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      Trump administration guts homeland security department’s civil rights office, according to report – live

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      The Trump administration has moved to fire almost all employees at the homeland security department’s civil rights office, the New York Times reports, in a move that will undermine its ability to provide oversight as he implements hardline immigration policies.Here’s more on the significance of the office’s closure, from the Times:
      The more than 100 staff members were told they would be put on leave and formally fired in May, according to five current and former government officials. Mr. Trump also closed the ombudsman for Citizenship and Immigration Services, another office responsible for scrutinizing the administration’s legal immigration policies.
      The moves were the latest attempt by Mr. Trump to root out civil rights divisions and oversight mechanisms across government agencies. But the shuttering of the Homeland Security Department’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties was particularly notable given the lack of transparency over the administration’s immigration crackdown.
      Mr. Trump has been determined in his second term to ensure that his administration is made of up of loyalists who will not try to block his agenda.
      Just this week, the Trump administration stonewalled a federal judge seeking information about the use of an 18th-century wartime law to deport immigrants with little to no due process to a prison in El Salvador.
      “It’s a demonstration of their total contempt for any checks on their power,” said Deborah Fleischaker, a former civil rights office worker and chief of staff of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Biden administration. She said the office “endeavored to make the D.H.S. mission work with respect for civil rights, civil liberties and privacy.”
      “This is a clear message that those things do not matter to this administration,” she added.
      Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, said the decision was meant to “streamline oversight to remove roadblocks to enforcement.”
      “These offices have obstructed immigration enforcement by adding bureaucratic hurdles and undermining D.H.S.’s mission,” Ms. McLaughlin said. “Rather than supporting law enforcement efforts, they often function as internal adversaries that slow down operations.”
      NYT: Does the $400m of federal cuts at Columbia have special signficance for Trump? The New York Times has highlighted a decades-old real estate dispute between Columbia University and Donald Trump, noting that dispute also hinged over $400m.Today, the newspaper reports:
      Some former university officials are quietly wondering whether the ultimately unsuccessful property transaction sowed the seeds of Mr. Trump’s current focus on Columbia. His administration has demanded that the university turn over vast control of its policies and even curricular decisions in its effort to quell antisemitism on campus. It has also canceled federal grants and contracts at Columbia — valued at $400 million.
      The New York Times reports that the Trump Organization and the White House declined to comment on the story.Why didn’t Columbia University file a lawsuit to fight back against Trump? Yesterday, the Chronicle of Higher Education asked why Columbia, one of the wealthiest private institutions in the US, had not filed a lawsuit to protect itself from the political demands Trump was making.Today, after Columbia announced it was giving into several of the president’s demand, an unnamed Columbia University administrator offered several reasons for Columbia’s choice not to battle Trump in court, including that school leaders had some agreement with what Trump wanted, the Wall Street Journal reports:
      A Columbia senior administrator said the school considered legal options to challenge the Trump team but ultimately determined the federal government has so many available levers to claw back money, it would be a difficult fight. Additionally the school believed there was considerable overlap between needed campus changes and Trump’s demands.
      How US news organizations are characterizing Columbia’s deal with Trump:Wall Street Journal: Columbia Yields to Trump in Battle Over Federal FundingNew York Post: Columbia caves to Trump’s demands after $400M threat over campus antisemitism, will institute mask ban and more oversightNew York Times: Columbia Makes Concessions to Trump Amid Bid to Reclaim Federal FundsAxios: Columbia complies with Trump demands to regain $400 million in fundingColumbia University has agreed to a series of changes demanded by the Trump Administration as a precondition for restoring $400m in federal funding the government pulled this month amid allegations that the school tolerated antisemitism on campus, Reuters reports. More reactions to this news shortly, but first, what Reuters is reporting:
      Columbia acquiesced to most of the administration’s demands in a memo that laid out measures including banning face masks on campus, empowering security officers to remove or arrest individuals, and taking control of the department that offers courses on the Middle East from its faculty.
      The Ivy League university’s response is being watched by other universities that the administration has sanctioned as it advances its policy objectives in areas ranging from campus protests to transgender sports and diversity initiatives.Among the most contentious of the nine demands, Columbia agreed to place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department under a new official, the memo said, taking control away from its faculty. The demand had raised alarm among professors at Columbia and elsewhere, who worried that permitting the federal government to dictate how a department is run would set a dangerous precedent.
      Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives last year criticized at least two professors of Palestinian descent working in the department for their comments about the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
      The school has also hired three dozen special officers who have the power to arrest people on campus and has revised its anti-discrimination policies, including its authority to sanction campus organizations, the memo said. The school also said it is searching for new faculty members to “ensure intellectual diversity.”
      A few more key details from today’s deportation flights hearingAs we noted earlier, judge James Boasberg spent some time in a hearing today criticizing the justice department’s conduct and rhetoric in the lawsuit over whether the Trump administration can use an 18th century wartime law to rapidly deport Venezuelans to El Salvador.But the judge also took issue with the substance of their legal argument. During Friday’s hearing, Boasberg also said the Trump administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan immigrants carries “incredibly troublesome” policy ramifications, the Associated Press reported. “Why was this law essentially signed in the dark and these people essentially rushed on to planes?” Boasberg asked. “It seems to be that you only do that if you know it’s a problem and you want to get them out of the country before lawsuits can be filed.”The judge pointed to the US supreme court’s finding that people imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay after the 11 September 2001, terrorist attacks were entitled to challenge whether they had any ties to al-Qaida.Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports that Lee Gelernt, the lawyer for the ACLU, also said at the hearing that some people on the deportation flights from the US to El Salvador were returned from El Salvador after the government refused to take them, raising more questions about the speed of the deportations.A federal judge and the Trump administration have been engaged in a very active stalemate all week over whether Trump’s justice department violated the judge’s order to turn around planes that were in the act of deporting people to El Salvador under a legally contentious “wartime” law.To put it more bluntly, the issue is whether the Trump administration has to listen to what judges tell them to do and what consequences the administration will face if they simply decide they don’t have to.Trump and many of his supporters have called for the judge’s impeachment over his insistence that the Trump administration is bound by court orders; John Roberts, the chief justice of US supreme court, made a rare public statement to say that what Republicans were doing was not proper behavior.Here’s the latest from the AP:
      A federal judge examining the Trump administration’s use of an 18th-century wartime law to deport Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador vowed Friday to “get to the bottom” of whether the government defied his order to turn the planes around.Chief Judge James Boasberg is trying to determine if the administration ignored his turnaround order last weekend when at least two planeloads of immigrants were still in flight.“I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order, who ordered this and what the consequences will be,” Boasberg said during a hearing Friday for a lawsuit challenging the deportations.Earlier Friday, the Justice Department informed the judge that top leaders in President Donald Trump’s administration are debating whether to invoke a “state secrets privilege” in response to the district judge’s questions about the deportation flights.The Republican administration has largely resisted the judge’s request, calling it an “unnecessary judicial fishing” expedition. Boasberg dismissed its response as “woefully insufficient,” increasing the possibility that he may hold administration officials in contempt of court.
