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President-elect Donald Trump announces that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency” in his second administration.

“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump said in a statement.

The CEO of the US health insurance company UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, is shot and killed in Midtown Manhattan, New York City outside an entrance to the New York Hilton Midtown.

Thompson had faced criticism for the company's rejection of insurance claims.  Under his leadership, UHC's profits increased from $12 billion in 2021 to $16 billion in 2023. In 2023 he received a total compensation package of $10.2 million, a combination of $1 million in base pay and cash and stock grants.

UHC and other insurers were named in an October 2024 report from the United States Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations showing a surge in prior authorization denials for Medicare Advantage patients.

The words "delay", "deny", and "depose" were inscribed on the cartridge cases used during the shooting.

Authorities arrest 26-year-old Luigi Mangione in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and charge him in a Manhattan court with Thompson's killing. 

Mangione wrote online that he suffers from spondylolisthesis and Lyme disease. He allegedly underwent a spinal fusion surgery in July 2023. He was not insured with UHC.

On December 17, 2024, Mangione is indicted on eleven New York state charges by the Manhattan district attorney's office.

• Murder in the first degree (murder in furtherance of an act of terrorism as defined under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001)
• Murder in the second degree as a crime of terrorism (a crime of terrorism under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, in the form of murder)
• Murder in the second degree (murder as such – intentional killing)
• Criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (possession of a loaded firearm with intent to use the same unlawfully against another)
• Criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (unlicensed carrying of a loaded firearm)
• Criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree (possession of an "assault weapon" under the gun laws in New York)
• Criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree (silencer)
• Criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree (Glock magazine)
• Criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree (Magpul magazine)
• Criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree (3D-printed gun)
• Criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree (fake ID)

On December 19, 2024, Mangione receives an additional four federal charges.

• Stalking (interstate via traveling from Georgia to New York) 
• Stalking (interstate via use of a cellphone and the Internet) 
• Murder through use of a firearm 
• Firearms offense 

ICE reports that more than 271,000 unauthorized immigrants were deported in fiscal year 2024.

 On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signs an executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization (WHO). 

The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for global public health.  WHO works with all Member States to support them to achieve the highest standard of health for all people. Their staff working in countries advise ministries of health and other sectors on public health issues and provide support to plan, implement and monitor health programs.

On January 20, 2025, the Trump Administration rescinded a Biden-era policy that protected certain area such as churches, school, and hospitals from immigration enforcement, replacing it with an unreleased directive that gives ICE agents unbridled power to take enforcement actions in any of these spaces using so-called “common sense.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said it arrested 956 people on this day. But an NBC News report found immigration authorities had close to 1,200 arrests that day and just 613, or nearly 52% were considered "criminal arrests".

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said it arrested 1,179 people and 853 detainers were lodged Monday. 

A deferred resignation email was sent out to government employees on 1/28/2025. 

Main text of the letter (after modified dates to extend the date 2/10/25) below.

During the first week of his administration, President Trump issued a number of directives concerning the federal workforce. Among those directives, the President required that employees return to in-person work, restored accountability for employees who have policy-making authority, restored accountability for senior career executives, and reformed the federal hiring process to focus on merit. As a result of the above orders, the reform of the federal workforce will be significant.

The reformed federal workforce will be built around four pillars:

1)Return to Office: The substantial majority of federal employees who have been working remotely since Covid will be required to return to their physical offices five days a week. Going forward, we also expect our physical offices to undergo meaningful consolidation and divestitures, potentially resulting in physical office relocations for a number of federal workers.

2)Performance culture: The federal workforce should be comprised of the best America has to offer. We will insist on excellence at every level — our performance standards will be updated to reward and promote those that exceed expectations and address in a fair and open way those who do not meet the high standards which the taxpayers of this country have a right to demand.

3)More streamlined and flexible workforce: While a few agencies and even branches of the military are likely to see increases in the size of their workforce, the majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force. These actions are likely to include the use of furloughs and the reclassification to at-will status for a substantial number of federal employees.

