the number of diplomatic staff, and eliminating funding for nearly all international organizations, including the United Nations, many of its agencies and for NATO headquarters, officials said. The proposal, which was presented to the State Department last week and is still in a highly preliminary phase, is not expected to pass muster with either the department's leadership or Congress, which will ultimately be asked to vote on the entire federal budget in the coming months. Officials familiar with the proposal say it must still go through several rounds of review before it even gets to lawmakers, who in the past have amended and even rejected White House budget requests. Though the proposal is preliminary, it gives an indication of the Trump administration's priorities and coincides with massive job and

International students challenge widespread US visa revocations in court

Several international students who have had their visas revoked in recent weeks have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, arguing the government denied them due process when it suddenly took away their permission to be in the US. The actions by the federal government to terminate students' legal status have left hundreds of scholars at risk of detention and deportation. Their schools range from private universities like Harvard and Stanford to large public institutions like the University of Maryland and Ohio State University to some small liberal arts colleges. In lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security, students have argued the government lacked justification to cancel their visa or terminate their legal status. Why is the government canceling international students' visas? Visas can be canceled for a number of reasons, but colleges say some students are being singled out over infractions as minor as traffic violations, including some long in the past. In

Wisconsin teen killed parents to fund plot to assassinate Trump, FBI says

Nikita Casap is currently in the Waukesha County jail on a $1 million bond and is expected in court next month to enter a plea

Trump's registration rules not to impact H-1B holders, but rise in concern

The move is part of US President Donald Trump's attempt to crack down on illegal immigration and deport millions living illegally

Pressed for evidence, US cites power to deport Mahmoud Khalil for beliefs

Facing a deadline from an immigration judge to turn over evidence for its attempted deportation of Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, the federal government has instead submitted a brief memo, signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, citing the Trump administration's authority to expel noncitizens whose presence in the country damages US foreign policy interests. The two-page memo, which was obtained by The Associated Press, does not allege any criminal conduct by Khalil, a legal permanent US resident and graduate student who served as spokesperson for campus activists last year during large demonstrations against Israel's treatment of Palestinians and the war in Gaza. Rather, Rubio wrote Khalil could be expelled for his beliefs. He said that while Khalil's activities were otherwise lawful, letting him remain in the country would undermine US policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from ..

Defence chiefs from 30 nations to attend Nato talks on future Ukraine force

Britain and France are convening a meeting of defence ministers from around 30 countries on Thursday to press ahead with plans to deploy troops to Ukraine to police any future peace agreement with Russia. The meeting at NATO headquarters the first between defence ministers representing the so-called coalition of the willing comes after a visit to Kyiv last week by senior British and French military officers. It's expected to work on fleshing out an agreement reached at an earlier meeting between leaders. As usual with coalition gatherings, the United States will not take part, but the success of the coalition's operation hinges on US backup with airpower or other military assistance. However, the Trump administration has made no public commitment that it will do so. Amid that uncertainty and US warnings that Europe must take care of its own security and that of Ukraine in future, the force is seen as a first test of the continent's willingness to defend itself and its interests.

Trump's new energy order puts states' climate laws in crosshairs of DOJ

A new executive order from President Donald Trump that's part of his effort to invigorate energy production raises the possibility that his Department of Justice will go to court against state climate change laws aimed at slashing planet-warming greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuels. Trump's order, signed Tuesday, comes as US electricity demand ramps up to meet the growth of artificial intelligence and cloud computing applications, as well as federal efforts to expand high-tech manufacturing. It also coincides with climate superfund legislation gaining traction in various states. Trump has declared a national energy emergency " and ordered his attorney general to take action against states that may be illegally overreaching their authority in how they regulate energy development. American energy dominance is threatened when State and local governments seek to regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authorities, Trump said in the order. He said the attorney ..

US Senate confirms former Arkansas Guv Mike Huckabee as Israel ambassador

The Baptist minister expressed his gratitude to President Trump, saying, "I am Grateful to a great Donald Trump and look forward to serving!"

