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      Trump news at a glance: fears president will seize on Kirk’s murder for campaign of vengeance

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      On Sunday the late rightwing activist Charlie Kirk is set to be hailed by Donald Trump as a martyr of the Make America Great Again (Maga) movement.But Kirk’s memorial service at a football stadium in Arizona could, critics fear, be exploited by the US president to turn collective grief into a campaign of vengeance against his political opponents.Trump has spent the past 10 days escalating threats against what he calls the “radical left” after the fatal shooting of Kirk, 31, on a university campus in Utah.The White House is considering classifying some groups as domestic terrorists and revoking tax-exempt status for certain non-profits, even though there is no evidence linking these groups to the killing.How Trump is capitalizing on Charlie Kirk’s killingTrump and his allies have sought to undermine the legitimacy of the Democratic party, branding it an extremist organisation despite it having roundly condemned the attack on Charlie Kirk.Officials insist their focus is preventing violence, but critics see an extension of Trump’s campaign of retribution against his political foes and an erosion of free speech. They warn his administration is trying to harness outrage over Kirk’s killing to crush dissent.“Political violence is very often used as a pretext to crack down on civil liberties and on opponents – this is page one of the autocrats’ playbook,” said Steven Levitsky, a political scientist at Harvard University.Read the full storyTrump’s reported pause on Taiwan weapons aid sparks fears he is using island for China trade dealDonald Trump’s reported pause on US$400m in weapons aid to Taiwan has fuelled fears he is using US support of the island to negotiate with China.Trump’s pause on weapons provisions, if confirmed, included orders for lethal munitions and autonomous drones, but could still be reversed, the Washington Post reported on Friday.It came amid US efforts to negotiate a trade deal with China and before Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, spoke on the phone on Friday. Trump said they had made “productive” progress on a range of issues. But analysts said respective readouts of the call did not mention Taiwan.Read the full storyTulsi Gabbard did not alert White House before revoking 37 security clearancesTulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, did not inform the White House that her office was revoking the security clearances of 37 people – including top deputies to the CIA director, John Ratcliffe – before it happened last month, according to three people familiar with the matter.The move meant the White House did not having an opportunity to closely vet the list before it became public and there appeared to be no paper trail from the president directing the effort, the people said.Officials only realized after the fact that Gabbard had managed to pull the security clearances of career CIA officials. Several of Trump’s top advisers view the episode as a serious blunder that comes as Trump is sceptical of the intelligence community.Read the full storyWhy is Trump so obsessed with Jimmy Kimmel and US late-night TV shows?Since ABC made the decision to indefinitely suspend comedian Jimmy Kimmel from his late-night talkshow after on-air remarks about the killing of Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump has encouraged further action against other late-night hosts.Most presidents have accepted the relentless punchlines on the Tonight Show as part of the job since the show became hugely popular in the 1960s under comedian Johnny Carson.But Trump is a different political animal. He has singled out Kimmel, who has kept the Maga movement in his crosshairs since candidate Trump backed out of a scheduled 2015 appearance at the last minute.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      A man armed with a gun and a knife was arrested on Saturday after he allegedly pretended to be a member of law enforcement outside State Farm Stadium near Phoenix a day before Charlie Kirk’s planned memorial service at that venue.

      The FBI reportedly recorded Donald Trump’s border tsar Tom Homan accepting $50,000 in cash from undercover agents posing as business contractors last year.

      The US military has issued new media restrictions demanding that journalists pledge not to gather any information that has not been authorized for release or else risk revocation of their press passes.

      Immigrant advocacy organizations and activists are bracing for a crackdown from the federal government after threats from the Trump administration to root out and criminally prosecute non-profit groups it believes are sympathetic to “leftwing” politics.