4)Enhanced standards of conduct: The federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy, and who strive for excellence in their daily work. Employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability and conduct as we move forward. Employees who engage in unlawful behavior or other misconduct will be prioritized for appropriate investigation and discipline, including termination.

Each of the pillars outlined above will be pursued in accordance with applicable law, consistent with your agency's policies, and to the extent permitted under relevant collective-bargaining agreements.

If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus on serving the American people to the best of your abilities and look forward to working together as part of an improved federal workforce. At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions.

If you choose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to your country and you will be provided with a dignified, fair departure from the federal government utilizing a deferred resignation program. This program begins effective January 28 and is available to all federal employees until February 10. If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason). The details of this separation plan can be found below.

Whichever path you choose, we thank you for your service to The United States of America.

*********************************************************************

Upon review of the below deferred resignation letter, if you wish to resign:

1)Select “Reply” to this email. You must reply from your government account. A reply from an account other than your .gov or .mil account will not be accepted.

2)Type the word “Resign” into the body of this reply email. Hit “Send”.

THE LAST DAY TO ACCEPT THE DEFERRED RESIGNATION PROGRAM IS FEBRUARY 10, 2025.

Deferred resignation is available to all full-time federal employees except for military personnel of the armed forces, employees of the U.S. Postal Service, those in positions related to immigration enforcement and national security, and those in any other positions specifically excluded by your employing agency.

The City of Olympia declares itself a sanctuary city for LGBTQIA2S+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and trans, queer and questioning, intersex, asexual or agender, and two-spirit) people.

More than 3,000 pages of health information were removed from the CDC's website, including health information pertaining to reproductive, LGBTQ+, gender and racial health have all been taken down. 

Singer. (2/2/25), The New York Times. 

Archivists worked quickly to collect and save data before it could be deleted.  

More than 3,000 pages were removed from the Census Bureau, the vast majority of which are research and methodology articles. Other missing pages include data stewardship policies and documentation for several data sets and surveys.

Singer. (2/2/25), The New York Times.  

More than 1,000 pages from the Office of Justice Programs have been removed, including a feature on teenage dating violence and a blog post about grants that have gone toward combating hate crimes.

Singer. (2/2/25), The New York Times. 

More than 200 pages have been removed from Head Start, a program for low-income children, including advice on helping families establish routines and videos about preventing postpartum depression.

Singer. (2/2/25), The New York Times.  

More than 180 pages from the Department of Justice have been removed, including all state-level hate crime data and seven pages discussing anti-L.G.B.T.Q. hate crimes.

Singer. (2/2/25), The New York Times.  

About 150 pages from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration have been removed, including more than 50 press announcements about the use of the National Disaster Distress Helpline in the aftermath of shootings or natural disasters.

Singer. (2/2/25), The New York Times. 

More than 100 pages have been removed from the Food and Drug Administration website, including more than 60 regulatory guidelines on topics such as increasing diversity in clinical trials and the potential for addiction and abuse in drug trials.

Singer. (2/2/25), The New York Times.  

About 50 research papers from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information have been removed. The removed papers span multiple fields, including optics, chemistry and experimental medicine.

Singer. (2/2/25), The New York Times.  

More than 25 pages from the Internal Revenue Service have been removed, including the transcript of a video titled “Here’s how to avoid I.R.S. penalties and interest” and the form private schools must submit annually to certify that they have not engaged in racially discriminatory behavior.

Singer. (2/2/25), The New York Times.  

20 web pages from the National Institute of Standards and Technology website have been removed, including a page detailing the organization’s zero tolerance harassment policy.

Singer. (2/2/25), The New York Times.  

18 pages from the Health Resources and Services Administration website have been removed, including a tool kit to care for women with opioid addictions and an FAQ about the Mpox vaccine.

Singer. (2/2/25), The New York Times.  

18 pages from the U.S Patent and Trademark Office website have been removed, including pages about veterans' innovation and entrepreneurship and a program to teach high schoolers about intellectual property.

Singer. (2/2/25), The New York Times.  

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signs off on a plan to give access to the payment system to a team led by Tom Krause, the CEO of Cloud Software Group, who is now working for the Treasury Department and serves as a liaison to Musk’s DOGE group that operates out of the United States Digital Service.  