      Denmark and Finland urge caution for US-bound transgender peopleDenmark and Finland have updated their US travel advice for transgender people, joining the handful of European countries that have sought to caution US-bound travelers in recent weeks as reports emerge of ordeals at the American border, my colleague Ashifa Kassam, our European affairs correspondent, reports.Denmark said this week it had begun advising transgender travelers to contact the US embassy in Copenhagen before departure to ensure there would be no issues with travel documents.“If your passport has the gender designation X or you have changed gender, it is recommended to contact the US embassy prior to travel for guidance on how to proceed,” the Danish travel advisory page now reads.Good news for white collar criminals? Hundreds resigning at Wall Street’s top regulatorWall Street’s top regulator is facing a staff exodus across key departments as hundreds have agreed to take resignation offers amid Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts to remake the US government, five people familiar with the matter told Reuters.Departures from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, including by senior staff and enforcement lawyers, could significantly hamper the watchdog’s efforts to police markets and protect investors, the sources said. The exits stem from Trump and Musk’s efforts to slash the federal workforce.Since the White House began offering voluntary departures across the civil service in January, more than 600 people have agreed to leave the SEC, said two sources with direct knowledge and two people briefed on the matter. Friday is the deadline for the SEC’s latest resignation incentive programs.US court will not pause ruling requiring Trump administration to reinstate 25,000 workersA US appeals court refused to pause a judge’s ruling requiring the administration of President Donald Trump to reinstate 25,000 workers at 18 federal agencies who lost their jobs as part of Trump’s purge of the federal workforce, Reuters reports.The 18 agencies involved in the case include the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services and the Treasury Department.Most agencies have said that they fired a few hundred probationary workers, but others terminated far more. The treasury department fired about 7,600 people, the Department of Agriculture about 5,700 and the Department of Health and Human Services more than 3,200, according to court filings.The Trump administration has moved to fire almost all employees at the homeland security department’s civil rights office, the New York Times reports, in a move that will undermine its ability to provide oversight as he implements hardline immigration policies.Here’s more on the significance of the office’s closure, from the Times:
      The more than 100 staff members were told they would be put on leave and formally fired in May, according to five current and former government officials. Mr. Trump also closed the ombudsman for Citizenship and Immigration Services, another office responsible for scrutinizing the administration’s legal immigration policies.
      The moves were the latest attempt by Mr. Trump to root out civil rights divisions and oversight mechanisms across government agencies. But the shuttering of the Homeland Security Department’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties was particularly notable given the lack of transparency over the administration’s immigration crackdown.
      Mr. Trump has been determined in his second term to ensure that his administration is made of up of loyalists who will not try to block his agenda.
      Just this week, the Trump administration stonewalled a federal judge seeking information about the use of an 18th-century wartime law to deport immigrants with little to no due process to a prison in El Salvador.
      “It’s a demonstration of their total contempt for any checks on their power,” said Deborah Fleischaker, a former civil rights office worker and chief of staff of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Biden administration. She said the office “endeavored to make the D.H.S. mission work with respect for civil rights, civil liberties and privacy.”
      “This is a clear message that those things do not matter to this administration,” she added.
      Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, said the decision was meant to “streamline oversight to remove roadblocks to enforcement.”
      “These offices have obstructed immigration enforcement by adding bureaucratic hurdles and undermining D.H.S.’s mission,” Ms. McLaughlin said. “Rather than supporting law enforcement efforts, they often function as internal adversaries that slow down operations.”
      Donald Trump’s purge of all DEI-related initiatives in the US government has had the knock-on effect of undercutting efforts to fight trafficking, the Guardian’s Katie McQue reports:The US government has ordered law enforcement agencies, the state department and some non-profit organizations working to combat sex trafficking to remove references to victims’ LGBTQ+ identities, race and immigration status from their communications and websites, a move experts warn will endanger vulnerable minors.Interviews with a prosecutor, government personnel, trafficking non-profit executives, as well as email correspondence reviewed by the Guardian show that agencies and organizations are complying with the orders to avoid losing federal funding. Experts in child safety say the policy is fostering a climate of fear, forcing organizations to acquiesce in order to retain crucial funding at the expense of helping victims.The directive stems from executive orders issued by Donald Trump targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and LGBTQ+ communities. Some non-profits receiving federal funding have been prohibited from using the terms “marginalized”, “vulnerable” and “immigrants” in correspondence from grant funders.Donald Trump signed the executive orders nixing DEI on 20 January, the day of the presidential inauguration. One order, titled “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing”, mandates the removal of policies, programs, and activities relating to “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility”. Another, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” instructs the removal of all “radical gender ideology guidance, communication, policies, and forms”.Politico reports that the federal judge weighing the legality of the Trump administration’s rapid deportation of suspected Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act is criticizing the justice department’s conduct in the case.Recent filings from the government have used “the kind of intemperate and disrespectful language I’m not used to hearing from the United States”, judge James Boasberg said at the hearing, which is ongoing.More about this ongoing legal battle, in which the Trump administration may have allowed planes carrying the migrants to proceed to El Salvador despite Boasberg’s order:We are now two months in to Donald Trump’s second term, but his predecessor Joe Biden reportedly continues to believe that he could still be in office right now, if only things had gone a little differently.“Biden has no pangs of regret, a person familiar with his private conversations said. He remains defiant and believes Trump’s victory shows the party did itself no favors by pushing him to drop out of the race, the source said,” NBC News reports today in a piece looking at Biden’s low-key life since exiting the White House on 20 January.It’s hard to prove a negative, but let’s briefly recount the facts of Biden’s botched re-election bid: his decision to embark on it in the first place, even though his approval ratings were poor, the months of campaigning that did little to change public opinion, his disastrous debate against Trump, the pressure campaign from his own allies that led him to quit and hand over to Kamala Harris, to no avail.Nonetheless, NBC reports that Joe and Jill Biden have offered their services to the Democratic party, should they need them:
      Former President Joe Biden has told some Democratic leaders he’ll raise funds, campaign and do anything else necessary for Democrats to recover lost ground as the Trump administration rolls back programs the party helped design, according to people close to him.
      Biden privately met last month with the new Democratic National Committee chairman, Ken Martin, and offered to help as the party struggles to regain its viability amid polling that shows its popularity has been sinking, the people said.
      So far, Biden’s overture seems to have fallen flat. Democrats find themselves adrift, casting about for a compelling messenger.
