Politics

A federal judge further blocked the Trump administration from sharply cutting jobs and reorganizing the structure of many major federal agencies as part of its so-called DOGE effort under billionaire Elon Musk.

The order issued late Thursday granted a preliminary injunction that pauses further reductions in force and “reorganization of the executive branch for the duration of the lawsuit.”

The Trump administration on Friday morning appealed the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and is expected to ask that court to block the injunction from taking effect.

Update 2: https://www.newschannel5.com/us-news/harvard-sues-the-trump-administration-over-ban-on-enrolling-foreign-students

UPDATE (May 23, 2025, 8:33 a.m. ET): Harvard University filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Friday over its termination of the school's student visa program a day earlier.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem personally sent a letter to the university, which she posted to X later Thursday, that read in part, “I am writing to inform you that effective immediately, Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification is revoked.”

This development is extraordinary, but it does not appear out of the blue: In mid-April, while canceling nearly $3 million in DHS grants to Harvard, Noem simultaneously demanded that the university turn over records on foreign students alleged to have engaged in “illegal and violent activities.” Failure to cooperate would jeopardize Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification — which allows schools to admit international students.

Economic activity spurred by the tax breaks—which are largely an extension of soon-to-expire provisions of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax cuts—would increase federal revenues by roughly $103 billion between 2025 and 2034, according to JCT.

That would barely put a dent in the overall projected cost of the tax cuts, bringing it down to $3.7 trillion from $3.8 trillion.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Thursday to prohibit the building of golf courses, hotels and other amenities on state parks, putting an end to a nearly yearlong controversy that united people from across the state and political spectrum in support of preserving public land.

The Florida Senate website showed the bill, House Bill 209, called the “State Park Preservation Act,” as having been signed just before 5 p.m. The governor’s office did not immediately announce the signing, nor did his office respond to an email requesting comment.

The phasing out of the coins will mean businesses will need to round prices up or down, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), who first reported the story.

"Confirming the WSJ story, the Treasury has made its final order of penny blanks this month and the United States Mint will continue to manufacture pennies while an inventory of penny blanks exists," a Treasury spokesperson said.

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction preventing the Trump administration from carrying out mass layoffs within the Department of Education.

The injunction comes nearly two months after President Donald Trump directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon “to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure (of) the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

Additionally, the bill makes significant spending cuts, including to the Medicaid healthcare programme for lower-income Americans as well as Snap, a food assistance programme used by more than 42 million Americans.

These cuts were the subject of intense friction among Republicans, which was finally overcome after the President travelled to Capitol Hill on Tuesday. He privately told lawmakers to put aside their objections or face consequences.

Democrats also fiercely opposed the bill and warned that the cuts could have dire consequences for millions of lower-income Americans.

"Children will get hurt. Women will get hurt. Older Americans who rely on Medicaid for nursing home care and for home care will get hurt," Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, said on the House floor.

For the last 18 months, the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank responsible for Project 2025, has been organizing to quash pro-Palestine activism in the United States, the New York Times reported over the weekend.

The initiative is called Project Esther, and it recommends that government officials instruct college administrators to jettison pro-Palestine curricula or risk losing federal funding. It also called for foreign students who took part in anti-Israel demonstrations to be deported.

Overall, Project Esther says its goal is to “dismantle the infrastructure that sustains the [Hamas Support Network] and associated movements’ antisemitic violence inside the United States of America within 12 to 24 months.”

A deadlocked U.S. Supreme Court effectively blocked the creation of the nation's first religious charter school in Oklahoma, leaving in place a state Supreme Court ruling that declared the school violated the constitutional separation of church and state.

The vote was 4-4, and the order did not specify which justice voted which way. Justice Amy Coney Barrett had recused herself from the case.

At issue in the case were two Catholic dioceses in Oklahoma that tried to establish a publicly funded Catholic school, St. Isidore of Seville, as a charter school. That move challenged both the federal charter school law and similar state laws under which charter schools are public schools that are funded by the state, closely supervised by the state, and must be non-sectarian.

Buma was arrested on 17 March 2025, just weeks after Trump’s new director of the FBI, Kash Patel, had been confirmed in his role. Buma said he was at Kennedy airport awaiting a flight to the UK, where he planned to have a meeting with the HarperCollins publisher Arabella Pike, when he was suddenly surrounded by agents. He was released on bail the next day.

The bail included a restriction that he refrain from excessive use of alcohol. This restriction appears to arise from an October 2023 text message reviewed by the FBI. Buma denies drinking excessively.

His meeting with Pike was canceled by the publisher after his arrest, according to a screenshot of a text message seen by the Guardian. Pike did not respond to a request for comment.

Buma was arraigned in Los Angeles weeks after his arrest, on 1 May, and charged with a single misdemeanor. US prosecutors have claimed Buma “knowingly published, divulged, disclosed, and made known” the identity and personal identifying information of an individual who was a confidential FBI source.

All of the trades came shortly before a significant government announcement or development that could influence stock prices. Some who sold individual stocks or broader market funds used their earnings to buy investments that are generally less risky, such as bonds or treasuries. Others appear to have kept their money in cash. In one case unrelated to tariffs, records show that a congressional aide bought stock in two mining companies shortly before a key Senate committee approved a bill written by his boss that would help the firms.