The Defense Department implements a new "annual media rotation program," which means legacy media outlets lose their longtime Pentagon workspaces to other publications closely aligned with the Trump administration.

The New York Times, NBC, National Public Radio, and Politico must vacate their office space in the building.

The space will now be assigned to The New York Post, Breitbart News, One America News Network, and The Huffington Post.

President Trump announced 25% additional tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico and a 10% additional tariff on imports from China.  He announced that energy resources from Canada would have a lower 10% tariff.

Important information regarding Energy Resources from Canada:

• Canadian energy supports millions of jobs in the U.S. 
• Canada supplies about 20% of total U.S. crude oil demand – more than all OPEC members and Gulf States combined.
• Canada supplies approximately 9% of U.S. natural gas demand.
• Approximately one-quarter of U.S. uranium imports come from Canada, fueling reactors that supply electricity to about 1 in 21 American homes.
• Canada exports enough electricity to power more than 6 million U.S. homes.
• Over 35 major electricity transmission lines and 70 oil and gas pipelines cross the Canadian-American border. 
• In 2023, the value of Canada-U.S. energy trade was US$153.7 billion (CA$220.6 billion) with Canada buying US$30 billion (CA$43.1 billion) of U.S. energy products.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces retaliatory tariffs against the US, stating that Canada would impose a 25% tariff on US goods, some effective on 2/2/25 and others in 3 weeks.

The tariffs came after Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on Canadian goods imported to the US.

Trump and the leaders of Mexico and Canada announced deals to forestall a potential trade war for 30 days as both countries agreed to boost efforts to boost border security and combat drug trafficking. In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum committed specifically to deploy 10,000 national guard members to the U.S.-Mexico border. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaches an agreement with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele that El Salvador would accept U.S. deportees of any nationality, including American citizens and legal residents who are imprisoned for violent crimes.

The president states that nearly 2 million Palestinians should be relocated from battle-leveled Gaza to new homes elsewhere so that the US could send troops to the Strip, take ownership and build the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

“You build really good quality housing, like a beautiful town, like some place where they can live and not die, because Gaza is a guarantee that they’re going to end up dying,” 

Under direction of President Trump, the Army Corps of Engineers released water from two reservoirs in the Sierra Nevada, Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Success Lake.

“Local water managers on the Kaweah and Tule rivers had to move equipment and alert farms about possible flooding with only an hour’s notice,” Kaweah River Water Master Victor Hernandez said, calling the situation “alarming and scary.” He also spoke about how this water is used for irrigation needs.“We need to keep every bit that we have, because this potentially is irrigation water that we have up there,” 

The Corps said the water was released due to Trump’s executive order related to the California wildfires, though the two major blazes are now 100% contained.

“Today, 1.6 billion gallons and, in 3 days, it will be 5.2 billion gallons,” Trump said in regards to the released water. “Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory! I only wish they listened to me six years ago – There would have been no fire!”

50501 protests take place across the United States. 50501 stands for 50 protests, 50 states, one day.

Thousands of people gathered to protest.

First deportation flight carrying immigrants from the U.S. to Guantanamo Bay is made. 

Despite the Democrat's 30-hour-long protest against Vought's nomination, delivering speeches in the middle of the night on 2/5/25 in an attempt to delay the confirmation vote, the Senate confirmed Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Russell Vought was one of the authors of Project 2025.  

The National Endowment for the Arts released a Press Release stating that The Challenge America opportunity is canceled for FY 2026. 

Challenge America grants were awarded to reach historically underserved communities with rich and dynamic cultural identities. These grants primarily supported small and mid-sized organizations for projects that extend the reach of the arts to populations with limited access due to geography, ethnicity, economics, or disability. 

The press release also states that "Under the updated guidelines, the NEA continues to encourage projects that celebrate the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity by honoring the semiquincentennial of the United States of America (America250). This can include incorporating an America250-related component or focus within a larger project. " 

Russell Vought named acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he has directed staff to not issue any new rules, to suspend effective dates of all final rules and to stop any new investigations. 

As of February 7, 2025, approximately 35 lawsuits have been filed against Trump's 46 Executive Orders, according to Just Security and the Federal Register.