      Whoever that is, it’s not Biden, many party activists and donors contend. He’s tethered to the 2024 defeat and, at 82, is a symbol more of the party’s past than its future, they argue.
      “Who’s going to want Joe Biden back in the game?” said a major Biden supporter, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk candidly about him.
      White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino has tweeted out a better photo of the F-47 fighter jet, which Donald Trump announced in the Oval Office earlier today:As defense secretary Pete Hegseth was leaving the White House, he encountered reporters who wanted to know if the jet’s numerical designation – 47 – had anything to do with Trump, who is the 47th president. Hegseth did not respond.A Minnesota veteran who found work at the Veterans Benefits Administration after suffering two traumatic brain injuries on overseas deployments stood in front of hundreds of people and five Democratic state attorneys general on Thursday night and recalled the moment she learned she lost her job.“All I was given was a Post-it note,” Joy Marver said, inspiring gasps and boos from a raucous crowd. “The Post-it note contained just the HR email address and my supervisor’s phone number. This came from an external source. Doge terminated me. No one in my chain of command knew I was being terminated. No one knew. It took two weeks to get my termination email sent to me.”The firing was so demoralizing she said she considered driving her truck off a bridge but instead went into the VA for crisis care.“Don’t fuck with a veteran,” she concluded.For the full story, click here: More

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      Trump makes rare admission of Musk’s conflicts of interest after Pentagon visit

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      Donald Trump said on Friday that plans for possible war with China should not be shared with Elon Musk because of his business interests, a rare admission that the billionaire faces conflicts of interests in his role as a senior adviser to the US president.Trump rejected reports that Musk would be briefed on how the United States would fight a hypothetical war with China, saying: “Elon has businesses in China. And he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that.”The reference to Musk’s businesses – which include Tesla, an electric vehicle manufacturer trying to expand sales and production in China – is an unusual acknowledgment of concerns about Musk balancing his corporate and government responsibilities.Trump had previously brushed off questions about Musk’s potential conflicts of interest, simply saying that he would steer clear when necessary.The president said that Musk visited the Pentagon on Friday morning to discuss reducing costs, which he has been working on through the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge).The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said Musk was there “to talk about efficiencies, to talk about innovations”.Musk said while leaving the Pentagon that he was ready to do “anything that could be helpful”. He also refused to answer questions as to whether he received a classified briefing on China as part of the visit.As a key adviser to Trump and the head of Doge, Musk has exercised broad powers in the two months since Trump returned to the White House, conducting mass layoffs and slashing budgets across the federal government. But while the Pentagon was also in line to be a target for job cuts, Musk has yet to play any role there, including in defense intelligence and military operations.A senior defense official told reporters on Tuesday that roughly 50,000 to 60,000 civilian jobs would be cut in the defense department.Musk’s involvement in any US plans or dealings with China would raise not only security concerns but questions over a significant conflict of interest, as he has considerable economic interests in China as the owner of Tesla and SpaceX, which also has contracts with the US air force.In the early hours of Friday morning, Musk denied the reports that he would be briefed on war with China, calling it “pure propaganda” and threatening to find those who leaked the information.“I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information,” he wrote. “They will be found.”Musk repeated his demand for such prosecutions upon arrival at the Department of Defense on the outskirts of Washington DC on Friday morning. He left the Pentagon about 90 minutes after arriving.A Pentagon spokesperson, asked by email to explain the true purpose of Musk’s briefing given administration denials that it would involve putative war plans with China, referred the Guardian to a statement posted on social media by Hegseth.In a Friday meeting at the White House to announce new air force fighter planes, Trump and Hegseth both firmly rejected reports that Musk was shown any Pentagon plans regarding a potential conflict with China during his visit earlier that day.“They made that up because it’s a good story to make up. They’re very dishonest people,” Trump said about the New York Times reporting. “I called up Pete [Hegseth] and I said: ‘Is there any truth to that?’ Absolutely not, he’s there for Doge, not there for China. And if you ever mentioned China, I think he’d walk out of the room.”Hegseth echoed Trump’s notion that the visit was focused on discussing government efficiency initiatives and innovation opportunities, adding that there were “no Chinese war plans”.“We welcomed him today to the Pentagon to talk about [the ‘department of government efficiency’], to talk about efficiencies, to talk about innovations. It was a great informal conversation,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHegseth suggested the reporting was deliberately intended to “undermine whatever relationship the Pentagon has with” the Tesla CEO.However, some military experts have still expressed concern about Musk’s level of access to sensitive information.Wesley Clark, retired general and former Nato supreme commander, told CNN in an interview on Friday afternoon that the administration has been “cutting a lot of corners in a lot of areas”.“It’s no problem giving him a general impression, we do this for contractors, but the conflict of interest – I’m more interested in his interests abroad, he talks to Putin, he has business in China, he has other considerations and those can impact things,” Clark said.“I’m more worried about Elon Musk coming into the Pentagon and saying ‘I’m high tech and I have smart people in Silicon Valley and these generals do not know anything’. You have got to be really careful about jumping on the next shiny object.”According to a New York Times report, the meeting was set to take place not in Hegseth’s office, where informal meetings about innovation would normally take place, but in a secure conference room known as “the Tank”, which is typically used for higher-level meetings. Musk was to be briefed on a plan that contains 20 to 30 slides and details how the US military would fight a conflict with China.Officials who spoke anonymously with the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal offered up potential reasons why Musk was receiving the briefing. The Times suggested that Musk, in his Doge capacity, might be looking into trimming the Pentagon’s budget and would need to know what military assets the US would use in a potential conflict with China.One source told the Journal that Musk was receiving the briefing because he asked for one.Though Musk has a “top-secret” clearance within the federal government, lawyers at SpaceX advised him in December not to seek higher levels of security clearances, which would probably be denied due to his foreign ties and personal drug use.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Democrats’ US tour gathers support in fight against Trump: ‘Get angry, man’