      California will be the first state to ban most law enforcement officers, including federal immigration agents, from covering their faces while conducting official business under a bill signed by the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 19 September 2025. More

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      Trump border czar Tom Homan reportedly accepted $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents

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      The FBI reportedly recorded Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan accepting $50,000 in cash from undercover agents who were posing as business contractors last year.A new report from MSNBC on Saturday reveals that the agents recorded Homan, six weeks before the 2024 election, allegedly promising to assist in securing government contracts across the border security industry during Trump’s second term.Six sources familiar with the matter told MSNBC that the FBI and justice department – then run by Joe Biden’s administration – had intended to hold off and assess whether Homan would follow through on his alleged promises after he was appointed as Trump’s border czar. However, the investigation stalled after Trump took office, and in recent weeks, officials appointed by Trump decided to close the case, according to MSNBC.According to the sources, a justice department official who was appointed by Trump called the case a “deep state” investigation.In a separate statement to MSNBC, the FBI director, Kash Patel, and the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, said: “This matter originated under the previous administration and was subjected to a full review by FBI agents and justice department prosecutors. They found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.”They added: “The Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people, not baseless investigations. As a result, the investigation has been closed.”The White House deputy press secretary, Abigail Jackson, told MSNBC the investigation was “blatantly political”. Jackson added that it was “yet another example of how the Biden Department of Justice was using its resources to target President Trump’s allies rather than investigate real criminals and the millions of illegal aliens who flooded our country”.Homan was captured on video accepting $50,000 in cash at a meeting spot in Texas on 20 September 2024, according to an internal summary of the case reviewed by MSNBC and sources who spoke to the outlet.Four sources familiar with the matter told MSNBC that multiple federal officials believed they had a solid criminal case against Homan for conspiracy to commit bribery. However, since Homan was not a public official at the time he accepted the money and Trump had not yet become president, his actions did not meet the criteria for a standard bribery charge.Officials eventually decided to continue monitoring Homan once he joined Trump’s second presidential administration. MSNBC reports that officials had been looking at four potential criminal charges including conspiracy, bribery and two kinds of fraud, before Trump’s new justice department shut down the investigation.Homan, who was previously the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) during Trump’s first term, was appointed by Trump to run what he has described as the “biggest deportation” project the US has ever seen. Prior to his appointment as border czar, Homan was a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the Washington DC-based thinktank behind Project 2025.After the MSNBC report was published, Adam Schiff, a California Democratic senator and a former federal prosecutor, wrote on social media: “Border Czar Tom Homan was caught by the FBI accepting bribes – on camera – to deliver government contracts in exchange for $50,000 in cash. Pam Bondi knew. Kash Patel knew. Emil Bove knew. And they made the investigation go away. A corrupt attempt to conceal brazen graft.”In an angry outburst on his social media platform on Saturday night, Trump appeared to direct his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to appoint a White House aide, Lindsey Halligan, interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, so that she could seek criminal charges against Schiff and another of the president’s political rivals, New York’s attorney general, Letitia James. Trump has demanded that both Schiff and James be prosecuted on mortgage fraud claims both deny.On Friday, the prosecutor who was serving as the district’s interim US attorney, Erik Siebert, was forced out, reportedly for refusing to bring charges against James, due to a lack of evidence. Trump insisted on Saturday that he had fired Siebert for political reasons. Late Saturday, Trump announced that he would nominate Halligan, his former personal lawyer and a one-time contestant in the Miss Colorado USA beauty pageant now serving as a special assistant to the president, to replace Siebert. More

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      Pentagon demands journalists sign pledge not to gather certain information

