Category Archives: US News

Trump to reclassify wide swaths of federal workers to allow for more firings

Posted on by

President announces more employees under ‘Schedule F’ can be hired or fired based on their allegiance to him

Donald Trump on Friday said his administration is implementing a move that will allow far more firings of federal employees and will make significantly more roles into politically appointed positions beholden to the president.

The office of personnel management (OPM) on Friday published a new rule that invokes “Schedule F”, a prior attempt to reclassify wide swaths of federal workers not as civic service roles with protections regardless of who’s in power – but as political appointees who can be hired or fired based on their allegiances to the president.

Continue reading...

Scores killed in US strikes on Yemen fuel port of Ras Isa, Houthi officials say

Posted on by

Death toll reportedly hits 80 with 150 wounded in deadliest attack since Washington launched its campaign

US military strikes on Yemen’s Ras Isa fuel port have killed at least 80 people including civilians and rescue workers, according to the Houthi-run health ministry, in the deadliest attack since Washington launched its campaign against the Iran-backed militants.

The rebels’ Al-Masirah TV, citing local officials, said the toll from the strike had “risen to 80 dead and 150 wounded”.

Continue reading...

What a boob: Texas school district bans Virginia state flag and seal over naked breast

Posted on by

Students in Lamar can no longer learn about the state of Virginia on their online research database due to the ban

Virginia’s state flag and seal, depicting the Roman goddess Virtus standing over a slain tyrant, her drooping toga exposing her left breast, has been banned from younger students in a Texas school district.

The district, Lamar consolidated independent school district, near Houston, took action against the image late last year when it removed a section about Virginia from its online learning platform used by third through fifth graders, typically encompassing ages eight to 11, sparking a row, Axios reported on Thursday.

Continue reading...

Trump ousts IRS chief days after appointment amid Musk-Bessent feud

Posted on by

Treasury secretary Scott Bessent reportedly complained that Gary Shapley had been chosen without his knowledge

Donald Trump is replacing the acting commissioner of the US Internal Revenue Service after treasury secretary Scott Bessent reportedly complained to the president that the agency head had been appointed without his knowledge and under the instruction of Doge leader Elon Musk.

According to a report from the New York Times published on Friday, Bessent believed that the Doge head “had done an end-run around him” to get Gary Shapley installed as the interim head of the IRS, despite the fact that the IRS reports to Bessent. The report cited five anonymous sources with knowledge of the situation.

Continue reading...

Trump team reveals lack of expertise – and patience – as it threatens to abandon Ukraine peace talks

Posted on by

Trump said he could stop war in 24 hours, but team appears daunted by negotiation with ‘a lot of detail attached to it’

One key to a successful negotiation is always being willing to walk away from the table. But it isn’t clear whether the Trump administration has threatened to give up on a Russia-Ukraine peace deal as a negotiating tactic or simply because it lacks the concentration for a complicated negotiation – a shortcoming that has dogged the administration’s foreign policy through its first three months in office.

Standing on a tarmac in Paris, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, issued a threat that the US could simply “move on” from mediating the biggest military conflict in Europe since the second world war. That would be the latest about-face for an administration that has already taken a back seat on negotiating a peace in Gaza and retreated on implementing worldwide tariffs that shook financial markets around the globe earlier this month.

Continue reading...

Senate Democrat meets Ábrego García in El Salvador as legal battles continue – US politics live

Posted on by

Visit by Maryland’s Chris Van Hollen comes as a federal appeals court rules against the Trump’s administration’s efforts to block return to the US

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news over the next few hours.

We start with news that Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen met in El Salvador with Kilmar Ábrego García, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.

James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee, and Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican leadership, have launched an investigation into Harvard University, accusing the university of a “lack of compliance with civil rights laws”.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield.

The supreme court said it will hear arguments next month over Donald Trump’s bid to restrict automatic birthright citizenship.

In their unanimous opinion issued today, a US appeals court warned the Trump administration that battles against the judiciary could undermine public confidence.