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      A Minnesota veteran who found work at the Veterans Benefits Administration after suffering two traumatic brain injuries on overseas deployments stood in front of hundreds of people and five Democratic state attorneys general on Thursday night and recalled the moment she learned she lost her job.“All I was given was a Post-it note,” Joy Marver said, inspiring gasps and boos from a raucous crowd. “The Post-it note contained just the HR email address and my supervisor’s phone number. This came from an external source. Doge terminated me. No one in my chain of command knew I was being terminated. No one knew. It took two weeks to get my termination email sent to me.”The firing was so demoralizing she said she considered driving her truck off a bridge but instead went into the VA for crisis care.“Don’t fuck with a veteran,” she concluded.The story was one of many shared by former federal workers and others impacted by the Trump administration’s policies during a town hall in St Paul, Minnesota, on Thursday, part of a national tour that has offered an avenue for grievances against Donald Trump’s first two months, but also a way to gather evidence for ongoing lawsuits, totaling about 10 so far, that Democratic attorneys general have filed against the Trump administration.“Everybody’s putting in double duty. But the point is, we’re absolutely up to it. We got four and a half years of gas in our tanks, and we’re here to fight for the American people all the way through,” Ellison told reporters before the event began.The community impact hearings, as they’re calling them, kicked off in Arizona earlier this month and will continue in Oregon, Colorado, Vermont and New York, the attorneys general said. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Kris Mayes of Arizona, Letitia James of New York, Matthew Platkin of New Jersey and Kwame Raoul of Illinois attended the event in Minnesota on Thursday, where the crowd filled a high school auditorium and spilled into an overflow room.Attendees were given the opportunity to take the mic and share their stories.Another veteran who worked at the Veterans Benefit Administration was fired via email by Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”, she said. She was part of the probationary employee purge, and her supervisors didn’t know she was let go. She recalled that her boss’ response to her firing was: “WTF”.A probationary employee at an unnamed federal agency said she was also let go. She interviewed and did background checks for 11 months to secure her federal role. “Now we are forced to put our plans of starting a family, of owning a home on hold indefinitely, and I feel that this disruption of this dream will be felt for the rest of our lives,” she said.A former employee of 18F, the federal government’s digital services agency, said they were laid off in the middle of the night on a weekend. “I’m grieving. We didn’t deserve this,” they said. A former USAID worker said she watched as Doge moved through the agency, accessing files and threatening employees if they spoke up, before she was fired.After several probationary employees shared their stories, Arizona’s Mayes cut in to ask whether the Trump administration or their agencies had reached out to rehire them. The Democratic attorneys general secured a win in a lawsuit over these firings, and a judge ruled they needed to be reinstated. If that wasn’t happening, Mayes said, they needed to know.“We can bring a motion to enforce,” Ellison explained. “We can bring, perhaps, a motion for contempt. There’s a lot of things. But if we don’t know that, we certainly can’t do anything.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBefore the town hall began, the attorneys general said that they had secured temporary restraining orders halting or reversing Trump administration directives in nearly all of their cases so far. In several instances, they have had to file additional actions to get the administration to comply with the orders. In a case that ended a “pause” on federal grants, for example, the pause was ended – but some programs still were not restarted. James said they had to file a motion to enforce to get those programs running again.Trans people shared how the Trump administration’s disdain for their community was affecting them. A young trans athlete was kicked off her softball team, her mom shared. A trans veteran was worried about her access to life-saving healthcare. Doctors who treat trans youth said their patients are on edge.Immigrants and people from mixed-status families talked about the specter of deportation and how the threat loomed over their day to day. One woman said her mother’s partner was deported, as was her husband’s uncle. She worries daily whether her mom is next. “The Trump administration has impacted me deeply during these past two months alone, but more than ever, we have to come together organized because I’ll be damned if they keep hurting my family,” she said.Suzanne Kelly, the CEO of the Minnesota Council of Churches, said her organization, which helps resettle refugees, is losing $4m in federal funds that would go directly to their clients, an amount that can’t be replaced with local dollars. She has had to lay off 26 employees, most of whom are refugees or asylees themselves. Refugees they were expecting to help are now stranded overseas in refugee camps, she said. People already here will lose rental aid and other assistance.“Whatever your faith tradition, please pray with us for those individuals, and pray with us for this country. We’re better than this,” Kelly said.After two hours of testimony a Minnesota activist stood up and shared their vision of the way forward: “The first step of that call to action is just to get fucking angry, man.” More

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      Hawaii observatory to be evicted amid federal cuts as volcano shoots 700ft lava

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      As Hawaii’s most active volcano shot out fountains of lava on Thursday, some of them reaching as high as 700ft, scientists from the US Geological Survey have been posting regular updates on the scale and pace of the eruptions.But those same scientists, along with their volcano-monitoring equipment, may soon be evicted from their office because of Elon Musk’s federal government cost-cutting, the Honolulu Civil Beat reported.The Geological Survey office in Hilo, Hawaii, has appeared on an internal list of federal offices whose leases are due to be cancelled on 30 September, as part of an effort by Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” to terminate leases for hundreds of federal offices this year, the Associated Press reported.View image in fullscreen“It remains unclear exactly how that lease cancellation will affect the observatory’s research and public services,” the Honolulu Civil Beat reported.The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory did not immediately respond to requests for comment.A spokesperson for the US Geological Survey said in a statement that the process of “streamlining government operations” was “ongoing, and we will provide updates as more information becomes available”.“We are actively working with General Services Administration to ensure that every facility and asset is utilized effectively, and where necessary, identifying alternative solutions that strengthen our mission,” the spokesperson said.For the past hundred years, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory has been tasked with monitoring the islands’ geologic activity, for the purposes of both scientific research and public safety warnings. Today, according to the observatory’s website, a team of more than 30 people monitors data collected 24 hours a day in order to provide local residents updates on what’s currently happening, and what might be coming next.View image in fullscreenAs Kilauea began continuously releasing lava from its summit caldera inside Hawaii Volcanoes national park on Wednesday morning after a weeklong pause, the observatory’s scientists posted frequent updates, noting health hazards and that the molten rock was contained within the park and wasn’t threatening residential areas.The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory is one of five volcano observatories run by the US Geological Survey across the western US. The American Institute of Physicists, a non-profit that advocates for science and scientists, posted on its website that “one of the sites of the Alaska Volcano Observatory, which houses equipment to monitor possible eruptions”, was also slated for possible closure.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Judge blocks Elon Musk’s Doge from accessing social security records

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      A federal judge on Thursday blocked Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) from accessing social security records as part of its hunt under Donald Trump for fraud and waste, calling the effort a “fishing expedition”.Judge Ellen Hollander granted a temporary restraining order that prevents Social Security Administration (SSA) workers from allowing Doge to have access to records that contain personally identifiable information.Musk, the world’s richest man and a huge political backer of Trump, has been tasked by the US president with slashing costs and employees at the federal government: a mission that has caused chaos and disruption across the US amid mass firings and huge numbers of government projects and contracts being canceled.The Trump administration says Doge has a 10-person team of federal employees at the SSA, seven of whom have been granted read-only access to agency systems or personally identifiable information.The lawsuit challenging Doge’s access to sensitive records was brought in February by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Alliance for Retired Americans and the American Federation of Teachers.Attorneys for the government argued the Doge access did not deviate significantly from normal practices inside the agency, where employees are routinely allowed to search its databases. But attorneys for the plaintiffs called the access unprecedented.In her ruling Hollander also instructed Doge to “disgorge and delete” any non-anonymized data it has obtained from the SSA since Trump took office, and said the agency cannot install or access any software in social security systems.Social security payments are a lifeline for millions of elderly Americans across the country and any effort to cut back the system is widely seen as a political minefield. However, Musk has claimed the system – without providing much convincing evidence – is rife with fraud. More

