Move further unwinds initiative to crack down on anti-competitive practices in agriculture, drugs and labor
Donald Trump on Wednesday revoked a 2021 executive order on promoting competition in the US economy issued by Joe Biden, the White House said.
The move by the Republican US president further unwinds a signature initiative by his predecessor, a Democrat, to crack down on anti-competitive practices in sectors from agriculture to drugs and labor.
Continue reading...Under Joseph Humire, the thinktank tracked alleged crimes by the Venezuelan gang in the US. A non-profit found multiple false entries
A senior official appointed to the defense department led a thinktank that promoted fake news about the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang, according to InSight Crime, a non-profit analyzing organized crime.
Joseph Humire was appointed this summer to be the head of policy focusing on the western hemisphere within the office of the under secretary of defense for policy. He was previously the executive director of a conservative thinktank focused on global security. Humire’s appointment comes as the Trump administration is ramping up its aggressive strategy against organized crime in Latin America and the Venezuelan government, which it accuses of working with TdA.
Continue reading...Justice department accuses Joshua Schroeder of ‘reckless misrepresentations’ and seeks financial penalties
The US Department of Justice is seeking sanctions against a lawyer who sought to block the deportation of his client, in another sign the Trump administration is ramping up its efforts to enact mass deportations.
Earlier this year, Joshua Schroeder, a California-based attorney, was able to briefly delay the deportation of his client, a Hmong man from Laos, through several court filings.
Continue reading...The US president deployed troops after taking control of DC police, sparking fears of similar moves elsewhere
Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington DC, has pledged to work “side by side” with the federal government as national guard troops arrive at their headquarters in the capital.
The show of force came after Donald Trump announced that he was sending the national guard into the capital and putting city police under federal control, even though the violent crime rate is at a 30-year low.
Continue reading...Court refuses to block ‘department of government efficiency’ from accessing data such as citizenship status
A US appeals court on Tuesday rejected a bid by a group of unions to block the Trump administration government downsizing team known as the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) from accessing sensitive data on Americans.
The Virginia-based fourth US circuit court of appeals in a 2-1 decision said the unions were unlikely to prevail on claims that Doge would violate federal privacy laws by accessing data at the US Department of Education, treasury department, and office of personnel management.
Continue reading...As mayor calls US president ‘hyperbolic’, experts say portrayal of crime rooted in false and misleading claims
Donald Trump is deploying the national guard in Washington DC and seizing control of its police force, claiming that the nation’s capital has become “lawless” and is “one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world”.
The president portrayed himself as DC’s savior, vowing to rid it of “crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor and worse”.
Continue reading...Georgia man who blamed Covid vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal shot and killed a police officer
The man who attacked the CDC headquarters in Atlanta on Friday fired more than 180 shots into the campus and broke about 150 windows, with bullets piercing “blast-resistant” windows and spattering glass shards into numerous rooms, according to information circulated internally at the agency.
It may take weeks or even months to replace windows and clean up the damage, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention personnel said.
Continue reading...Chipmakers agree to deal amid Trump trade war as condition for obtaining export licences for Chinese market
The chipmakers Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the US government 15% of their revenue from advanced chips sold to China in return for export licences to the key market, in an unprecedented move amid Donald Trump’s trade war with China.
The move, an apparent reversal of US national security restrictions on the chip sales, signalled an easing in the US-China trade war.
Continue reading...White House denies suggestions resort in Vietnam presents conflict of interest amid row over compensation rates
Villagers whose farms in Vietnam will be bulldozed to make way for a $1.5bn golf resort backed by the Trump family have reportedly been offered rice provisions and cash compensation of as little as $12 for a square metre of land by state authorities.
Thousands of villagers will be offered compensation based on land size and location, according to a report by Reuters. The agency spoke to elderly farmers who said they feared they would struggle to find a stable livelihood.
Continue reading...Vice-president tries to deflect criticism and blames Biden for doing ‘absolutely nothing’ about convicted sex offender
Four days after JD Vance reportedly asked top Trump administration officials to come up with a new communications strategy for dealing with the scandal around the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, he appears to have put his foot in it, sparking a new round of online outrage even as he tried to defuse the furor.
In an interview with Fox News broadcast on Sunday, the vice-president tried to deflect criticism of the administration’s refusal to release the Epstein files by blaming Democrats. He accused Joe Biden of doing “absolutely nothing” about the scandal when he was in the White House.