Trump targets 'Anonymous' author, ex-cyber chief in retribution move

US President Donald Trump intensified his efforts to punish his critics on Wednesday by signing a pair of memoranda directing the Justice Department to investigate two officials from his first administration and stripping them of any security clearances they may have. Trump's targeting of Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security official in Trump's first term, and Chris Krebs, a former top cybersecurity official, came as the president has sought to use the powers of the presidency to retaliate against his adversaries, including law firms. Trump also on Wednesday retaliated against another law firm, Susman Godfrey, as he seeks to punish firms that have links to prosecutors who have investigated him or employed attorneys he sees as opponents. Although Trump has ordered security clearances to be stripped from a number of his opponents, including former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris, the president's order Wednesday directing the Justice ...

Beijing increases diplomatic pressure on Africa as US influence wanes

Chinese diplomats threatened to cancel a summit and called top officials in two African countries to pressure lawmakers to quit an international parliamentary group critical of China, officials from the group told The Associated Press. It's an example of how far China will go to influence politicians overseas, and how that pressure can succeed behind closed doors. In the past year, lawmakers from Malawi and Gambia withdrew from the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, or IPAC, a group of hundreds of lawmakers from 38 countries concerned about how democracies approach Beijing, according to letters, messages and voice recordings obtained by The Associated Press. Founded in 2020, the group has coordinated sanctions on China over rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong and rallied support for Taiwan, a self-ruled democratic island Beijing claims as its territory. African politicians and experts say it's an escalation of Chinese diplomatic pressure in Africa, where Beijing's influence

At least 6 people killed by suspected US strikes in Yemen: Houthi rebels

Suspected US airstrikes pounded the area around Yemen's Red Sea port city of Hodeida on Tuesday night, killing at least six people, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels said. The strikes hit around Hodeida's al-Hawak district, the rebels said, and wounded 16 people. The area is home to the city's airport, which the rebels have used in the past to target shipping in the Red Sea. Since its start, the intense campaign of US airstrikes targeting the rebels over their attacks on shipping in Mideast waters related to the Israel-Hamas war has killed at least 79 people, according to casualty figures released by the Houthis. Footage aired by the rebels' al-Masirah satellite news channel showed chaotic scenes of people carrying wounded to waiting ambulances and rescuers searching by the light of their mobile phones. The target appeared in the footage to be a home in a residential neighborhood, likely part of a wider decapitation campaign launched by the Trump administration to kill rebel ...

AP journalists cleared to return to White House after court ruling

A federal judge ordered the White House on Tuesday to restore The Associated Press' full access to cover presidential events, ruling on a case that touched at the heart of the First Amendment and affirming that the government cannot punish the news organisation for the content of its speech. US District Judge Trevor N McFadden, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled that the government can't retaliate against the AP's decision not to follow Trump's executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico. The decision handed the AP a major victory at a time the White House has been challenging the press on several levels. "Under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewher it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints," McFadden wrote. "The Constitution requires no less." It was unclear whether the White House would move immediately to put McFadden's ruling into effect.

Billionaires Ackman, Druckenmiller call Trump tariffs a 'mistake'

The widening criticism - including from Trump ally Ackman - came as Trump offered no indication he was prepared to claw back a punishing trade overhaul set to begin on April 9

Trump admin rolls back forest protections in bid to ramp up logging

President Donald Trump's administration acted to roll back environmental safeguards around future logging projects on more than half of US national forests under an emergency designation announced Friday that cites dangers from wildfires. Whether the move will boost lumber supplies as Trump envisioned in an executive order last month remains to be seen. Former President Joe Biden's administration also sought more logging in public forests to combat fires, which are worsening as the world gets hotter, yet U.S. Forest Service timber sales stayed relatively flat under his tenure. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins did not mention climate change in Friday's directive, which called on her staff to speed up environmental reviews. It exempts affected forests from an objection process that allows outside groups, tribes and local governments to challenge logging proposals at the administrative level before they are finalized. It also narrows the number of alternatives federal officials can