Reuters United States Domestic News Summary
Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.
US to use AI to withdraw visas of trainees it views as Hamas fans, Axios reports
The U.S. State Department will utilize expert system to withdraw visas of who it views as fans of Palestinian Hamas militants, Axios reported on Thursday, pointing out senior State Department officials. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January to combat antisemitism and has pledged to deport non-citizen college trainees and others who took part in pro-Palestinian protests that have been continuous for months amidst Israel’s military attack on Gaza after Hamas’ October 2023 attack.
CIA fires an unspecified number of new officers
The Central Intelligence Agency fired a slew of recent hires today, three individuals acquainted with the matter stated, cuts that current and former U.S. intelligence officers cautioned would risk damaging U.S. nationwide security. The firings under U.S. President Donald Trump’s brand-new CIA director, John Ratcliffe, come as Trump commands huge federal workforce decreases supervised by billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Veterans, farm groups slam Trump cuts at Democrat-run Arizona city center
Arizona farm groups and veterans combined by Democratic chief law officers lashed out at U.S. President Donald Trump’s federal cuts, saying the president was disregarding judges who blocked his executive orders and harming former service members. They spoke at an in some cases raucous town hall on Wednesday night organized by the nation’s 23 Democratic lawyers basic, who have submitted suits to ask judges to block a string of Trump executive orders, including his suspension of trillions of dollars in federal grants, loans and financial backing.
‘We remain in a dark area,’ US judge says on increasing hazards
Threats versus U.S. judges are increasing and attorneys must do more to press back against heated rhetoric, four federal judges said in a panel discussion on Thursday. Speaking at an American Bar Association conference on clerical criminal offense in Miami, U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware of Las Vegas federal court said risks against the judiciary had actually increased “tremendously.”
Trump’s FDA candidate tepidly backs function for vaccine consultants in protected Senate appearance
Martin Makary, President Donald Trump’s candidate to run the U.S. FDA, informed legislators on Thursday he would assemble a committee of vaccine consultants however said he would reassess which scientific issues need their input. It was one of several concerns on which Makary, a Johns Hopkins doctor, kept his cards near to his chest while dealing with the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee for 2 hours.
Trump tells cabinet secretaries they, not Musk, are in charge of personnel cuts
U.S. President Donald Trump told his cabinet members on Thursday that they, not Elon Musk, have the last say on staffing and policy at their companies, according to a source acquainted with the matter. The billionaire Tesla CEO and his Department of Government Efficiency will play an advisory role only, Trump stated, according to the source. Musk remained in the room and told the cabinet he was excellent with Trump’s plan, the source said.
Promote irreversible US daylight conserving time frozen as Trump says Americans are divided
A three-year congressional effort to make daylight saving time irreversible in the United States appears to have actually stopped, with President Donald Trump saying on Thursday that Americans are evenly divided over the issue. Daylight conserving time – putting the clocks forward one hour throughout the summer season half of the year to maximize the longer evenings – has been in location in nearly all of the United States given that the 1960s, but advocates have actually pushed to make it year-round.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs faces new indictment, is implicated of ‘forced labor’
U.S. prosecutors on Thursday unveiled a new indictment versus Sean “Diddy” Combs, implicating the hip-hop magnate of forcing staff members to work long hours and threatening to penalize those who did not help in his two-decade sex trafficking plan. Combs, 55, still faces a scheduled May 5 trial in Manhattan on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transport to participate in prostitution. He has actually pleaded not guilty.
US federal workers countered at Trump mass firings with class action grievances
U.S. government employees who have been fired in the Trump administration’s purge of just recently employed workers are responding with class action-style problems claiming that the mass firings are illegal and tens of countless individuals should get their tasks back. Lawyers at 2 firms said on Thursday that they had submitted six appeals with the federal Merit Systems Protection Board given that recently and, in addition to other law companies, plan to produce 15 more on an agency-by-agency basis on behalf of big groups of employees who were fired in current weeks.
Trump administration need to make some foreign help payments by Monday, judge rules
The Trump administration must make some payments to foreign aid specialists and grant receivers by 6 p.m. (1100 GMT) on Monday, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed the administration’s request to prevent a due date for the payments. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali came at the end of a hearing in a claim by professionals and non-profit grant recipients challenging President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging freeze of U.S. foreign help, a day after the groups got a boost from the Supreme Court. It orders the federal government to pay invoices sent by the complainants in the event before February 13.