Category Archives: US Politics

US election commission chair says Trump tried to fire her illegally

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Ellen Weintraub of Federal Election Commission rejects letter from president that claims she has been removed

United States Federal Election Commission commissioner and chair Ellen Weintraub said on Thursday she received a letter from Donald Trump that purports to fire her but added that the action was illegal.

In a post on X, Weintraub attached the January 31 letter signed by Trump which said: “You are hereby removed as a member of the Federal Election Commission, effective immediately.”

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Trump administration disbands taskforce targeting Russian oligarchs

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US attorney general issues memo to break up effort started after 2022 Ukraine invasion to target those close to Kremlin

The US justice department under Donald Trump is disbanding an effort started after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine to enforce sanctions and target oligarchs close to the Kremlin.

A memo from the attorney general, Pam Bondi, issued during a wave of orders on her first day in office but not previously reported, said the effort, known as Task Force KleptoCapture, will end as part of a shift in focus and funding to combating drug cartels and international gangs.

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Panama accuses US of peddling ‘intolerable falsehood’ about canal

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President José Raúl Mulino denies making a deal that US ships can transit the canal free of charge

The president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, has accused the US of peddling a “quite simply intolerable falsehood” about the Panama canal, as Donald Trump’s pledge to “take back” the waterway continued to poison relations between the two countries and cause alarm around Latin America.

The US state department claimed late on Wednesday the Central American country had agreed to no longer charge US government vessels to pass through its canal – a move that would supposedly save Washington millions of dollars a year.

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US supreme court may revive doctrine that would curb federal agencies’ power

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Case on nondelegation doctrine comes after conservative court substantially curbed regulatory power in recent years

The US supreme court may soon revive an obscure, pro-big business legal doctrine that could make it virtually impossible for the US government to develop new laws and regulatory rules that protect Americans.

The theory, called the “nondelegation doctrine”, could also potentially invalidate large pieces of bedrock American laws and protections put in place since the first Congress.

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Trump might want to revive America’s imperial heyday – but does his base?

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The president’s Gaza proposal is a signal that old-school, blunt-force US expansionism seems to be back in fashion

Donald Trump’s proposal that the US take ownership of the Gaza Strip, expel and resettle the people there, and turn Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” has outraged Palestinians, shocked the international community and even confused many of his own conservative voters.

Yet the announcement seems like yet another sign that the president, while sometimes distancing himself from the neoconservative foreign policies that entangled the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, is willing to pursue – or at least entertain pursuing – an undisguised US imperialism that has more in common with the expansionism of Teddy Roosevelt and Andrew Jackson, the 19th- and early 20th-century presidents associated with some of American’s most brazen and violent conquests.

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UN chief warns against ‘ethnic cleansing’ after Trump’s Gaza proposal

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President’s plan for US to take over Gaza Strip and move Palestinians out also rejected by allies Saudi Arabia and Jordan

Donald Trump’s proposal for a US takeover of Gaza was met with anger and blunt rejection from regional allies, delight from Israel’s far right and a warning against “ethnic cleansing” from the head of the UN.

The secretary general, António Guterres, planned to tell a UN meeting on Wednesday that “it is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing” after the US president said he wanted to “own” Gaza and resettle its Palestinian residents elsewhere.

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‘Dangerous, provocative, illegal’: Arab Americans condemn Trump’s vow to ‘take over’ Gaza

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‘Arab Americans for Trump’ group rebrands itself while activists also criticize Biden and Harris’s support of Israel

Donald Trump’s remarks that the US will “take over” Gaza and resettle the Palestinian population elsewhere have drawn outrage and criticism from Palestinian and Arab Americans across the US.

A group of Arab Americans that supported Trump during the 2024 election rebranded itself following Trump’s comments on displacing Palestinians, from “Arab Americans for Trump” to “Arab Americans for Peace”.

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US Postal Service briefly halts packages arriving from China and Hong Kong

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Normal service resumes after initial suspension, in latest episode of growing trade war between the US and China

The US Postal Service briefly suspended incoming parcels from China and Hong Kong on Tuesday before returning to normal service on Wednesday after accusations of “unreasonable suppression” from Beijing, in the latest episode of a growing trade war between the US and China.

The initial suspension came as Donald Trump said he was not in a hurry to speak to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, despite expectations that they would hold talks after announcing tit-for-tat tariffs.

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Trump dismisses USAid direct-hire workers around the world

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Agency staffers overseas – except those deemed essential – placed on leave as diplomats’ union plans legal action

The Trump administration is placing US Agency for International Development direct-hire staffers around the world on leave, except those deemed essential.

A notice posted online on Tuesday gives the workers 30 days to return home, upending the aid agency’s six-decade mission overseas.

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US Senate confirms Trump nominee Pam Bondi as attorney general

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Bondi approved 54-46 as staunch political ally of president propelled to top perch of US law enforcement

The US Senate confirmed Pam Bondi on Tuesday as the next attorney general to steer the justice department through Donald Trump’s second term and his clear intent to turn it into an extension of his executive power, especially as a cudgel against his personal and political adversaries.

The 54 to 46 vote to confirm Bondi was largely across party lines. All Republicans voted to confirm and all but one Democratic senator, John Fetterman, voted against.