The New York Post reports that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have made 11,000 arrests in the first 18 days of the Trump administration.

Google removes events like Pride month, Black History Month, Indigenous People Month, Jewish Heritage Month, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Hispanic Heritage Month from its default calendar.

Google claims that this was done mid-2024 and that “Maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn’t scalable or sustainable.” 

In case you needed to know:

• Roe vs. Wade Day is January 22 
• Martin Luther King Jr. Day on the third Monday of January
• Holocaust Remembrance Day is January 27
• Black History Month is February
• Women in Science Day is February 11
• League of Women Voters Day is February 14 
• Women's History Month is March
• National Black Women in Jazz and the Arts Day is March 1 
• World Day of Fight Against Sexual Exploitation is March 4 
• International Women’s Day is March 8  
• Arab American Heritage Month is April
• Jewish Heritage Month is May
• Asia Pacific American Heritage Month is May
• Pride month is June
• Caribbean American Heritage Month is June
• Juneteenth
• Hispanic Heritage Month is September 15 - October 15
• Diversity Awareness Month is October
• Filipino American Heritage Month is October
• Polish American Heritage Month is October
• National Disability Employment Awareness Month is October
• American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month is November

 19-year-old Edward Corristine is now a senior adviser at the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

Coristine is a high school graduate with a history of launching startups. According to Wired, in 2022, he worked briefly for Path Network, a network monitoring company known for hiring former hackers.  That same year, an individual using a Telegram alias linked to Coristine reportedly sought out a cyberattack-for-hire service.

He was fired from an internship at the firmPath Network after he was accused of sharing information with a competitor.

One of Coristine's ventures, Tesla.Sexy LLC, manages dozens of web domains, including Russian-registered sites. One of these sites provides an AI-powered Discord bot operating in Russia, per Wired.

Coristine worked at Musk's Neuralink before joining DOGE, where he has reportedly participated in meetings reviewing government personnel and code.

Edward Coristine’s father is Charles Coristine, the CEO of Lesser Evil, a healthy snack brand. 

The White House announces that it dismissed Colleen Shogan, but her permanent replacement has yet to be announced. 

Colleen Shogan is the first woman to serve as national archivist.

She confirmed her dismissal in a post on LinkedIn on February 7th.. “This evening, President Trump fired me. No cause or reason was cited. It has been an honor serving as the 11th Archivist of the United States. I have zero regrets—I absolutely did my best every day for the National Archives and the American people.” 

She may not be the last to go. It is believed that Trump has a list, compiled by advisers, of National Archives staff they think should be purged.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation's record keeper. Of all documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States federal government, only 1%-3% are so important for legal or historical reasons that they are kept by us forever. 

Size of permanent archival holdings:

• 13.5 billion pieces of paper
• More than 725,000 artifacts
• More than 450 million feet of film, or about 85,302 miles (enough to circle the earth almost 3.4 times)
• 41 million photographs
• 40 million aerial images
• 10 million maps, charts, and architectural/ engineering drawings
• More than 33 billion electronic records (837 terabytes) 

New archival holdings: In 2024, the National Archives accessioned 88,498 cubic feet of analog records and 463 terabytes of electronic records into the permanent archival collection.

Without guidance and protection, the preservation of American History is at risk. "

Federal Judge Paul Engelmayer's order, citing a risk of “irreparable harm,” temporarily restricts Elon Musk’s government efficiency team from accessing a critical Treasury Department payment system.

This order temporarily halts access to a sensitive payment system that distributes Americans’ tax returns, Social Security benefits, disability payments and federal employees’ salaries. The judge also ordered the destruction of any downloaded information from the payment system by anyone given access to it since January 20.

Federal Judge Carl Nichol blocked the Trump administration from orchestrating its plan to place 2,200 employees of the United States Agency for International Development on leave at midnight.

The judge issued a temporary restraining order that prevents Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency from placing the employees on administrative leave as had been planned. The judge also ordered the reinstatement of some 500 USAID workers who had already been put on administrative leave and ordered that no USAID employees should be evacuated from their host countries before Feb. 14 at 11:59 p.m.

