Page 15 - Us Government

Nearly 40% of contracts cancelled by DOGE expected to produce no savings

Nearly 40 per cent of the federal contracts that the Trump administration claims to have cancelled as part of its signature cost-cutting programme aren't expected to save the government any money, the administration's own data shows. The Department of Government Efficiency run by Elon Musk last week published an initial list of 1,125 contracts that it terminated in recent weeks across the federal government. Data published on DOGE's Wall of Receipts shows that more than one-third of the contract cancellations, 417 in all, are expected to yield no savings. That's usually because the total value of the contracts has already been fully obligated, which means the government has a legal requirement to spend the funds for the goods or services it purchased and in many cases has already done so. It's like confiscating used ammunition after it's been shot when there's nothing left in it. It doesn't accomplish any policy objective, said Charles Tiefer, a retired University of Baltimore law

Elon Musk renews firing threat after being obstructed by federal officials

The US agency that oversees federal employees said on Monday they could ignore a weekend email from Musk that required them to summarize their work or face losing their jobs

Federal employees across US return to offices amid threat from Elon Musk

Federal employees across the country, many of whom have worked from home since the COVID-19 pandemic, were back at agency offices Monday under President Donald Trump's return-to-office mandate. Billionaire Elon Musk, who is leading Trump's Department of Government Efficiency scouring government agencies for suspected waste, delivered a warning Monday to workers on his platform X. Starting this week, those who still fail to return to office will be placed on administrative leave, Musk wrote. Lee Zeldin, Trump's new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said Monday on X, formerly Twitter, Full-time, COVID-era remote work is DONE under @POTUS leadership. In a video he posted, Zeldin said average attendance at EPA headquarters on Mondays and Fridays last year was less than 9% of employees. Our spacious, beautiful EPA headquarters spans two city blocks in D.C. across five buildings, Zeldin said. But our hallways have been too vacant, desks empty and cubicles filled with

Trump admin defying order to pause freeze on foreign aid, says judge

The Trump administration has kept withholding foreign aid despite a court order and must at least temporarily restore the funding to programmes worldwide, a federal judge has said. Judge Amir H. Ali on Thursday declined a request by nonprofit groups doing business with the US Agency for International Development to find Trump administration officials in contempt of his order, however. The Washington, D.C., district court judge said administration officials had used his February 13 order to temporarily lift the freeze on foreign aid to instead "come up with a new, post-hoc rationalisation for the en masse suspension" of funding. Despite the judge's order to the contrary, USAID Deputy Secretary Pete Marocco, a Trump appointee, and other top officials had "continued their blanket suspension of funds", Ali said. The ruling comes in a lawsuit by the nonprofit groups challenging the Trump administration's month-old cutoff of foreign assistance through USAID and the State Department, whic

Nasa working to exempt probationary employees from government-wide layoffs

The expectation comes after Nasa employees had braced for news of job cuts on Tuesday, six people familiar with the matter said Wednesday

US agriculture dept tries to rehire fired workers tied to bird flu response

The Agriculture Department is scrambling to rehire several workers who were involved in the US government's response to the ongoing bird flu outbreak that has devastated egg and poultry farms over the past three years. The workers were among the thousands of federal employees eliminated on the recommendations of billionaire Elon Musk 's Department of Government Efficiency that is working to carry out Trump's promise to streamline and reshape the federal government. Republican Rep Don Bacon said the administration should be more careful in how it carries out the cuts. "While President Trump is fulfilling his promise to shed light on waste, fraud, and abuse in government, DOGE needs to measure twice and cut once. Downsizing decisions must be narrowly tailored to preserve critical missions," said Bacon, who represents a swing district in Nebraska. The bird flu outbreak has prompted the slaughter of roughly 160 million birds to help control the virus since the outbreak began in 2022. M

Elon Musk not a DOGE employee, cannot fire employees: White House

Since the start of Donald Trump's second term last month, Elon Musk-led DOGE has undertaken an aggressive effort to cut costs across federal agencies