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      Greenpeace says Dakota Access pipeline defamation verdict risks ‘destroying right to peaceful protest’ – live

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      Steven Donziger is perhaps the best-known member of the trial monitoring committee that has been in court throughout the Energy Transfer v Greenpeace case.Donziger is an environmental lawyer who won a multibillion-dollar judgment in Ecuador against Chevron over contamination in the Lago Agrio region, but ended up under house arrest for years, after the oil giant countersued him seeking $60bn in damages.Here, in a video released this week before the verdict, is how Donziger explains what is at stake in this legal effort to silence dissent he compares to the government’s arrest of Mahmoud Khalil:Here is some useful background on the lawsuit against Greenpeace, from an article published last month by our colleagues Nina Lakhani and Rachel Leingang.Energy Transfer Partners, a Dallas-based oil and gas company worth almost $70bn, had accused Greenpeace of defamation and orchestrating criminal behavior by protesters at the Dakota Access pipeline (Dapl).The anti-pipeline protests in 2016 and 2017 were organised by Standing Rock and other Sioux tribes and supported by more than 300 sovereign tribal nations, inspiring an international solidarity movement after Energy Transfer’s private security unleashed attack dogs and pepper spray against nonviolent protesters.Tens of thousands of people from across the country and world participated in the Dapl protests, and Greenpeace was among scores of non-profit groups that supported the Standing Rock tribe’s opposition to the pipeline.But Energy Transfer alleges in court filings that thousands of protestors were “incited” to come to North Dakota thanks to a “misinformation campaign” by Greenpeace.The lawsuit has been widely denounced as a classic strategic lawsuit against public participation (Slapp) – a form of civil litigation increasingly deployed by corporations, politicians and wealthy individuals to deliberately wear down and silence critics including journalists, activists and watchdog groups.For more, read the whole article, here:A team of 12 independent prominent civil rights attorneys and advocates who monitored the Greenpeace trial amid concerns about judicial bias and violations of due process released the following statement deploring the verdict:
      It is our collective assessment that the jury verdict against Greenpeace in North Dakota reflects a deeply flawed trial with multiple due process violations that denied Greenpeace the ability to present anything close to a full defense. Attorneys on our team monitored every minute of the proceedings and found multiple violations of due process that denied Greenpeace its right to a fair trial. The problems included a jury that was patently biased in favor of Energy Transfer, with many members working in the fossil fuel industry; a judge who lacked the requisite experience and legal knowledge to rule properly on the complex First Amendment and other evidentiary issues at the center of the case; and incendiary and prejudicial statements by lawyers for Energy Transfer that tried to criminalize Greenpeace and by extension the entire climate movement by attacking constitutionally-protected advocacy.
      Our fear that this was an illegitimate corporate-funded SLAPP harassment case was confirmed by our observations. We will be issuing a full report documenting these violations and larger flaws in the case in the coming weeks. While the trial court verdict is in, the case is far from over. Greenpeace has a right to appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court and ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court. Our committee will continue its work monitoring this critically important case that raises troubling concerns for all advocates in the country.
      The monitors who released the statement include: Marty Garbus, a trial attorney who has represented Nelson Mandela, Daniel Ellsberg, Cesar Chavez, and Vaclav Havel; Natali Segovia, director of Water Protector Legal Collective; Steven Donziger, an environmental and human rights advocate (and Guardian US columnist); Jeanne Mirer, president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers; Scott Wilson Badenoch, Jr., a fellow of the American Bar Foundation; Wade McMullen, a distinguished fellow of the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center.As our colleagues Rachel Leingang and Nina Lakhani report, a jury in North Dakota has decided that the environmental group Greenpeace must pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the pipeline company Energy Transfer and is liable over defamation and other claims over protests in the state nearly a decade ago.Greenpeace, which had denied the claims, said in a statement after the verdict that lawsuits like this were aimed at “destroying the right to peaceful protest”; constitutional rights experts had expressed fears that case could have a wider chilling effect on free speech.Here is the complete statement on the verdict from Deepa Padmanabha, senior legal advisor, Greenpeace USA, sent to the Guardian:
      What we saw over these three weeks was Energy Transfer’s blatant disregard for the voices of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. And while they also tried to distort the truth about Greenpeace’s role in the protests, we instead reaffirmed our unwavering commitment to non-violence in every action we take. After almost eight years, we were proud to share our story with the people of Mandan and beyond. To be clear, Greenpeace’s story is not the story of Standing Rock; that is not ours to tell, despite the allegations in the lawsuit. Our story is how an organization like Greenpeace USA can support critical fights to protect communities most impacted by the climate crisis, as well as continued attacks on Indigenous sovereignty. We should all be concerned about the future of the First Amendment, and lawsuits like this aimed at destroying our rights to peaceful protest and free speech. Greenpeace will continue to do its part to fight for the protection of these fundamental rights for everyone.
      Kristin Casper, the general counsel for Greenpeace International said:
      The fight against Big Oil isn’t over today, and we know that the truth and the law are on our side. Greenpeace International will continue to campaign for a green and peaceful future. Energy Transfer hasn’t heard the last of us in this fight. We’re just getting started with our anti-SLAPP lawsuit against Energy Transfer’s attacks on free speech and peaceful protest. We will see Energy Transfer in court this July in the Netherlands. We will not back down, we will not be silenced.
      Read Rachel and Nina’s detailed report on the verdict, and its implications here:A North Dakota jury has found Greenpeace liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to an energy company over protests against a pipeline being constructed in the state.The verdict stems from a lawsuit filed by Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, which sought $300m in damages from Greenpeace for defamation and orchestrating criminal behavior by protesters at the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 and 2017. Greenpeace has warned paying such a large judgment could bankrupt their US operation.Here’s more on the verdict:Last week, the Trump administration asked the supreme court to quickly overturn lower court rulings that blocked its attempt to curtail birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants.The Associated Press reports that the request may also offer the conservative-dominated bench the opportunity to cut down on the practice of a single judge halting a policy nationwide. But, for whatever reason, the justices do not seem interested in ruling quickly on the issue.Here’s more, from the AP:
      The Supreme Court seems to be in no hurry to address an issue that has irritated Republican and Democratic administrations alike: the ability of a single judge to block a nationwide policy.
      Federal judges responding to a flurry of lawsuits have stopped or slowed one Trump administration action after another, from efforts to restrict birthright citizenship to freezes on domestic and international spending.
      While several justices have expressed concern about the use of so-called nationwide, or universal, injunctions, the high court has sidestepped multiple requests to do something about them.