After weeks of strong rhetoric, the president told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday that he thought trade deals could be finished in the “next three or four weeks”.

Trump on Thursday extended a government-wide federal hiring freeze that was set to expire this weekend.

The Washington DC headquarters for the Department of Housing and Urban Development may soon be up for sale.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war: Rubio threatens to walk away from peace talks as outline of US minerals deal revealed – as it happened

Posted on by

This blog is now closed, you can read on our report here

The Kremlin said on Friday that some progress had already been made in talks about a possible peace settlement to end the war in Ukraine but that contacts were rather complicated with the United States.

“Contacts are quite complicated, because, naturally, the topic is not an easy one,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “Russia is committed to resolving this conflict, ensuring its own interests, and is open to dialogue. We continue to do this.”

Continue reading...

Drummer for indie rockers the New Pornographers arrested over child sexual abuse images

Posted on by

Joe Seiders in custody following search of home, vehicle and phone, after allegedly attempting to film child in California restaurant restroom

Joe Seiders, the American drummer with Canadian indie rockers the New Pornographers, has been arrested for possession of child sexual abuse imagery.

A statement made by the sheriff’s office of Riverside county, California, alleged that evidence has implicated Seiders in two incidents. On Monday 7 April, an 11-year-old boy reported that a man attempted to film him in a restroom of a fast food restaurant, and on Wednesday 9 April, police officers received another report from the restaurant, that a man was “entering and exiting the restroom with juvenile males at the business”.

Continue reading...

US ready to abandon Ukraine peace deal if there is no progress, says Marco Rubio

Posted on by

Secretary of state threatens to pull plug ‘within days’, as Kyiv says it has signed mineral deal memorandum

The US will abandon its efforts “within days” to broker a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine unless there are clear signs a settlement can be reached, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said, as Kyiv says it has signed a memorandum with the US over a controversial minerals deal.

Speaking in Paris on Friday after meeting European and Ukrainian leaders, Rubio said Donald Trump was still interested in a deal. But he added that the US president had many other priorities around the world and was willing to move on unless there were signs of progress.

Continue reading...

Six Massachusetts hospital workers on same floor report getting brain tumors

Posted on by

Newton-Wellesley hospital president says all six tumors benign as ‘rigorous ongoing investigation’ conducted

The number of staff members who have developed brain tumors while working on the same floor of a Boston-area hospital has increased to at least six, according to the facility’s leadership.

A recent statement attributed to the president of Mass General Brigham’s Newton-Wellesley hospital, Ellen Moloney, said the newly reported tumor was benign, as were five previously documented ones. The statement maintained that investigators had not turned up any evidence of environmental risks at the hospital, though their work remained ongoing.

Continue reading...

Maryland senator meets Kilmar Ábrego García in El Salvador amid battle over US return

Posted on by

Chris Van Hollen posts photo on X but does not provide update on status of man wrongly deported from US

The Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen met in El Salvador with Kilmar Ábrego García, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.

Van Hollen posted a photo of the meeting on X, saying he also called Ábrego García’s wife “to pass along his message of love”.

Continue reading...

Luigi Mangione indicted on federal murder charge over healthcare CEO killing

Posted on by

Suspect, charged with four federal counts, faces separate state charges over death of Brian Thompson in Manhattan

Luigi Mangione was indicted on Thursday on a federal murder charge in the killing of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel last year, a necessary step for prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

The indictment returned by a grand jury in Manhattan federal court also charges Mangione with two counts of stalking and a firearms count.

Continue reading...

Donald Trump ‘expecting to make second state visit to UK in September’

Posted on by

US president and first lady received invitation in February from King Charles for unprecedented repeat trip

Donald Trump has said he is expecting to travel to the UK in September for his second state visit.

King Charles is preparing to host the US president and first lady as the UK government tries to bolster transatlantic ties after Trump imposed a series of tariffs on trading partners.

Continue reading...