• Attorney General Pam Bondi sold between $1 million and $5 million worth of shares of Trump Media, the president’s social media company, on April 2.
• US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene bought between $21,000 and $315,000 of stock the day before and the day of the announcement.
• Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, sold shares in almost three dozen companies on Feb. 11, two days before Trump announced plans to institute wide-ranging “reciprocal” tariffs.
• Acting General Council for the White House Tobias Dorsey sold shares of an index fund and nine companies, including cleaning products manufacturer Clorox and engineering firm Emerson Electric the day before the tariffs were confirmed.
• The Trade Representative's, Director for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement Marshall Stallings, sold between $2,000 and $30,000 of stock in retail giant Target and mining company Freeport-McMoRan. The sales appear to have been an abrupt U-turn. He had purchased the shares less than a week earlier.
• A longtime State Department official, Stephanie Syptak-Ramnath, who until April was ambassador to Peru, sold between $255,000 and $650,000 in stocks, and bought between $265,000 and $650,000 in bond and treasury funds (along with $50,000 to $100,000 in stocks). She continued to play the market through the news.
• A second longtime State Department official, Gautam Rana, who is now ambassador to Slovakia, sold between $830,000 and $1.7 million worth of stock on March 19, a week before Trump declared new tariffs on cars and two weeks before his “Liberation Day” announcement.
• Michael Platt, a veteran Republican staffer who served in the Commerce Department during Trump’s first term and now works for the House committee that handles administrative matters for the chamber sold off between $96,000 and $390,000 in mostly American companies, and purchased at least $45,000 in foreign stocks and at least $15,000 in an American and Canadian energy index fund. He used an account under his wife's name.
• Stephanie Trifone, a Senate Judiciary Committee aide, sold stock in mid-March and bought at least $50,000 in treasuries.
• Kevin Wheeler, a staffer for the Senate Appropriations Committee, made a similar move. In late February, he and his spouse offloaded between $18,000 and $270,000 in funds composed almost entirely of stocks and bought between $50,000 and $225,000 in bonds.
• Another staffer, Ryan White, chief of staff to Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, bought shares worth between $2,000 and $30,000 in two precious metals mining companies two days before Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement. Also, a bill White’s boss introduced to make it easier for mining companies like Hecla and Coeur to operate on public lands was approved by a Senate committee, an important step in passing a bill. (White added to his Hecla shares earlier this month and sold his stake in Coeur.)

In March, Oyer was asked to make a recommendation to Attorney General Pam Bondi to reinstate actor Mel Gibson’s gun rights, which were rescinded after a domestic violence conviction in 2011. Oyer reviewed the case and refused. Within hours, she says she was terminated.

Last month, Oyer testified about her firing in front of Congress. She not only accused the Department of Justice of “ongoing corruption” and abuses of power, but she also said the administration tried to send armed US marshals to her home carrying a letter warning her against testifying. Oyer says it felt like “an attempt to display the power of the Department of Justice” and “make me afraid of telling the truth about the circumstances leading up to my termination.”

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday that the Republican legislation speeding through the U.S. House of Representatives would cut household resources for the bottom 10% of Americans while delivering gains to the wealthiest in the form of tax breaks.

The CBO also said Tuesday that the Republican reconciliation package, which Trump has championed, would trigger automatic cuts to Medicare spending—reductions that the nonpartisan body did not factor into its distributional analysis.

The CBO's analysis also did not include the impact of a tentative deal to boost the cap on state and local tax deductions (SALT), a change that would primarily benefit wealthy households.

“By restricting vaccine access to caregivers who don’t meet age or high-risk criteria,” said Jason Resendez, CEO of the National Alliance for Caregiving, “the FDA creates a dangerous public health gap, as unvaccinated caregivers face increased risk of contracting and transmitting Covid-19 to the older adults and seriously ill individuals who depend on their care.”

A federal suit filed in Illinois in November by five Minto Money borrowers contends that McGraw has provided “tens of millions of dollars” in capital for the loans. CreditServe provides the infrastructure to market, underwrite and collect on them while “the Tribe is merely a front” and shares in only a small percentage of the revenue, according to the suit.

It called McGraw the “enterprise’s principal beneficiary,” asserting that he and CreditServe’s CEO, Eric Welch, have collected “hundreds of millions of dollars of payments made by consumers.”

The suit alleged that McGraw and the other defendants, including Minto Money, violated state usury laws and federal prohibitions against collecting unlawful debt. A confidential settlement resolved the lawsuit in early May but left open the possibility that other Minto Money customers could file similar suits in the future.

“This loan is outrageous with interest over 700%!” one person complained to the Better Business Bureau about having paid $4,167 on a $1,200 loan from Minto Money. “I am one step away from filing from bankruptcy.”

President Donald Trump's use of the Guantanamo Bay naval base to house migrants appears to cost $100,000 per day for each detainee, U.S. Senator Gary Peters said during a hearing on Tuesday, decrying what he described as a prime example of wasteful government spending.

