Sunday, Mar 09th
Last update08:31:17 AM GMT
U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole had extended the time frame for federal employees to decide whether to take the unusual offer, which gives employees eight months of pay and benefits if they wish to depart government.
In a Wednesday ruling, O’Toole found that the unions who had sued over the directive did not have standing to do so.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II, the first Middle Eastern leader to meet with President Donald Trump since he announced his intention to take over the Gaza Strip, deflected questions about the plan to displace Palestinians as he tried to avoid a public face-to-face confrontation with Trump.
Abdullah, who dismissed Trump’s Gaza proposal when it was announced last week, told Trump at the White House on Tuesday — with members of the press in the room — that he would accept 2,000 sick Palestinian children from Gaza while punting the question of broader resettlement to Egypt.
Trump, who threatened Monday to withhold U.S. aid to Jordan if the country continued its opposition to taking in masses of Palestinians of all ages, appeared placated by the king’s more limited overture during Tuesday’s Oval Office meeting.
“That’s really a beautiful gesture. That’s really good, and we appreciate it,” Trump said. “That’s music to my ears.”
U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that Ukraine could lose its sovereignty to Russia, and said he wanted compensation for the aid that Washington had provided to Ukraine.
″[Ukraine] may make a deal. They may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday. But we’re going to have all this money in there [Ukraine] and I say, I want it back,” Trump said in a Fox News interview that aired Monday.
The president also said that the U.S. had “essentially agreed” a deal with Ukraine that would see Washington receive rare earth and mineral resources — which are used predominantly in electronics — in return for ongoing support.
“I told them that I want the equivalent of like $500 billion worth of rare earth (minerals), and they’ve ssentially agreed to do that,” Trump told the broadcaster.
The FBI on Tuesday said it had discovered 2,400 new records related to the assassination of former president John F Kennedy as federal agencies work to comply with Donald Trump’s executive order last month to release thousands of files.
The FBI said it’s working to transfer the records to the National Archives and Records Administration to be included in the declassification process.
The federal government in the early 1990s mandated that all documents related to the 22 November 1963 assassination be housed in a single collection at the National Archives. And while the vast majority of the collection – over 5m records – has been made public, researchers estimate that 3,000 files haven’t been released, either in whole or in part.
The Associated Press said it was barred from sending a reporter to Tuesday’s Oval Office executive order signing in an effort to “punish” the agency for its style guidance on upholding the use of the name of the Gulf of Mexico, in lieu of Donald Trump’s preferred name for the geographic landmark as the Gulf of America.
AP’s executive editor, Julie Pace, said in a statement: “As a global news organization, The Associated Press informs billions of people around the world every day with factual, nonpartisan journalism.”
The 63-year-old, whom U.S. authorities had designated as wrongfully detained, was found guilty by a Russian court in 2022 and sentenced to 14 years for a minor marijuana infraction ― a harsher punishment than Russia has given to some convicted murderers.
“By tonight, Marc Fogel will be on American soil and reunited with his family and loved ones thanks to President Trump’s leadership,” Waltz said in a statement, noting that Fogel was released as part of a prisoner exchange negotiated by U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who flew him home on his plane.
Joined by Elon Musk in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that seeks to significantly reduce the size of government by instructing heads of federal departments and agencies to undertake plans for "large-scale reductions in force."
Trump's newest order directs the federal government to implement a "workforce optimization initiative" created by Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, which has been moving rapidly from one department to another to slash spending and gut programs.
"It's not optional to reduce federal expenses, it's essential," Musk, wearing a black MAGA hat and joined by his son, X, said in remarks standing next to Trump, who was seated behind the Resolute Desk. Musk called the federal bureaucracy an "unelected, fourth, unconstitutional branch of government" that must be held accountable.
Plastic straws, high flow toilets and incandescent light bulbs could make comebacks as President Donald Trump works to end previous environmental standards.
Trump called for "common sense standards on LIGHTBULBS" on his social media platform Truth Social on Tuesday, and said he was instructing Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Lee Zeldin to immediately change the requirements.
The same posting called for new standards pertaining to showers, toilets, washing machines and dishwashers.
High-efficiency toilet standards were first set in 1992 under President George H.W. Bush. They required that new toilets not exceed 1.6 gallons of water used per flush. At the same time faucets and showers were capped at 2.5 gallons per minute.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday lost the latest round in a court battle over his administration's bid to freeze federal spending after an appeals court declined to pause a court order requiring the government to continue delivering funds.
The U.S. Department of Justice had asked the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late on Monday to put on hold an order that a Rhode Island federal judge issued earlier that day, after finding the administration had defied his January 31 ruling by continuing to withhold billions of dollars in federal funding.
The 1st Circuit said in a two-page opinion that it was confident the lower court would quickly clarify the concerns the government cited in its filing, including that the order bars the president from exercising his lawful authority.
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