      The latest plea comes in the form of an emergency appeal the Justice Department filed with the court last week, seeking to narrow orders issued by judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington that prohibit the nationwide enforcement of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump to restrict birthright citizenship.
      The justices usually order the other side in an emergency appeal to respond in a few days or a week. But in this case, they have set a deadline of April 4, without offering any explanation.
      The Trump administration’s cancellation of an affordable repayment plan for student loans has prompted a lawsuit from the American Federal of Teachers, the Guardian’s Michael Sainato reports:A top teachers union has sued the US Department of Education after it stopped processing applications for affordable repayment plans of student loans last month and disabled the online application for the programs.The American Federation of Teachers, or AFT – one the country’s largest unions, representing 1.8 million workers – filed a lawsuit alleging the sweeping action violates federal law.The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington DC, seeks a court order to restore access to these programs.Another court order last month shut out borrowers of student loans from participating in four income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, which tie income to student loan payments, designed to keep payments affordable and avoid defaults on loans.“By effectively freezing the nation’s student loan system, the new administration seems intent on making life harder for working people, including for millions of borrowers who have taken on student debt so they can go to college,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT. “The former president tried to fix the system for 45 million Americans, but the new president is breaking it again.”The Democratic Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, is standing by his vote to fund the government, even as the calls for him to step aside grow.“I believe so strongly I did the right thing for all the flack I’m getting,” Schumer said in an interview on Morning Joe.He said he understood Democrats’ desire to stand up to Trump, but warned that forcing a shutdown was not the way to do it. “Let’s stand up to him smart. Let’s not give him the keys to the kingdom.”One major activist group, Indivisible, has already called on Schumer to resign as leader and constituents are raising the issue at town halls. According to Axios, at least two House Democrats responded yes when asked at a town hall whether Senate Democrats need new leadership.Schumer this weekend cancelled several stops on a tour for his forthcoming book, citing security concerns after progressive groups announced plans to protest the New York Democrat’s decision to lend his vote to a Republican funding bill.Schumer has argued that he does not support the bill, but feared a government shutdown at the exact moment Donald Trump and Elon Musk are trying to downsize the federal workforce would have been a far worse outcome.“If we shut down the government and they started doing all these bad things, in a month, those folks would be saying, hey, save Medicaid, save our rural hospitals, save this, save that, and we’ll say we can’t, there’s a government shutdown. And then they would come to us and say, so why’d you let it happen?” Schumer argued on Morning Joe. “I prevented that from happening, and I think my caucus, no matter which way they voted, understands that.The House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, has declined to say publicly whether he continues to support Schumer. On Tuesday the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi offered a sharp critique of Schumer’s strategy: “I myself don’t give away anything for nothing. I think that’s what happened the other day,” she said, according to Politico. Unlike Jeffries, Pelosi said she still has confidence in Schumer’s leadership.Officials at the US Federal Reserve cut their US economic growth forecasts and raised their projections for price growth as they kept interest rates on hold.“Uncertainty around the economic outlook has increased,” the central bank said in a statement, as Donald Trump’s bid to overhaul the global economy with sweeping tariffs sparks concern over inflation and growth.Policymakers at the Fed expect inflation to increase by an average rate of 2.7% this year, according to projections released on Wednesday, up from a previous estimate of 2.5%.They expect US gross domestic product (GDP) – a broad measure of economic health – to rise by 1.7% this year, down from an estimate of 2.1% in December. Officials also revised down their projections for GDP growth in 2026 and 2027, to 1.8%.Uncertainty is “unusually elevated”, the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, cautioned, as the Trump administration attempts to engineer radical economic change. Some of the increase in the Fed’s inflation expectations was “clearly” due to tariffs, he said. More

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      US Institute of Peace sues Trump administration to block Doge takeover

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      The US Institute of Peace and many of its board members have sued the Trump administration, seeking to prevent their removal and stop Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”, AKA Doge, from taking over and accessing the independent non-profit’s building and systems.The lawsuit filed late Tuesday in US district court in Washington describes the lengths that institute staff resorted to, including calling the police, in an effort to prevent Doge representatives and others working with the Republican administration from accessing the headquarters near the state department.An executive order last month from Donald Trump targeted the institute and three other agencies for large-scale reductions. The thinktank, which seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts, was created and funded by Congress in 1984. Board members are nominated by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate.Among the board members who filed suit is the former US ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, who was nominated to the ambassadorial role in Trump’s first term and continued to serve as ambassador under Joe Biden before being picked by Biden for the board.The lawsuit accuses the White House of illegal firings by email and said the remaining board members – the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth; the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; and the National Defense University president, Peter Garvin; – also ousted the institute’s president, George Moose.In his place, the three appointed Kenneth Jackson, an administrator with the US Agency for International Development, according to the lawsuit.In a response, government lawyers raised questions about who controlled the institute and whether the non-profit could sue the administration. It also referenced other recent court rulings about how much power the president has to remove the leaders of independent agencies.Doge staff tried multiple times to access the building Monday before successfully getting in, partly with police assistance.The institute’s staff had first called the police around 3pm Monday to report trespassing, according to the lawsuit. But the Metropolitan police department said in a statement that the institute’s acting president – seemingly a reference to Jackson – told them at around 4pm that he was being refused access to the building and there were “unauthorized individuals” inside.“Eventually, all the unauthorized individuals inside of the building complied with the acting USIP President’s request and left the building without further incident,” police said.The lawsuit says the institute’s lawyer told Doge representatives multiple times that the executive branch has no authority over the non-profit.A White House spokesperson, Anna Kelly, said: “Rogue bureaucrats will not be allowed to hold agencies hostage. The Trump administration will enforce the President’s executive authority and ensure his agencies remain accountable to the American people.”The legal action is the latest challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle US foreign assistance agencies, reduce the size of the federal government and exert control over entities created by Congress.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA federal judge ruled Tuesday that cuts to USAid likely violated the constitution, and blocked Doge staff from making further cuts.To the top Democrats on the foreign affairs committees in Congress – the New York representative Gregory Meeks and the New Hampshire senator Jeanne Shaheen – the “hostile takeover” of the institute was one more sign that Trump and Musk want “to recklessly dismantle historic US institutions piece by piece”.The leaders of two of the other agencies listed in Trump’s February executive order – the Inter-American Foundation, which invests in businesses in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the US African Development Foundation – also have sued the administration to undo or pause the removal of most of their staff and cancellation of most of their contracts.A federal judge ruled last week that it would be legal to remove most contracts and staff from the US-Africa agency, which invested millions of dollars in African small businesses.But the judge also ordered the government to prepare Doge staff to explain which steps they were taking to maintain the agency at “the minimum presence and function required by law”. More