Continue reading...Governor warns lawmakers who left to foil redistricting plan that he coould call special session to extend battle
Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has stepped up his war of words with Democratic lawmakers who have left the state to foil an aggressive redistricting plan aimed at giving his Republican party five additional seats in Congress, saying on Sunday that the fight “could literally last years”.
Abbott issued his new threat on Fox News Sunday, saying that he would use his powers to call a special session of the Texas legislature to extend the battle indefinitely. The special session lasts 30 days, he said, “and as soon as this one is over, I’m going to call another one, then another one, then another one, then another one”.
Continue reading...Donald Trump rewarding the Kremlin’s hardline attitude shows Russia can still sideline Ukraine from deal to end war
In the five months since Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met at the Oval Office in late February, Ukrainian officials have worked hard to repair the damage of that day, which ended with the Ukrainian president being kicked out of the White House.
With advice from European allies, Zelenskyy recalibrated his strategy for dealing with the Trump administration, and there was a feeling it was broadly going well. “We managed to reset communications, to find a new language to work with Trump,” said one senior official in Kyiv a week ago.
Continue reading...White House escalates offensive on Ivy League university by calling for review of federally funded research
The latest phase of the Trump administration’s offensive against Harvard University is a comprehensive review of the university’s federally funded research programs, and the threat to strip the school’s lucrative portfolio of patents.
In a letter to the Harvard president, Alan Garber, posted online on Friday, Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, accused Harvard of breaching its legal and contractual requirements tied to federally funded research programs and patents.
Continue reading...Bruce, dubbed a ‘great patriot’ by Trump in announcement, now serves as state department spokesperson
Donald Trump said on Saturday he was nominating Tammy Bruce, the state department spokesperson, as the next US deputy representative to the United Nations, which would make the former Fox News commentator an ambassador.
The president made the announcement on Truth Social, where he praised Bruce as a “Great Patriot, Television Personality, and Bestselling Author”.
Continue reading...Trump removed Billy Long from post months after agency said it couldn’t release information on some taxpayers
The removal of the Internal Revenue Service commissioner Billy Long after just two months in the post came after the federal tax collection agency said it could not release some information on taxpayers suspected of being in the US illegally, it was reported on Saturday.
The IRS and the White House had clashed over using tax data to help locate suspected undocumented immigrants soon before Long was dismissed by the administration, according to the Washington Post.
Continue reading...Prasad left the agency after far-right influencer released edited audio misleadingly suggesting he was anti-Trump
Vinay Prasad is returning to his role overseeing vaccine, gene therapy and blood product regulation at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) a little more than a week after he left the agency.
“At the FDA’s request, Dr Vinay Prasad is resuming leadership of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research,” Department Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement to Reuters.
Continue reading...Co-founded by president’s eldest sons, Eric and Don Jr, World Liberty has earned the family $500m since its launch
World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture backed by Donald Trump and the US president’s family, is sounding out investors for a $1.5bn fundraising round meant to set up a public company that will hold its WLFI tokens, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.
The structure of the deal is yet to be finalized, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter, adding that large investors in the crypto and tech space had been approached for the venture.
Continue reading...Roland Beainy from Lebanon, who opened chain of restaurants in support of president, says charges ‘not true’
The owner of a Donald Trump-themed hamburger restaurant chain in Texas is facing deportation after immigration authorities under the command of the president detained him.
Roland Mehrez Beainy, 28, entered the US as “a non-immigrant visitor” from Lebanon in 2019 and was supposed to have left the country by 12 February 2024, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) spokesperson told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Deal to end four-decade conflict includes creation of transit corridor named ‘Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity’
The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace agreement at the White House on Friday, in a deal brokered by the US that brings decades of conflict to an end.
The two countries in the South Caucasus signed agreements with each other, as well as the US, that will reopen key transportation routes while allowing the US to seize on Russia’s declining influence in the region. The deal includes an agreement that will create a major transit corridor linking Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan, with the United States owning development rights to the corridor. It was to be named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, the White House said.
Continue reading...Department issued two subpoenas to Letitia James for civil fraud case against Trump and an investigation into the NRA
The Department of Justice has issued two subpoenas to Letitia James, the New York attorney general who has been repeatedly criticized by Donald Trump, according to reports.
One of the cases relates to a civil fraud case brought by James’s office against Trump, which resulted in the president owing New York state $500m, the New York Times reported. The other case relates to the attorney general’s investigation into National Rifle Association (NRA), a rightwing gun lobbying group.
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