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      The US military has issued new media restrictions demanding that journalists pledge not to gather any information – including unclassified documents – that has not been authorized for release or else risk revocation of their press passes.In a memo issued Thursday, the Pentagon stated that “it remains committed to transparency to promote accountability and public trust”. However, using an abbreviation for the recently rebranded Department of War headed by the Trump administration’s Pete Hegseth, the memo added: “DoW information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.”It went on to say: “Only authorized persons who have received favorable determinations of eligibility for access, signed approved non-disclosure agreements, and have a need-to-know may be granted access to [classified national security information].”Journalists reporting from the Pentagon are now required to sign a pledge agreeing to restrict their movements within the building and not to access any unauthorized materials. If they refuse to sign the pledge, their Pentagon press passes will be revoked.In a post on X, Hegseth said Friday: “The ‘press’ does not run the Pentagon – the people do. The press is no longer allowed to roam the halls of a secure facility. Wear a badge and follow the rules – or go home.”The latest memo follows the announcement by Hegseth in May regarding new press restrictions at the Pentagon. These restrictions limit reporters’ movements within the building to specific areas including the press pens, food court and courtyard. This is a departure from the usual practice under previous presidential administrations where reporters typically had more freedom of movement within the Pentagon.Hegseth has severely limited media access after facing backlash for sharing sensitive information about US strikes in Yemen in March in a Signal group chat where a journalist was accidentally included.Since he assumed office, Hegseth has maintained a hostile attitude towards major media networks. He ordered the removal of various longstanding news organizations including the New York Times, CNN, Politico and NPR from their dedicated offices in the Pentagon.The Pentagon’s latest memo has drawn criticism from journalists and free press advocates, with the National Press Club’s president Mike Balsamo saying: “This is a direct assault on independent journalism at the very place where independent scrutiny matters most: the US military.“If the news about our military must first be approved by the government, then the public is no longer getting independent reporting. It is getting only what officials want them to see. That should alarm every American.”Similarly, Freedom of the Press Foundation said “this policy operates as a prior restraint on publication, which is considered the most serious” violations of the press freedoms guaranteed by the US constitution’s first amendment.“The government cannot prohibit journalists from public information merely by claiming it’s a secret,” the foundation said.Meanwhile, Thomas Evans, editor in chief of National Public Radio (NPR), said his outlet was “taking this very seriously”.“We’ll be working with other news organizations to push back,” Evans remarked. “We’re big fans of the first amendment and transparency, and we want the American public to understand what’s being done in their name.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Pentagon’s restrictions on media access come as Trump suggested recently that TV networks should be punished for “negative coverage”. That statement followed widespread backlash over ABC’s indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s popular late-night show, on which the veteran comedian said that many in Trump’s Make America Great Again movement “are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk”, referring to the 10 September killing of the rightwing activist.Speaking on Air Force One on Thursday, Trump said – without providing evidence – that “97% [of major US networks are] against me”.“They give me only bad press,” he said, adding that he believed broadcasters should have their licenses “taken away” as a result.Among those to endorse Trump’s argument was the US senator Cynthia Lummis. The Wyoming Republican recently told the US news website Semafor that such licenses are “a privilege” rather than a “right” – and she said to the outlet that she no longer believes the first amendment is “the ultimate right”.“I feel like something’s changed culturally,” Lummis said, in part. “And I think there needs to be cognizance that things have changed.” More

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      US attorney tasked with inquiring into Trump critics resigns after president says ‘I want him out’

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      The federal prosecutor for the eastern district of Virginia resigned Friday under intense pressure from Donald Trump, after his office determined there wasn’t sufficient evidence to charge New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, a political rival of the president, with a crime.Erik Siebert told colleagues he was resigning in a letter sent Friday, NBC News reported. Meanwhile, in an early Saturday post on his Truth Social platform, Trump maintained that Siebert didn’t quit – but rather: “I fired him!”Hours earlier, Trump bluntly told reporters in the Oval Office: “I want him out.” The president claimed he soured on Siebert because Virginia’s two Democratic senators had endorsed his nomination, but also claimed that James “is very guilty of something”. ABC News reported earlier on Friday that Trump decided to fire Siebert after he failed to obtain an indictment against James.In 2024, James filed a civil lawsuit against Trump and his company that resulted in a significant financial penalty. That penalty was thrown out in August by an appeals court that upheld a judge’s finding that Trump had engaged in fraud by exaggerating his wealth for decades.After a five-month investigation, officials did not find enough clear evidence to charge James with a crime, ABC News reported earlier this week. Trump nominated Siebert, who worked since 2010 as an assistant US attorney in that office, for the position in May.The investigation centered on the allegation that James falsely said she was going to use a home she purchased in Virginia as her primary residence. While one document indicated James intended to use the home as her primary residence, others in the transaction show James clearly indicating she intended to use it as a second home.Ed Martin, a former January 6 defendant lawyer who is leading the justice department effort to target Trump’s political rivals, pressured prosecutors to seek an indictment, according to ABC News. Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and a staunch Trump ally, who criminally referred James, had urged Trump to fire Siebert, according to ABC.Pulte also referred California senator Adam Schiff, another political rival of Trump, and the Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook for mortgage fraud. The allegations in both of those cases appear similarly thin.The justice department has long held a level of independence from the White House, an arms length seen as necessary to give Americans confidence its prosecutors and other attorneys are making enforcement decisions based on facts and not politics. Trump has upended that norm, firing career attorneys and FBI agents who worked on January 6 cases.Those fired include Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James Comey and a career prosecutor who worked on some of the highest-profile cases in the southern district of New York. Maurene Comey, who was not given a reason for her firing, sued the Trump administration this week. More