 Members of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team obtain “administrator” email accounts at the Department of Education. 

Local residents, alerted by Facebook posts, confronted and drove off neo-Nazi demonstrators waving large swastika-emblazoned flags along a highway overpass on Friday between Lincoln Heights and Evendale, Ohio.

Dozens of residents approached the neo-Nazis and took one of their flags, which they later set on fire.  

The confrontation lasted just minutes before the demonstrators hurriedly ran off in their U-Haul. 

Judge Kenneth Gonzales of the Federal District Court for New Mexico granted a preemptive restraining order to block the U.S. government from sending three Venezuelan men detained in the state from being sent to a military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

President Trump said he will introduce 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports on 2/10/25 in an ongoing escalation of a trade war with trading partners including the U.S.’s closest neighbors. 

American rapper Kendrick Lamar, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for his music, performs the half-time show at Super Bowl LIX.

Lamar's performance layered symbolism and imagery to call attention to Black history and the current situation in America. This included:

• Lamar beginning his performance on one knee
• Having Samuel Jackson as Uncle Sam saying such things as "This is the great American game", "Too loud! Too reckless! Too ghetto!" and "That's what America wants - nice and calm"
• Serena Williams crip walking onstage during his performance (a reference to her being called out for doing a crip walk at Wimbledon stadium in 2012 when she won her first gold medal)
• References to the squid games
• Black power fists in the choreography
• Numerous American flag visual images made by the Black dancers dressed in red, white and blue
• Using the phrases "forty acres and a mule", "the revolution will be televised", and "turn the tv off".  

President Trump attended Super Bowl LIX, becoming the first American President to do so.

Trump announced the dismissal of 18 board members, including the chair, from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC; he also installed Richard Grenell as “interim executive director” in an attempt to align programming at the prestigious cultural center with Trump’s own political agenda. 

Trump wrote on Truth Social, “I am pleased to announce that Ric Grenell will serve as the Interim Executive Director of The Kennedy Center. Ric shares my Vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American Arts and Culture, and will be overseeing the daily operations of the Center. NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA - ONLY THE BEST. RIC, WELCOME TO SHOW BUSINESS!” 

Trump has never seen a performance at the Kennedy Center.  

“I got reports it was so bad. I didn’t want to go. There was nothing I wanted to see.” 

The Kennedy Center's Current Social Credo is as follows.

"As the Nation’s Cultural Center, the Kennedy Center's objective is to invite art into the lives of all Americans and ensure it represents the cultural diversity of America. Our mission is to fulfill inspiration for all. We do this by creating a welcoming and inclusive culture where everyone belongs and benefits, and the performing arts flourish.

We commit to delivering on this vision of unity and inclusion. We will always use our performances, educational initiatives, and Social Impact program to practice inclusion and representation of our shared aspirations and collective culture as Americans.

At the Kennedy Center, our work is to empower artists and community. Our work is to produce impactful performances and perform with the civic good in mind as we activate all our spaces, including the REACH, the Center’s new expansion. Our work is to deploy the artist intellect to examine and depict our culture. We wish to leave no one out of the dialogue. We invite all of you to join us in this important undertaking.

The Kennedy Center's Social Impact programming seeks to firmly establish the Center as a champion and resource for all communities and ensure our programs, artists, staff, and audiences reflect the full spectrum of America. Multiculturalism is one of our nation’s greatest assets and has been the soul of our artistic output for generations. At the Kennedy Center, we strive for this every day."

The American Bar Association releases a statement in response to recent events.  This statement includes the following: 

"The American Bar Association supports the rule of law. That means holding governments, including our own, accountable under law. We stand for a legal process that is orderly and fair. We have consistently urged the administrations of both parties to adhere to the rule of law. We stand in that familiar place again today. And we do not stand alone. Our courts stand for the rule of law as well. "

Link to the full statement below.

The Army and other service branches have stopped recruiting efforts at a prestigious Black engineering event held the weekend of February 1 , overlooking numerous highly qualified candidates as part of President Donald Trump's purge of diversity initiatives in the military.

Until this week, Army Recruiting Command had a long-standing public partnership with the Black Engineer of the Year Awards, or BEYA, an annual conference that draws students, academics and professionals in STEM.