Macron hosts ‘excellent’ ceasefire talks with top US, European and Ukrainian officials

Posted on by

Senior diplomats set to meet again in London next week after ‘very productive’ Paris summit to revive stalled efforts

Senior US, European and Ukrainian diplomats will meet again in London next week, the Élysée Palace has said, after what a French official described as an “excellent” day of talks in Paris aimed at reviving stalled ceasefire efforts.

“We have started a positive process in which Europeans are a part,” the spokesperson said after the meetings attended by top British, French, German and Ukrainian officials as well as the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.

Continue reading...

Meloni says Trump to visit Rome after Washington talks over tariffs

Posted on by

Trump praises Italian PM and accepts invitation that could present chance for him to meet other European leaders

Giorgia Meloni said Donald Trump had accepted her invitation for an official trip to Rome, as the pair met in Washington in an attempt by the Italian prime minister to bridge the gap between the EU and US amid trade tariff tensions.

Meloni said Trump’s trip could happen “in the near future” and could present an opportunity for him to meet other European leaders.

Continue reading...

Video shows Ice agents smashing car window to detain asylum seeker

Posted on by

Lawyer says officials were looking for someone else while taking Juan Francisco Mendez in Massachusetts on Monday

A Massachusetts family is demanding answers from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), complaining its agents smashed a car window with a large hammer and detained a man whom they say had applied for asylum.

A lawyer for the family also claims agents were not looking for the man in the car, Juan Francisco Mendez, when they grabbed him on Monday in New Bedford while he was driving to a dental appointment. He is now believed to have been taken into Ice detention.

Continue reading...

Rural communities could be destroyed if UK signs US trade deal, says former food tsar

Posted on by

Exclusive: Henry Dimbleby joins farmers in voicing fears of lower standards and a poor deal for British food producers

Britain’s rural communities could be “destroyed”, the former government food tsar has said, if ministers sign a US trade deal that undercuts British farming standards.

Ministers are working on a new trade deal with the US, after previous post-Brexit attempts stalled. Unpopular agreements signed at the time with Australia and New Zealand featured tariff-free access to beef and lamb and were accused of undercutting UK farmers, who are governed by higher welfare standards than their counterparts. Australia, in a trade deal signed by Liz Truss in late 2021 that came into effect in 2023, was given bespoke sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards aimed to not be more “trade-restrictive than necessary to protect human life and health”.

Continue reading...

Musk’s SpaceX is frontrunner to build Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ missile shield

Posted on by

SpaceX-led group is pitching the Pentagon on a ‘subscription model’ for missile defense

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, six people familiar with the matter said.

Musk’s rocket and satellite company is partnering with the software maker Palantir and the drone builder Anduril on a bid to build key parts of Golden Dome, the sources said, which has drawn significant interest from the technology sector’s burgeoning base of defense startups.

Continue reading...

Cory Booker to visit El Salvador in effort to return wrongly deported man to US

Posted on by

Democrats press Trump administration to follow supreme court order to bring back Kilmar Ábrego García

Cory Booker plans to travel to El Salvador, a source familiar with the New Jersey senator’s itinerary said, as Democrats seek to pressure the Trump administration to return a wrongly deported Maryland resident.

Booker’s trip to the Central American country would come after the Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen traveled there this week to meet with his constituent Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadorian national deported last month in what the Trump administration acknowledged was an “administrative error”. Despite a supreme court ruling saying his administration must “facilitate” Ábrego García’s return, Trump has refused to take steps to do so, and El Salvador’s government on Wednesday denied Van Hollen a meeting with the deportee.

Continue reading...

IRS reportedly planning to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status

Posted on by

Probably illegal move against US’s richest university is latest in Trump’s attack on independence of higher education

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is reportedly planning to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status in what would be a probably illegal move amid Donald Trump’s concerted attack on the independence of US institutions of higher education.

Trump on Tuesday called for Harvard, the US’s oldest and wealthiest university and one of the most prestigious in the world, to lose its tax-exempt status, CNN first reported.

Continue reading...