Author: potus

A federal judge in Boston on Monday continued his pause of the Trump administration’s unprecedented plan to get millions of federal workers to resign until he responds “to the issues presented.”U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. had temporarily halted the administration’s plan to offer mass buyouts to millions of federal workers on Thursday, just hours before a deadline to accept the offer. After a hearing Monday, he said the pause would continue until he rules on a preliminary injunction.Elena Goldstein, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said, “We ask for more weeks … while this court considers the merits.”Goldstein added,…

President Donald Trump on Monday imposed 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports to the United States.“This is a big deal,” Trump said while signing the proclamations in the Oval Office. “The beginning of making America rich again.”The proclamations impose a 25% tariff on steel imports on all countries, and raise his 2018 aluminum tariffs from 10% to 25%, without exceptions or exemptions.The tariffs come just a week after Trump promised to suspend tariffs on Canada and Mexico. They echo steel and aluminum tariffs Trump imposed during his first administration, though at that point those were imposed explicitly on…

Hamas said Monday it was suspending the upcoming hostage release in the Gaza Strip, blaming Israel for not following the terms of a ceasefire agreement that paused the 15-month war in the Palestinian enclave.Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, cited alleged Israeli violations of the deal over the past three weeks, including delaying the return of displaced people to northern Gaza, not allowing aid to enter the enclave, and shelling and gunfire in various areas of the strip.As a result, the handover of hostages scheduled for Saturday “will be postponed until further notice” and until Israel “commits to and compensates for…

President Trump said on Monday that he could cut aid to Jordan and Egypt if they refused his demand to permanently take in most Palestinians from Gaza, substantially increasing the pressure on key allies in the region to back his audacious proposal to relocate the entire population of the territory in order to redevelop it.“If they don’t agree, I would conceivably withhold aid,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office a day ahead of a meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan.Both Jordan and Egypt have rejected any suggestion that Palestinians be relocated to their countries.Mr. Trump doubled down…

WASHINGTON — The GOP-controlled Senate on Monday voted to advance the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence, putting her on a path to be confirmed this week.The party-line vote was 52-46, with all Republicans present voting in favor of Gabbard. Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and John Fetterman, D-Pa., did not vote. Last week, Gabbard’s nomination as the nation’s top-ranking intelligence official squeaked through the Senate Intelligence Committee on a party-line 9-8 vote.“The intelligence community needs to refocus on its core mission, collecting intelligence and providing unbiased analysis of that information,” Senate Majority Leader John…

The Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau risk leaving Americans’ nearly $18 trillion in consumer debt with less supervision or regulation.One CFPB staffer said Monday that every meeting and work item on their calendar, including reviewing investigative actions, had been deleted.“I think at some point, the machinery is going to start to jam up,” said the employee, who asked to speak anonymously out of fear of reprisal. “What is industry going to do on its own?”As of Monday evening, the CFPB’s homepage said “404: Page not found,” though other parts of the site appeared to be…

Bound. Starved. Wounded. Tortured. These are the conditions that some hostages being held in Gaza still face, according to information their families said they had received from Israeli military and security officials after Hamas released three captives on Saturday as part of a cease-fire agreement.The emaciated appearance of three hostages released in a ceremony in Gaza staged by Hamas last weekend — Eli Sharabi, 52; Or Levy, 34; and Ohad Ben-Ami, 56 — and the details of their captivity have relatives of the remaining captives sounding the alarm about the urgent need for the continuation of the phased cease-fire deal.…

Two flights carrying Venezuelan migrants from the United States back to Venezuela will arrive late Monday in the capital, Caracas, the country’s communication’s ministry said.The flights are a major victory for the Trump administration, which made a campaign promise to deport millions of undocumented migrants. To accomplish this goal, President Trump needs Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s autocratic president who has found himself increasingly isolated by world leaders, to agree to accept some of those people. Two planes owned by the Venezuelan airline Conviasa left Fort Bliss in Texas, where migrants subject to deportation are being held, at around 10:45 a.m. They…

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro sued the Trump administration on Thursday over its broad freeze of federal funding, saying in a lawsuit that the effort has “jeopardized at least $5.5 billion that has been committed to Pennsylvania” in federally appropriated money.In the lawsuit, the Shapiro administration said Trump is in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and conducting “an unconstitutional withholding of funds.” The law allows judges to throw out federal agency actions that are “arbitrary and capricious” on various grounds and has commonly been cited in lawsuits targeting elements of Trump’s efforts to rapidly remake the government.Follow live politics coverage“Neither…

A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected the Trump administration’s bid to pause a lower court’s order that temporarily halted a massive freeze in federal funding.A judge in Rhode Island on Monday blocked the funding freeze and ordered the government to “immediately restore frozen funding.”In its ruling Tuesday, a three-judge panel for the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that the “defendants do not cite any authority in support of their administrative stay request or identify any harm related to a specific funding action or actions that they will face without their requested administrative stay.”The Justice Department had sought…