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      Even Tucker Carlson is worried about Trump’s free speech crackdown | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Welcome to the resistance, Tucker Carlson?Forgive me; I’m sorry; mea culpa! Having spent considerable time analyzing the events of the past week, I’ve realized I should probably issue a public apology for some of my statements over the years. Here we go: I’m sorry for expressing radical and dangerous opinions such as “women deserve equal rights and shouldn’t be treated like walking wombs”. I’m sorry for suggesting Palestinians shouldn’t be systematically exterminated while Donald Trump posts about building a resort in Gaza. Going forward I will do better and ensure that I double-check all my opinions with the government. There isn’t an official Department of Thought Control yet, but no doubt we’ll get there soon.I wish I was joking about all this but, as you will have noticed, we are in a critical moment for free speech in the US. The killing of Charlie Kirk was a tragedy for his family, but the Trump administration has been ruthlessly using Kirk’s death to further a crackdown on dissent and erode first amendment protections.The day after Kirk was fatally shot, for example, the deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, urged people to report any “foreigners” to the state department who post on social media “praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event”. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, later said that the state department has “most certainly been denying visas” to people celebrating Kirk’s death. It’s obviously not in good taste to celebrate anyone’s murder, but the fact that calling out Kirk’s divisive and bigoted views could possibly be considered “rationalizing” his death and get you deported is chilling.It’s not just foreigners who are being told they should be wary about what they say. On Monday Vice-President JD Vance, who was guest-hosting an episode of the Charlie Kirk Show, encouraged people to report anyone celebrating the influencer’s death to that person’s employer. Presumably so said employer can fire them.There have, of course, already been numerous Kirk-related firings and suspensions. An employee at the Federal Emergency Management Agency was reportedly placed on administrative leave over an Instagram post describing Kirk as “the literal racist homophobe misogynist.” MSNBC fired political analyst Matthew Dowd after he suggested Kirk’s “awful words” fueled “awful actions”. Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show was suspended “indefinitely” after he noted “many in Maga Land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk”. Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah has also said she was fired over social media posts after Kirk’s killing.The weaponization of Kirk’s death is so alarming that even one of Trump’s former allies is rattled. Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who was once one of the loudest voices in the Magasphere, recently issued a stark warning about the way that the Trump administration appears to be leveraging Kirk’s murder to trample civil liberties.“You hope that a year from now, the turmoil we’re seeing in the aftermath of [Kirk’s] murder won’t be leveraged to bring hate speech laws to this country,” Carlson said on Wednesday during an episode of his podcast. This was in reference to attorney general Pam Bondi’s comments (which she has now walked back) that the Trump Department of Justice would “target” people disseminating “hate speech” following Kirk’s killing.