Peters, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, questioned Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about the high cost, far more than the $165 per day in U.S. immigration detention facilities. Peters also asked why detainees have been sent to the American naval base in Cuba but then shuttled back to the United States at taxpayer expense.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were roughly 70 migrants currently detained there.

They included measures like enhanced training, accountability, and improved data collection of police activity.

Around 70% of the department's lawyers have quit, according to current and former officials who spoke to NPR, over concerns of its changing priorities under the new Trump administration.

Edit: NPR had a more thorough list:

The Justice Department said it would also close investigations of police in six other jurisdictions:

• Phoenix, Arizona

• Trenton, New Jersey

• Memphis, Tennessee

• Mount Vernon, New York

• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

• Louisiana State Police

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/21/nx-s1-5406262/trump-administration-dismisses-police-investigations-minneapolis-george-floyd

The hearing took place as the deported men sat on a plane in South Sudan. The judge on Tuesday ordered that they not be discharged from U.S. custody without his permission.

Murphy said he would consider whether the administration’s conduct was “criminally contemptuous” but would save that determination for another day.

UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest healthcare conglomerate, has secretly paid nursing homes thousands in bonuses to help slash hospital transfers for ailing residents – part of a series of cost-cutting tactics that has saved the company millions, but at times risked residents’ health, a Guardian investigation has found.

Those secret bonuses have been paid out as part of a UnitedHealth program that stations the company’s own medical teams in nursing homes and pushes them to cut care expenses for residents covered by the insurance giant.

In several cases identified by the Guardian, nursing home residents who needed immediate hospital care under the program failed to receive it, after interventions from UnitedHealth staffers. At least one lived with permanent brain damage following his delayed transfer, according to a confidential nursing home incident log, recordings and photo evidence.

U.S. President Donald Trump's Justice Department announced Monday that it is pursuing assault charges against a Democratic congresswoman from New Jersey who took part in an oversight visit at a privately run migrant detention center in Newark earlier this month.

In a statement, Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba announced the charges against U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), claiming the lawmaker "assaulted, impeded, and interfered with law enforcement" at GEO Group's Delaney Hall. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) awarded GEO Group a billion-dollar contract earlier this year to detain migrants there, even as the facility faced legal challenges and accusations of abuse.

McIver rejected the charges against her as "purely political," saying that "they mischaracterize and distort my actions" in an attempt to "criminalize and deter legislative oversight."

"They wouldn't be able to install the kinds of capabilities you typically find on an Air Force One," said Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, describing a retrofit timeline of less than four years.

"In terms of encrypted communications, to electronic warfare, to back-up power systems — it wouldn't have any of that in that time frame," Aboulafia said. "Anybody on that jet would be advised to use burner phones and watch what they say."

Nicholas Veronico, a former NASA contractor who worked on 747s and is an author of a book on Air Force One, agreed that a shorter timeframe would be problematic.

"If the conversion can be done within a year and President Trump is flying around the world in this new less-than-Air-Force-One Air Force One, then he's flying in a compromised airplane. And we're putting our president at risk," Veronico said.

To try to tackle this, the Welsh Labour government, alongside Plaid Cymru, introduced measures to curb second-home ownership. This included giving councils the ability to push council tax on second homes to 300% the usual rate. They also closed a loophole whereby second-home owners could register as a business in order to pay the much lower business rates.

Gwynedd council used these powers to hike council tax to 150% in April 2023. By the end of 2024, house prices had fallen by 12.4% as second-home owners tried to sell up. In Pembrokeshire, house prices fell by 8.9% after the council increased the council tax to 200% on second homes (though this was reduced to 150% recently).

“In terms of political spending, I’m going to do a lot less in the future,” he said in a video interview at the Qatar Economic Forum. “I think I’ve done enough.”

“If I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it,” he added. “I do not currently see a reason.”

To that point, polling and other research from PRRI shows that a large percentage of Americans have an authoritarian personality. A 2024 report from PRRI details how:

While most Americans do not hold highly authoritarian views, a substantial minority does: 43% of Americans score high on the Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale (RWAS), while 41% score high on the Child-Rearing Authoritarianism Scale (CRAS).

Two-thirds of Republicans score high on the RWAS (67%) compared with 35% of independents, and 28% of Democrats. Republicans who hold favorable views of Trump are 36 percentage points more likely than those with unfavorable views of Trump to score high on the RWAS (75% vs. 39%).

This political personality type and its social dominance orientation is overrepresented among right-wing Christians. PRRI continues: “White evangelical Protestants (64%) are the religious group most likely to score high on the RWAS, followed by smaller majorities of Hispanic Protestants (54%) and white Catholics (54%). A majority of weekly churchgoers (55%) score high on the RWAS, compared with 44% of Americans who attend church a few times a year and 38% of those who never attend church services.”

A series of polls and other research has found that Republicans, and Trump followers specifically, are more likely than Democrats to want a leader who is willing to break the rules and disobey the law to get things done for “people like them.” Research also shows that Republicans and MAGA followers embrace authoritarianism, including ending American democracy if white people like them are not the most powerful group.