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      Judge rules against Musk and Doge, finding USAid shutdown ‘likely violated’ constitution – US politics live

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      A federal judge has ordered Elon Musk and his “department of government efficiency” (Doge) to stop their dismantling of USAid, saying their move to rapidly shut down the agency tasked with managing foreign assistance was likely illegal.“The court finds that defendants actions taken to shut down USAid on an accelerated basis, including its apparent decision to permanently close USAid headquarters without the approval of a duly appointed USAid Officer, likely violated the United States constitution in multiple ways, and that these actions harmed not only Plaintiffs, but also the public interest, because they deprived the public’s elected representatives in Congress of their constitutional authority to decide whether, when, and how to close down an agency created by Congress,” wrote Maryland-based judge Theodore D. Chuang.He ordered Musk and Doge officials to halt any work meant to shut down USAid, reinstate email access for all USAid employees and contractors and not disclose any employees’ personal information publicly.He also said Musk and Doge have two weeks to either certify that USAid’s Washington DC headquarters has been reopened or have a top USAid official agree to close it down.The two Democratic commissioners at the US Federal Trade Commission, Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, both said on Tuesday that they were “illegally fired” by Donald Trump on Tuesday.Trump is already being sued for firing members of other independent regulatory agencies including the National Labor Relations Board.Bedoya posted a statement on X in which he said: “This is corruption plain and simple”.“The FTC is an independent agency founded 111 years ago to fight fraudsters and monopolists”, Bedoya wrote. “Now the president wants the FTC to be a lapdog for his golfing buddies”.Slaughter said in a statement to the American Prospect that Trump’s illegal action violated “the plain language of a statute and clear Supreme Court precedent”.As Deepak Gupta, former senior counsel at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, explained recently on Slate’s Amicus podcast, in the 1935 case Humphrey’s Executor v United States, the US supreme court upheld a law that permitted FTC commissioners to be fired only for good cause, such as neglecting their duties. That ruling shields a number of independent, bipartisan multi-member agencies from direct control by the White House.As Gupta noted, the idea that government needed independent agencies and people with experts to solve complex problems was introduced during the New Deal era, to replace what was known as “the spoils system”, in which the incoming president rewarded friends, campaign staffers and other supporters with appointments to federal government positions for which they had no qualifications or expertise.Ed Martin, the combative interim US attorney for the District of Columbia, and a 2020 election denier who helped lead the Stop the Steal movement, plans to use his office to investigate possible election law violations, according to an email seen by Bloomberg Law.Martin, who publicly called the 2020 “rigged” in 2021, said in the office-wide email that he had established a “Special Unit: Election Accountability,” or SUEA.The unit “has already begun one investigation and will continue to make sure that all the election laws of our nation are obeyed”, Martin wrote. “We have a special role at this important time.”David Becker, the director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, told Talking Points Memo that Martin “seems to be misunderstanding his jurisdiction and the federal laws around elections and voting, and without more information, it’s unclear what is being done here other than furthering conspiracy theories that he’s embraced in the past”.Martin is a veteran anti-abortion activist who has argued for a national ban without exceptions for rape or incest, falsely claimed that “no abortion is ever performed to save the life of the mother” and discussed the possibility of jailing doctors who perform abortions and women who get abortions.Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, has criticized the chief justice of the supreme court, John Roberts, for defending the federal judge who tried to block the government’s showy deportation of suspected Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador.After Donald Trump reacted to Judge James Boasberg’s ruling by calling for his impeachment, Roberts said in a statement: “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”Responding on X, the social network owned by Elon Musk, Lee wrote:
      Impeachment is a non-justiciable political question assigned by the Constitution to Congress—one of the two political branches of the U.S. government—and not to the courts
      Frankly, I’m surprised that Chief Justice Roberts is publicly opining on such matters
      Musk himself had posted a similar comment hours earlier. Lee, a former critic of Trump who had called on him to drop out of the 2016 campaign before becoming a public convert, also shared Musk’s comment and added, of the arch-conservative Roberts, “This isn’t the first time he’s treaded on legislative power”.Here is more from our colleagues Hugo Lowell and Joseph Gedeon on the Roberts intervention:Trump’s trade war has had an incredible impact on the popularity of Canada’s Liberal Party, as new polling suggests a stunning reversal of public opinion.For the first time, projection shows the Liberals with a 55% chance of a majority government, according to the closely watched website 338Canada, which tracks and aggregates national polls, converting those figures into projected election results. In January, these odds stood at less than 1%.The shifting polls reflect the outsized role played by a teetering and unpredictable US president, and it underscores the incentives for newly minted prime minister Mark Carney to call a snap election in the coming days.Read more about it here:Of all that Donald Trump has done since being sworn in on 20 January, there’s a good argument to be made that dismantling USAid was the most impactful, though not necessarily within the United States. The Guardian’s Katy Lay has a look at how the global fight against HIV has suffered from USAid’s stripping:This year the world should have been “talking about the virtual elimination of HIV” in the near future. “Within five years,” says Prof Sharon Lewin, a leading researcher in the field. “Now that’s all very uncertain.”Scientific advances had allowed doctors and campaigners to feel optimistic that the end of HIV as a public health threat was just around the corner.Then came the Trump administration’s abrupt cuts to US aid funding. Now the picture is one of a return to the drugs rationing of decades ago, and of rising infections and deaths.But experts are also talking about building a new approach that would make health services, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, less vulnerable to the whims of a foreign power.The US has cancelled 83% of its foreign aid contracts and dismantled USAid, the agency responsible for coordinating most of them.Many fell under the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) programme, which has been the backbone of global efforts to tackle HIV and Aids, investing more than $110bn (£85bn) since it was founded in 2003 and credited with saving 26 million lives and preventing millions more new infections. In some African countries it covered almost all HIV spending.Judge Theodore D Chuang’s ruling that the dismantling of USAid was likely unconstitutional landed just as top officials at the agency were planning for it to be completely shut down by the end of September, the Bulwark reports.Employees at USAid were informed that their jobs will likely be wrapped into other federal departments, while workers overseas will be sent back to the United States. Chuang’s ruling could disrupt these plans, though the Trump administration could also appeal it.Here’s more from the Bulwark of what was planned for USAid’s final months:
      Tim Meisburger, the head of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, recently briefed staff about plans and pegged a final day for the agency’s existence at September 30, 2025 (notably, when the just-struck government funding deal runs out). According to notes of the briefing, which were obtained by The Bulwark, Meisburger expected that the agency would have a new structure, new names for subsections, and that there would be a “minimal overseas footprint,” with the possibility to expand in the future. They’d be incorporated into the State Department and officials had to “mentally prepare” to go from being agency leaders to senior staffers.
      “Most of the madness is behind us,” Meisburger said, according to the notes. It was time to “make lemonade out of lemons.”