Organizations and companies that contract with USAID sue President Donald Trump's administration over what they called its unlawful moves to dismantle the U.S. foreign aid agency.

In the lawsuit the plaintiffs said Trump lacks the legal authority to shut down a federal agency established by Congress or to refuse to spend money that U.S. lawmakers allocated to it.

Pope Francis published a letter addressed to the Bishops of the United States of America, addressing the recent deportations.

He appeared to take direct aim at Vice President JD Vance's defense of the deportations on theological grounds, saying that " I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations. The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality" and "Christians know very well that it is only by affirming the infinite dignity of all that our own identity as persons and as communities reaches its maturity. Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. "

U.S. border czar Tom Homan responded, saying that the Vatican is a city-state surrounded by walls and that Francis should leave border enforcement to his office.

At least 60 probationary staff members ( recent hires who joined the federal workforce within the last one to two years)  at the Department of Education receive written notifications that they were being terminated  effective immediately.

The Senate voted on Thursday to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Health and Human Services secretary.

The 52-48 vote was largely along party lines, though Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky once again joined with Democrats to oppose the nomination. McConnell has now voted against three of Trump’s Cabinet nominees, more than any other Republican senator.

More than 1,000 probationary workers ( recent hires who joined the federal workforce within the last one to two years) were dismissed at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

At the Office of Personnel Management, about 200 workers who were currently on probation ( recent hires who joined the federal workforce within the last one to two years) were informed they were being fired via a prerecorded message from the acting director Charles Ezell .

He told the employees  they were being laid off and would receive a termination email, and instructed them to "gather your personal  belongings and exit the premises by 3pm ET today." and that their "physical and IT system access will be deactivated by 3 pm today", according to someone familiar with the call.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency  within the Energy Department that oversees the nation's nuclear weapons, has begun terminating probationary staff   (recent hires who joined the federal workforce within the last one to two years). 

According to an NNSA employee, about 300 of the agency's 1,800 probationary staff are expected to be fired.

Energy Department officials tells probationary employees ( recent hires who joined the federal workforce within the last one to two years)  they will be fired on2/13/25, which could include up to 2,000 people.

The following artists have cancelled scheduled shows at the Kennedy Center.

Philadelphia-based rock and soul band Low Cut Connie announced on 2/13/25 it was canceling a scheduled March 19 performance.

Band founder Adam Weiner wrote on Instagram. “I was very excited to perform as part of this wonderful institution’s Social Impact series, which emphasizes community, joy, justice and equity through the arts…Upon learning that this institution that has run nonpartisan for 54 years is now chaired by President Trump himself and his regime, I decided I will not perform there.”

Issa Rae canceled her sold-out show, An Evening With Issa Rae, after hearing about Trump’s new role.

“Unfortunately, due to what I believe to be an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds through all mediums, I’ve decided to cancel my appearance at this venue,” she wrote on Instagram.

The following artists have resigned from positions at the Kennedy Center.

Musician Ben Folds, a longtime artistic adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra, resigned his post immediately following Trump’s installation as chairman. 

Renée Fleming, the world-renowned soprano who had served as an artistic adviser at large at the center also resigned.

Shonda Rhime served as treasurer of the Kennedy Center’s board. She resigned within hours of Trump’s takeover.

The Office for Civil Rights, Department of Education (OCR) still lists on their website that it "works to ensure equal access to education and resolve complaints of discrimination."     

However, the OCR have stopped working on previously opened cases and have been instructed not to open any new investigations from the public, as employees told ProPublica in an article from 2/13/15.

Several employees told  ProPublica that they have been told not to communicate with the  students, families and schools involved in cases launched in previous  administrations and to cancel scheduled meetings and mediations. “We’ve  been essentially muzzled,” the attorney said.    

Per ProPublica, the few cases that attorneys have  been directed to investigate reflect Trump’s priorities, such as getting  rid of gender-neutral bathrooms, banning transgender athletes from  participating in women’s sports and alleged antisemitism or  discrimination against white students.

Since Feb. 4, the Trump administration has flown about 100 immigrant detainees to the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They have not released any names of or provided details about their alleged crimes.