“And trust me, if it is, if that does happen, there is never a more justified moment for civil disobedience than that, ever,” Carlson added. “Because if they can tell you what to say, they’re telling you what to think … There is nothing they can’t do to you because they don’t consider you human.”Like Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right congresswoman who has recently started speaking a limited amount of sense on certain topics, Carlson is no ally to progressives. Indeed Carlson’s hate-mongering, and his former public cheerleading for Trump, are a large part of why we are in such a mess. But the fact that even a far-right voice like Carlson is worried about the authoritarian direction in which the US is heading should chill you to the bones. Carlson appears to have realized that no one is safe in the dictatorship that Trump appears intent on building. Not even him.Nuns on the run in AustriaSister Regina, 86, Sister Rita, 81, and Sister Bernadette, 88, are doing it for themselves. And by “it” I mean defying their diocese by running away from their nursing home and returning to their former convent. The convent has no electricity or running water so the nuns have started an Instagram account and are crowdfunding for supplies.French first lady will present court with ‘evidence’ she is a womanRightwing influencer, crackpot and conspiracy theorist Candace Owens has repeatedly insisted that Brigitte Macron is actually a man. Owens even said she would “stake [her] entire professional reputation” on it. Now the Macrons, who are suing Owens for defamation, are submitting “scientific evidence” to a US court to prove Brigitte was not born male. RIP Owens’s “professional reputation”.Girls and women in Colombia are being held as sex slavesThe country’s Catatumbo region, near the border with Venezuela, has seen increased violence in recent years. The Guardian reports on more than 150 girls and women aged from 11 to 50 who have escaped what they describe as “sexual slavery” by armed groups in the region. Escapees have warned there are many more women and girls in captivity.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Trump administration compares birth control to abortionTrump officials recently ordered that millions of dollars’ worth of contraceptives intended for low-income countries be destroyed. “President Trump is committed to protecting the lives of unborn children all around the world,” a spokesperson from USAID told the New York Times. “The administration will no longer supply abortifacient birth control under the guise of foreign aid.” By falsely claiming that pills, intrauterine devices and hormonal implants induce abortions, the Trump administration may be paving the way to ban birth control, experts warn.Israeli minister salivates over ‘real estate bonanza’ in Gaza“A business plan is on President Trump’s table,” Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said at a property development conference in Tel Aviv this week. “The demolition, the first stage in the city’s renewal, we have already done. Now we just need to build.” Mainstream media outlets keep referring to what is happening in Gaza as a “war”. But as the likes of Smotrich make clear, this is a genocidal land grab.Pete Buttigieg criticizes Kamala Harris for passing him over because he’s gayIn her new memoir, Harris said Buttigieg was her “first choice” for running mate; “he would have been an ideal partner – if I were a straight white man”. Forget Buttigieg’s sexuality, the fact that Harris thinks a former McKinsey consultant, the epitome of an out-of-touch elite, who polled at 0% with Black voters would have been a good running mate is mind-boggling.The week in pawtriarchyA new study has found chimpanzees may consume the equivalent of about one beer a day because of all the fermented fruit they eat. Some researchers believe this supports the “drunken monkey” hypothesis: the idea that humans got a taste for booze because our primate ancestors were constantly on the jungle juice. It seems the ape-oclayptical state of the world is enough to drive anyone to drink.

      Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist More

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      ‘These results are sobering’: US high school seniors’ reading and math scores plummet

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      The average reading and math scores of American high school seniors fell to their lowest levels in two decades in 2024, according to new national data released last week.The results, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), found that, on average, reading scores for 12th graders were 10 points lower in 2024 than they were in 1992, when the test was first administered, and that math scores fell to their lowest levels since 2005, when the math assessment began.The test, administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is part of the US Department of Education, assessed roughly 19,300 12th-graders in math, 24,300 in reading and 23,000 eighth-graders in science between January and March of last year.The report found that 35% of seniors “performed at or above” the NAEP’s “proficient” level in reading, and 22% were at or above that level in math.It also stated that 45% of 12th graders scored below the NAEP’s “basic” level in math, marking a five percentage-point increase from 2019. In reading, 32% of students scored below the basic level, which was a two-point increase from 2019.“These results are sobering,” said NCES acting commissioner Matthew Soldner. “The drop in overall scores coincides with significant declines in achievement among our lowest-performing students, continuing a downward trend that began before the Covid pandemic.“Among our nation’s high-school seniors, we’re now seeing a larger percentage of students scoring below the NAEP basic achievement level in mathematics and reading than in any previous assessment.”One lingering effect of the pandemic present in the report was chronic absenteeism. The report found that about a third of 12th-graders reported missing three or more days of school in the month before the test, up from 25% in 2019.“Students are spending less time learning,” said Thomas Kane, an education economist at Harvard. “And when they are present, instruction is less efficient because teachers are constantly reteaching material.”Robert Balfanz, a professor at John Hopkins University School of Education, said easy access to information online and the use of online assignments may also be leading some students to treat in-person school attendance as optional.“In their minds, they tell their parents, ‘Look, all my assignments are online, I can do them even if I’m not at school,’” Balfanz said.But while the Covid pandemic and school closures had major effects on learning, experts say the academic decline began before 2020.“The uncomfortable truth is that American students have been significantly losing ground for more than a decade,” Eric Hanushek, an education economist, wrote in an opinion piece last week. “The pandemic didn’t break American education – it was already broken.”Kane said the decline among lower-achieving students began some time around 2015 and has continued.“It’s clearly not just the pandemic,” Kane said. “It should be troubling to everyone, and we need to find a solution.”Experts point to a range of potential factors beyond absenteeism that could be contributing to the decline, including increased screen time and smartphone use, declining student engagement, and the rollback of test-based accountability since the expiration of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2015.Carol Jago, a longtime English teacher and literacy expert at UCLA, told the Associated Press last week that students today read fewer books and spend less time with longer texts.“To be a good reader, you have to have the stamina to stay on the page, even when the going gets tough,” Jago said. “You have to build those muscles, and we’re not building those muscles in kids.”Balfanz added that the constant exposure to short-form and visual media in students’ daily lives may be making academic focus more difficult.One potential solution, he said, could be to add more dedicated reading time into school days – and restricting smartphones in classrooms.Kane noted that academic declines are appearing in other countries as well, which suggests a broader global trend that could be linked to increased screen use.Some US states have already passed laws restricting phone use in schools. Kane believes that there needs to be a national effort to assess the impact and effectiveness of those policies to see whether they work and ought to be implemented in more areas.The role of smart phones and social media in academic performance came up this week during a Senate hearing on the NAEP results.Martin West, the vice-chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees policy for the NAEP, told lawmakers that the rise of “smartphones and social media platforms targeting youth” is one area they should investigate.“We lack direct evidence of a causal link between smartphones and learning, but I’m convinced that this technology is a key driver of youth mental health challenges, a distraction from learning, both inside and outside of schools, and a deterrent to reading,” West said.Rebecca Winthrop, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, testified that student disengagement was exacerbated by the pandemic and is being amplified by social media. She endorsed actions such as smart phone bans, higher academic expectations, and adopting more engaging teaching styles.The NAEP results also reignited the debate around the federal government’s role in education, with US education secretary Linda McMahon saying last week that the lesson from the results “is clear”.“Success isn’t about how much money we spend, but who controls the money and where that money is invested,” she said. “That’s why President Trump and I are committed to returning control of education to the states so they can innovate and meet each school and students’ unique needs.”Representative Tim Walberg, a Republican who chairs the House education committee, agreed and said that “by returning education to the states, we can empower parents and local communities and ensure every child gains the skills necessary to succeed”.But Democratic representative Bobby Scott pushed back, writing that the NAEP results “reinforce the urgent need for sustained federal investment in academic recovery and educational equity”.“Now is not the time to retreat from our responsibility to provide every child, regardless of zip code, with the opportunity to succeed,” he added.Balfanz believes that “some collective effort at the national level” is needed to support states and districts in implementing proven solutions. He emphasized the need to “set targets and goals and strategies” and help build the capacity at the local level to be able to achieve them.Kane said that he agrees that states need to take a “more aggressive role in helping to reverse these trends” but that the federal government also needs to prioritize partnering with states “in a concerted, coordinated effort to answer two questions: finding effective ways to lower absenteeism and measuring the impact of the cellphone bans”.“Something fundamental in US schools is broken,” Kane warned. “And we need to fix it.” More

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      Black women are being hit hard by the Trump layoffs and firings: ‘It chips away at morale and self-worth’