      But what if you can’t get the lemons home? That’s one of the problems USAID is currently confronting.
      Last week, Jason Gray, who was serving as acting administrator for USAID, sent an email to staffers outlining the process for overseas officials to use the agency portal to come back to the United States. According to one person familiar with those concerns, the American Foreign Service Association is seeking information about the use of the portal. As of now, some USAID employees stationed abroad face a Catch-22. Some fear that if they relocate voluntarily, they may not be eligible for all the reimbursements associated with relocation costs (such as the shipment of personal effects). Other overseas employees worry that if they don’t voluntarily return to the United States, they could be fired. But at least that would potentially make the government liable to cover more of the end-of-contract relocation costs (assuming the current administration doesn’t just choose to leave fired employees abroad).
      A federal judge has ordered Elon Musk and his “department of government efficiency” (Doge) to stop their dismantling of USAid, saying their move to rapidly shut down the agency tasked with managing foreign assistance was likely illegal.“The court finds that defendants actions taken to shut down USAid on an accelerated basis, including its apparent decision to permanently close USAid headquarters without the approval of a duly appointed USAid Officer, likely violated the United States constitution in multiple ways, and that these actions harmed not only Plaintiffs, but also the public interest, because they deprived the public’s elected representatives in Congress of their constitutional authority to decide whether, when, and how to close down an agency created by Congress,” wrote Maryland-based judge Theodore D. Chuang.He ordered Musk and Doge officials to halt any work meant to shut down USAid, reinstate email access for all USAid employees and contractors and not disclose any employees’ personal information publicly.He also said Musk and Doge have two weeks to either certify that USAid’s Washington DC headquarters has been reopened or have a top USAid official agree to close it down.Federal judge James Boasberg has given the Trump administration until noon tomorrow to provide answers to specific questions about three flights carrying suspected Venezuelan gang members that left the United States despite his order preventing their departure.Boasberg informed the justice department they have until 12pm ET tomorrow to answer the following questions:
      1) What time did the plane take off from U.S. soil and from where? 2) What time did it leave U.S. airspace? 3) What time did it land in which foreign country (including if it made more than one stop)? 4) What time were individuals subject solely to the Proclamation transferred out of U.S. custody? and 5) How many people were aboard solely on the basis of the Proclamation?
      The government, which has cited national security concerns in refusing to answer Boasberg’s questions, is allowed to reply under seal.The Pentagon said that fewer than 21,000 employees have accepted voluntary resignations after they announced plans to cut up to 60,000 civilian jobs, the Associated Press reports.The defense department announced last month that it would fire 5-8% of its civilian workforce, with layoffs of 5,400 probationary workers. The defense department is the largest government agency, with the Government Accountability Office finding in 2023 that it had more than 700,000 full-time civilian workers.A man accused of battling police with a baseball bat and shield during the January 6 riot at the US Capitol has announced a run for the US Senate in Florida.Jake Lang, a prominent January 6 defendant, has announced on social media that he is seeking the seat recently vacated by the current secretary of state Marco Rubio in 2026.“WE ARE TAKING OVER THE CAPITOL AGAIN,” Lang wrote in a post on X.Lang continued to be politically active during his time in the DC jail, reportedly attempting to organize a militia and creating fundraisers for the January 6 defendants.Lang did not stand trial for charges related to his role in the insurrection due to continuous delays. He was pardoned alongside about 1,600 others who participated in the Capitol attack when Donald Trump took office.Read more about it here:The Trump administration has moved to reinstate at least 24,500 recently fired probationary workers following a pair of orders from federal judges last week.The reinstatements were outlined in a filing by the Justice Department in federal court in Maryland on Monday.US District Judge James Bredar, an appointee of former President Obama, previously ordered the mass reinstatement of fired probationary workers at 18 federal agencies. He determined that the government’s claims that the terminations were because of performance issues “isn’t true”.The majority of the reinstated employees were placed on paid administrative leave, according to the Washington Post. According to the filings, some workers were fully reinstated with pay, and some were reinstated without pay if they had been on unpaid leave before their termination.Voters in Wisconsin are casting the first ballots in a pivotal state supreme court race that will decide whether liberal or conservative justices control the highest court in the state.The first day of early voting comes two weeks before the April 1 election between the Republican-supported Brad Schimel and Democratic-supported Susan Crawford.The race, which is in an important presidential battleground state, can be seen as a barometer of public opinion early in Trump’s presidency. The outcome will have far-reaching implications for a court that faces cases over abortion and reproductive rights, the strength of public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries.The White House said in a statement that Trump and Putin “spoke about the need for peace and a ceasefire in the Ukraine war” in a phone call that lasted over an hour.
      “Both leaders agreed this conflict needs to end with a lasting peace,” reads the statement. “The leaders agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, as well as technical negotiations on implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace.”
      Putin and Trump also discussed the Middle East, the “need to stop” the proliferation of strategic weapons, and Iran, according to the statement.The justice department told the judge considering the legality of deporting suspected Venezuelan gang members that they did not violate his order to stop the planes from departing, but refused to immediately offer more details of their itinerary.The filings came after judge James Boasberg yesterday gave the administration a deadline of today at noon to share details of how the three planes were allowed to fly to El Salvador even though he ordered that they not depart, and turn back if they were in the air.In response, Robert L. Cerna, an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) official based in Texas, said that two of the planes had already left US airspace by the time that Boasberg issued his order, while the third carried migrants who had been ordered deported through the typical legal process – not the Alien Enemies Act, which is at issue in the case Boasberg is considering.From Cerna’s filing:
      On March 15, 2025, after the Proclamation was publicly posted and took effect, three planes carrying aliens departed the United States for El Salvador International Airport (SAL). Two of those planes departed U.S. territory and airspace before 7:25 PM EDT. The third plane departed after that time, but all individuals on that third plane had Title 8 final removal orders and thus were not removed solely on the basis of the Proclamation at issue. To avoid any doubt, no one on any flight departing the United States after 7:25 PM EDT on March 15, 2025, was removed solely on the basis of the Proclamation at issue.
      Separately, attorney general Pam Bondi and other top justice department officials signed a notice to Boasberg in response to his demand for details about the planes and their departure time, essentially refusing to provide him with what he wanted:
      The Court also ordered the Government to address the form in which it can provide further details about flights that left the United States before 7:25 PM. The Government maintains that there is no justification to order the provision of additional information, and that doing so would be inappropriate, because even accepting Plaintiffs’ account of the facts, there was no violation of the Court’s written order (since the relevant flights left U.S. airspace, and so their occupants were “removed,” before the order issued), and the Court’s earlier oral statements were not independently enforceable as injunctions. The Government stands on those arguments.
      Here’s more on the legal wrangling over the deportations, and Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act: More