Trump admin wants SC to permit firing of whistleblower agency head

The Trump administration wants the Supreme Court to permit the firing of the head of the federal agency dedicated to protecting whistleblowers, according to documents obtained on Sunday that would mark the first appeal to the justices since President Donald Trump took office. The emergency appeal is the start of what probably will be a steady stream from lawyers for the Republican president and his administration seeking to undo lower court rulings that have slowed his second term agenda. The Justice Department's filing obtained by AP asks the conservative-majority court to lift a judge's court order temporarily reinstating Hampton Dellinger as the leader of the Office of Special Counsel. Dellinger has argued that the law says he can only be dismissed for problems with the performance of his job, none of which were cited in the email dismissing him. The petition was filed hours after a divided appeals court panel refused to lift the order on procedural grounds. The case is not ...

DOGE nixes $21 million US grant to increase India's 'voter turnout'

The project in India was one of several across the world, including in Nepal and Bangladesh, funded by the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening

Thousands fired in US govt as Donald Trump, Musk purge federal employees

Trump and Tesla CEO Musk's overhaul of the federal government appeared to be widening as Musk aides arrived for the first time at the federal tax-collecting agency

Senators introduce bill to designate Denali as North America's tallest peak

Alaska's Republican US senators have introduced legislation seeking to designate North America's tallest peak as Denali weeks after President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for the name to revert to Mount McKinley. US Sen Lisa Murkowski, in a statement Thursday, said that in Alaska, the peak is Denali. Once you see it in person and take in the majesty of its size and breathe in its cold air, you can understand why the Koyukon Athabascans referred to it as The Great One.' This isn't a political issue - Alaskans from every walk of life have long been advocating for this mountain to be recognised by its true name, she said. The bill introduced by Murkowski is co-sponsored by Alaska Sen Dan Sullivan, whose wife is Athabascan. Trump on his first day in office last month signed an executive order to rename the iconic 20,310-foot (6,190-metre) mountain in Denali National Park and Preserve for McKinley, saying a 2015 decision by the Obama administration to recognise the pe

Donald Trump's birthright citizenship order piling up losses in court

Trump's order already had been blocked in parallel cases in Seattle, Maryland and New Hampshire, including by one judge who called the directive 'blatantly unconstitutional'

Brics is dead, says Trump as he threatens member nations with 100% tariff

Earlier in January, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Brics nations if they try to introduce alternative currency to the US Dollar

Trump wants denuclearisation talks with Russia, China to cut defence budget

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he wants to restart nuclear arms control talks with Russia and China and that eventually he hopes all three countries could agree to cut their massive defense budgets in half. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump lamented the hundreds of billions of dollars being invested in rebuilding the nation's nuclear deterrent and said he hopes to gain commitments from the US adversaries to cut their own spending. There's no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons, we already have so many, Trump said. You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they're building nuclear weapons. We're all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully much more productive," Trump said. While the US and Russia hold massive stockpiles of weapons since the Cold War, Trump predicted that China would catch up in their capability to exact

PM Narendra Modi meets Indian-origin entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy

PM Modi discusses innovation and biotechnology

'Remove roots of the weed': Elon Musk wants US govt to cut entire agencies

Elon Musk's DOGE aims to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, largely by eliminating agencies deemed inefficient or unnecessary

Trump may revive 1930 trade discrimination law for reciprocal US tariffs

Trump has said the new US tariff rates would take effect "almost immediately," and Section 338 of the Trade Act of 1930 would give him a quick path to imposing them

US CFPB likely terminates some probationary staff due to inefficiency

The removal is a possibility as White House asked agencies for lists of probationary employees and recommendations on whether they should stay- a move by administration to neutralize CFPB

White House plans to nominate new chiefs for bank, market regulators

White House intends to nominate Jonathan Gould as the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and Brian Quintenz as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Elon Musk, other Trump allies ratchet up a rhetoric against US judiciary

Musk took to his X social media platform to attack the judge who ordered US health agencies to temporarily restore websites they took offline in response to an executive order by Trump