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      On 30 May 2025, Dr Ravon Alford received an email from leadership at her job that the federal government had chosen to revoke the organization’s active federal grants. At the time, Alford, who’s 33, had been working as a senior policy analyst at a criminal justice reform non-profit organization in Detroit. As a result of the budget cuts, all work related to projects that were funded by these grants were ceased. Organization-wide layoffs followed, affecting Alford and 75% of the staff.Alford is among the nearly 300,000 Black women who exited the US labor force in just three months – a shift tied directly to federal policy decisions. The most immediate cause has been sweeping cuts across public-sector agencies, historically one of the few reliable pathways to middle-class stability for Black women. Though they make up just more than 6% of the overall workforce, Black women account for more than 12% of federal employees. These positions have long offered pensions, benefits and more equitable pay than the private sector, where wage disparities remain stubbornly fixed.“It was an extremely traumatic experience for me because this was my first time ever being laid off,” said Alford, who once viewed the public sector as a stable industry. “Had I been laid off because of my own merit, then it would’ve been easier for me to deal with. But it was just the fact that this administration chose to not prioritize something that we actually were aligned with in the last administration cost me my job.” Since the layoffs, Alford has witnessed some of her Black female former co-workers exiting corporate America all together and pursuing entrepreneurial paths. The experience has changed Alford’s view on how to navigate the workplace as well: “Now I’m taking care of myself and not allowing my identity to be fully within a job.”Working under the constant threat of job loss can create a psychological climate of fear. “For African American women, that fear isn’t just about employment. It’s about identity, safety and dignity in spaces where we’re already underrepresented and under-resourced,” said Dr Rajanique Modeste, an industrial and organizational psychologist and author of After the Layoff: Reclaiming Power When Stability Disappears. “It shows up in how we engage, or don’t engage, with leadership, and influences how safe we feel speaking up.”In unstable work environments, self-advocacy is often the first casualty, Modeste says. When job security feels shaky, most employees retreat into survival mode. “It becomes a heads-down situation,” explained Modeste. “People avoid drawing attention to themselves out of fear they might be next on the chopping block.”Even for Black women who have been spared from layoffs at their organization, the sense of belonging and psychological safety might wither. “For Black women, connections at work often serve as more than just friendships. They can be a crucial part of navigating the workplace,” said Modeste. “When others are let go, it often means the loss of community, a safety net and a sense of stability. Suddenly, you may find yourself alone in spaces where you once felt supported.”For Duke, a 28-year-old account supervisor in Washington DC, who survived three rounds of company-wide layoffs at her advertising agency after the current administration ended federal contracts with the organization, the months since April have been marked by constant anxiety and feeling a need to overperform. She described waking in the middle of the night, bracing herself for an email from HR or her manager signaling she’d be next. “Every Sunday I was checking my emails to see if I had an invite,” said Duke, who’s using an alias because she is still employed at her company. “Going into the office, the morale was low. You couldn’t really plan ahead, because you didn’t know if this would be your last paycheck.” That uncertainty seeped into her personal life as well. When her lease was up for renewal, she delayed signing until the very last minute. “I just didn’t know if I was going to have a job,” she explained.As a first-generation college graduate, Duke had grown up believing higher education would provide stability. “You’re told to get your degree and you’ll be set for life,” she said. But the reality she’s facing in corporate America has been far different: “One minute you’re on top and doing great, and the next you’re laid off. We’ve seen that across every sector: tech, healthcare and now even the federal space.” In June, Black women faced the longest job searches of any group, spending an average of more than six months unemployed before securing new work.For Black women like her, that volatility doesn’t just undermine career expectations; it chips away at a sense of security they were told was within reach. Similar to Alford, Duke had once considered the public sector a safe haven. “I was so excited because you always hear that the public sector is the safest. Once you’re in, you’re in for life,” she explained. The sudden unraveling of that assumption was devastating: “To have that ripped away is jarring.”The rupture goes beyond lost income; it disrupts mental health and future planning. Instead of imagining long-term career growth, many Black women are recalibrating around avoidance. “From what I’ve seen, and what I agree with, a lot of people are going to stay away from the public sector for at least the next three years because it feels so unstable,” Duke said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEven when companies insist that a round of layoffs has ended, the residue of fear lingers. Workers understand, deep down, that performance alone cannot protect them from business decisions. “That uncertainty creates silence,” Modeste said. “People stop asking for promotions, raises or accommodations – not because they don’t want or deserve them, but because they’re trying not to make waves. Staying under the radar starts to feel safer than speaking up.”That silence can be especially fraught for Black women. The pressure to prove they belong, to avoid being labeled “difficult” or “demanding”, compounds the risk of speaking out. “In moments when self-advocacy is most needed, fear of retaliation or being misunderstood can keep people quiet,” Modeste noted. Over time, that quiet takes a psychological toll. “It chips away at morale and self-worth. It reinforces the idea that your needs don’t matter, or that asking for more puts your job at risk.”The stress of layoffs isn’t just about surviving the present – it’s about facing a future that feels increasingly unpredictable. Even as Black women push through the daily strain of keeping their jobs, the prospect of losing one carries its own spiral of uncertainty. “It all takes a toll on your mental health,” Duke said. “There’s only so much you can do when it feels like the whole system is set up to have you fail.” At the end of this month, Duke will find out whether her team’s federal contract will be renewed. More

