The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to reduce its work force by more than 80,000 people, according to a memo seen by The New York Times outlining part of President Trump’s escalating efforts to slash the federal bureaucracy. The memo, first reported by the trade publication Government Executive, calls for the department’s work force … Read more
Yesterday, Senate Republicans were quick to give Elon Musk a standing ovation in the House chamber as President Trump heaped praise on his efforts to overhaul the federal government. Today, though, they seized the opportunity to ask him some questions privately: an hour and 45 minutes’ worth of questions, to be exact. Musk’s foray into … Read more
Elon Musk arrived on Wednesday at Senate Republicans’ weekly luncheon on Capitol Hill ready to field questions about the work he is doing for President Trump at the Department of Government Efficiency, the office he formed that has taken a hatchet to the federal bureaucracy with no input from Congress. They had plenty. Republican senators … Read more
The Trump administration said Wednesday it would use a law typically meant to investigate racist practices within police departments to examine whether the University of California system had engaged in a pattern or practice of antisemitic discrimination. The move by the Justice Department comes two days after other federal agencies announced a review of Columbia … Read more
Perhaps no vote was as agonizing for Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican and medical doctor, than his vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as President Trump’s health secretary. Mr. Cassidy wondered aloud for days how Mr. Kennedy, the nation’s most vocal and powerful critic of vaccinations, might handle an infectious disease crisis. Now, … Read more
The U.S. Capitol Police said the chief of staff to Speaker Mike Johnson was arrested for drunken driving on Tuesday night after the top aide backed his car into a parked Capitol Police vehicle. The arrest came soon after President Trump, with Mr. Johnson presiding behind him, finished delivering his first address to a joint … Read more
Thousands of Agriculture Department employees who were fired last month must be reinstated in their old positions for at least 45 days, a board that handles federal worker disputes ordered on Wednesday. The fired employees were on probationary status and relatively new in their positions, swept up in the Trump administration’s push to rapidly reduce … Read more
The F.B.I. arrested an Afghan national charged with playing a role in the deadly 2021 attack on U.S. service members as they carried out a tumultuous evacuation of civilians at Afghanistan’s main airport, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday. The man, Mohammad Sharifullah, is accused of helping a suicide bomber approach the Hamid Karzai International … Read more
The National Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit that has had bipartisan support over decades for its work promoting democracy abroad, is suing the U.S. government and cabinet officials for withholding $239 million in congressional appropriations. Members of the group’s board, which includes current and former Republican and Democratic politicians, said the organization filed the lawsuit … Read more
The Supreme Court’s Wednesday ruling that the Trump administration must heed a lower court’s order to release frozen foreign aid was a welcome but confusing development for humanitarian and development organizations around the world, as they waited to see if thousands of canceled contracts would be restarted. For weeks, the Trump administration has worked to … Read more