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Doge staffers enter Noaa headquarters and incite reports of cuts and threats

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Members reportedly sought access to IT systems at agency that Project 2025 has called ‘harmful to US prosperity’

Staffers with Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) reportedly entered the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) in Silver Spring, Maryland, and the Department of Commerce in Washington DC today, inciting concerns of downsizing at the agency.

“They apparently just sort of walked past security and said: ‘Get out of my way,’ and they’re looking for access for the IT systems, as they have in other agencies,” said Andrew Rosenberg, a former Noaa official who is now a fellow at the University of New Hampshire. “They will have access to the entire computer system, a lot of which is confidential information.”

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Musk intensifies government spending attack with push to cut all regulations

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Maxine Waters, Chuck Schumer and other lawmakers protest against billionaire outside US treasury

Elon Musk has proposed a “wholesale removal of regulations” in an intensification of his crusade to slash US federal government spending.

On a call aired on X, the social media platform he owns, the multibillionaire entrepreneur said regulations should be “gone” amid growing opposition to his mission as Donald Trump’s enforcer and head of a newly created “department of government efficiency” (Doge).

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El Salvador offers to hold deportees and incarcerated US citizens in its jails

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Human rights groups alarmed as Marco Rubio, US secretary of state, meets with Nayib Bukele during overseas trip

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has offered to accept deportees from the US of any nationality and hold them in his jails, including “dangerous American criminals”, Marco Rubio said on Monday.

The US secretary of state, who this week made his first overseas trip as the top US diplomat, visited El Salvador on Monday as part of a wider trip through Central America and the Caribbean.

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Trump administration says it has begun deporting migrants to Guantánamo Bay

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Press secretary says at least two deportation flights to Cuban base of undocumented immigrants ‘under way’

The Trump administration has begun flying undocumented immigrants from the US to a military detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday.

Leavitt told Fox Business Network that at least two deportation flights were “under way”, but gave no further details.

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China has reacted in kind to Trump’s tariffs, but a deal may still emerge

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Beijing will defend its core interests, but its initial response is more cautious than when Trump imposed levies in 2018

Moments after Donald Trump introduced tariffs of 10% on Chinese goods, Beijing retaliated with countermeasures.

China’s finance ministry put tariffs of 10-15% on imports of a range of US goods and its anti-trust regulator announced an investigation into Google. Several US companies were also added to China’s “unreliable entity” list, potentially restricting their ability to conduct business in the country.

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Ukraine open to exchanging minerals for US military aid, says Zelenskyy

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Germany’s Olaf Scholz criticises Trump’s transactional foreign policy as ‘very selfish, very self-centred’

Ukraine is open to “investment” from allies as long as they help it fight Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says, after Donald Trump demanded Kyiv supply the US with rare earth resources – critical elements used in electronics – in exchange for military aid.

The US president’s proposal has been criticised as exploiting Russia’s invasion for material gain, with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, calling the plan “selfish”. However, Ukrainian media reported that the idea may have originated in Kyiv as an incentive to keep weapon shipments flowing into the country.

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‘It’s been madness’: US federal workers reeling over Trump-Musk takeover

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Office of personnel management workers say anxiety is palpable amid intimidation and threat of dismissal

US government workers are describing an atmosphere of “fear” and “madness” as they grapple with a barrage of executive orders issued by Donald Trump and threats to their jobs from the office of personnel management, the agency tasked with managing the federal civil service, which has been taken over by the billionaire Elon Musk.

Weeks before the administration transition, federal worker unions reported low morale among workers in anticipation of pushes for intimidation, mass firings and harassment.

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Trump personally ordered firings of special counsel prosecutors

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Exclusive: move to purge those who worked for Jack Smith came from Trump, sources say, in show of unchecked power

The US justice department fired more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on the criminal cases against Donald Trump hours after the president directly ordered it from the Oval Office, according to two people familiar with the intervention.

The move to purge people who worked for former special counsel Jack Smith had ostensibly come from the acting attorney general, James McHenry, who sent the formal termination notices that said they could not be trusted to implement Trump’s agenda.

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Scientists brace ‘for the worst’ as Trump purges climate mentions from websites

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Trump administration pulling references online ‘won’t make crisis’ stop affecting Americans’ lives, say experts

Donald Trump’s administration has started to remove or downgrade mentions of the climate crisis across the US government, with the websites of several major departments pulling down references to anything related to the climate crisis. Climate scientists said they were braced “for the worst”.

A major climate portal on the Department of Defense’s website has been scrapped, as has the main climate change section on the site of the Department of State. A climate change page on the White House’s website no longer exists, nor does climate content provided by the US agriculture department, including information that provides vulnerability assessments for wildfires.

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Trump advisers weigh actions to dismantle education department – report

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Officials are discussing executive order as part of efforts by Musk’s Doge team to seize control of federal spending

The Trump administration is weighing executive actions to dismantle the US education department as part of efforts by Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) to seize control of federal spending and slash the size of the government workforce, the Wall Street Journal reported.

US officials have discussed an executive order that would shut down all functions of the education department that are not written explicitly into statute, or move certain functions to other departments, according to the paper, citing sources.

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