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      Trump news at a glance: president hikes H-1B visa cost to $100,000 a year as aide tells firms to ‘train Americans’

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      Donald Trump has signed an order to raise fees for the H-1B visa to $100,000 in what could be a major blow to the US tech industry, which contributed millions to his presidential campaign.The tech industry relies, more than any other sector of the US economy, on H-1B visa holders. Roughly two-thirds of jobs secured through the H-1B program are computer-related, government figures show, but employers also use the visa to bring in engineers, educators and healthcare workers.Critics of the program, including many US technology workers, argue that it allows firms to suppress wages and sideline Americans who could do the jobs. Supporters, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, say it brings in highly skilled workers essential to filling talent gaps and keeping firms competitive. Musk, himself a naturalized US citizen born in South Africa, once held an H-1B visa.Trump signs order imposing $100,000 annual fee on key visa groupThe US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, told a press briefing that “all the big companies” had been briefed on the new fee. “A hundred-thousand dollars a year for H-1B visas, and all of the big companies are on board. We’ve spoken to them,” Lutnick said at an Oval Office event with the president.“If you’re going to train somebody, you’re going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land. Train Americans. Stop bringing in people to take our jobs.”Read the full storyTrump says Xi Jinping has agreed to approve TikTok deal, but details unclearDonald Trump said on Friday that he and Xi Jinping had agreed to approve a deal over TikTok.“He approved the TikTok deal,” Trump said about Xi, suggesting the leaders signed off on a preliminary agreement. But Trump offered no details about the agreement or when it would be signed.The American and Chinese leaders had connected over a phone call earlier in the day, the first direct contact between the two leaders since June. China and the US have been at loggerheads over trade negotiations and the future of TikTok, a Chinese-owned social media platform that faces a ban in the US.Read the full storyJudge strikes down Trump’s $15bn lawsuit against the New York TimesA federal judge tossed Donald Trump’s $15bn defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, book publisher Penguin and two Times reporters, and said the suit was filled with “vituperation and invective” and violated civil procedure in federal cases for failing to get to the point.US district court judge Steven Merryday in Florida will allow the president to refile and amend the action within 28 days, however.Read the full storyDemocrats reject spending bill over healthcare cuts as shutdown loomsThe US federal government drew closer to a shutdown on Friday, after Democrats made good on their vow not to support a Republican-backed measure that would extend funding for another two months because it did not include provisions to protect healthcare programs.Read the full storyUS attorney tasked with inquiring into Trump critics resignsThe federal prosecutor for the eastern district of Virginia resigned Friday under intense pressure from Donald Trump, after his office determined there wasn’t sufficient evidence to charge New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, a political rival of the president, with a crime.Read the full storyDemocrats divided over US House resolution to honor Charlie Kirk The killing of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk has triggered a wave of political disquiet in Washington, with some House Democrats fearing a messaging trap over a Republican resolution to honor him while other lawmakers worry about the broader political temperature following government pressure on broadcasters.Democrats ultimately decided to side with the Republicans to pass the resolution, with 95 Democrats in support. Fifty-eight Democrats opposed it, 38 voted present and 22 did not vote.Read the full storyTed Cruz compares threats to ABC by FCC chair to those of mob bossSenator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, compared Brendan Carr’s threats to revoke the broadcast licenses of ABC stations over late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s commentary to “mafioso” tactics similar to those in Goodfellas, the 1990 mobster movie.Read the full storyTrump announces new deadly strike on suspected drug boat in CaribbeanDonald Trump announced that the US military has carried out another deadly strike on a vessel in the the Caribbean, killing three males on board the vessel whom Trump alleged were trafficking illicit narcotics.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      US law enforcement officials have claimed that the use of certain emojis could signal affiliation with Tren de Aragua(TdA), a Venezuelan gang, according to internal records reviewed by the Guardian.

      The Trump administration on Friday asked the US supreme court to halt a judge’s order allowing transgender and non-binary people to choose the sex marker on their passports.

      A top donor to Trump and other Maga Republicans has privately mocked the US president’s longtime position that he has an upper hand in trade negotiations with China, in a sign that even some loyal supporters have been uneasy with the White House strategy.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 18 September 2025. More