ProPublica and The Texas Tribune identified nearly a dozen Venezuelan immigrants who have been transferred to Guantanamo. The New York Times published a larger list with some, but not all, of the same names.

For three of the Guantanamo detainees who had been held at an immigration detention center in El Paso, Texas, ProPublica and the Tribune obtained records about their criminal histories and spoke to their families. The three men are all Venezuelan. According to U.S. federal court records, two of them had no crimes on their records except for illegal entry. The third had picked up an additional charge while in detention, for kicking an officer while being restrained during a riot.

Per ProPublica in an article dated 2/13/25, relatives of the three men have been left entirely in the dark about their loved ones. They said the U.S. government has given them no information about the detainees’ whereabouts and they have not been allowed to speak with them.

Attorneys have also been denied access. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Wednesday, arguing that the U.S. Constitution gives the detainees rights to legal representation that shouldn’t be stripped away just because they have been moved to Guantanamo.

“Never before have people been taken from U.S. soil and sent to Guantanamo, and then denied access to lawyers and the outside world,” said Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney in the ACLU case. “It is difficult to think of anything so flagrantly at odds with the fundamental principles on which our country was built.”

In response to questions about the Guantanamo detentions, officials at  the Department of Homeland Security insisted, without showing any  evidence, that some — but not all — of the immigrants they have  transferred to Guantanamo are violent gang members and others are  “high-threat” criminals.  

The Interior Department fires 2,300 probationary employees (recent hires who joined the federal workforce within the last one to two years).

The Interior Department oversees national parks,  tribal affairs, endangered species and conservation of and energy  production on federally owned lands and in federal waters.  

The Trump administration has erased references to transgender people from New York's Stonewall National Monument website.

On the National Park Service website, the acronym LGBTQ+ has been shortened to LGB, standing for lesbian, gay and bisexual.

An older version of the website, saved by the digital web archive Wayback Machine stated "Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a  lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ+) person was  illegal."

It now reads: "Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a  lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed a third U.S bird flu hospitalization, after a woman  was admitted to a healthcare facility Colorado. 

The  patient was experiencing "flu-like symptoms" and had "health conditions  that can make people more vulnerable to illness," She was likely exposed to the H5N1 virus through direct  contact to an infected poultry flock at her home.

Physicians are dealing daily with patients sick with coughs, soreness, fevers, vomiting, and other flu-like symptoms.

They are desperate for information, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which would typically provide information regarding public health threats, has gone quiet in the weeks since President Donald Trump took office.

Without this information, physicians do not have the necessary information about any health situations.

The flu has been brutal this season. Prior to the CDC going quiet, the CDC estimated at least 24 million illnesses, 310,000 hospitalizations, and 13,000 deaths from the flu since the start of October. 

At the same time, the bird flu outbreak continues to infect cattle and farmworkers. 

Analysis of the seasonal flu through the CDC’s Health Alert Network has stalled, according to people close to the CDC, who asked not to be identified because of fears of retaliation. The network is the CDC’s main method of sharing urgent public health information with health officials, doctors, and, sometimes, the public.

Charts from previous analysis, suggests that flu may be at a record high. About 7.7% of patients who visited clinics and hospitals without being admitted had flu-like symptoms in early February, a ratio higher than in four other flu seasons depicted in the graph. That includes 2003-04, when an atypical strain of flu killed at least 153 children.

Complete analysis is needed to understand the current situation, for example how many of the flu-like illnesses are caused by flu viruses, which flu strain is infecting people, and in turn what doctors need to be looking for. 

Although the CDC’s flu dashboard shows a surge of influenza, it doesn’t include all data needed to interpret the situation. Nor does it offer the tailored advice found in HAN alerts that tells health care workers how to protect patients and the public. In 2023, for example, a report urged clinics to test patients with respiratory symptoms rather than assume cases are the flu, since other viruses were causing similar issues that year.

On Feb. 10, Rachel Hardeman, a member of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the CDC,  and other committee members wrote to acting CDC Director Susan Monarez asking the agency to explain missing data, delayed studies, and potentially severe staff cuts. “The CDC is vital to our nation’s security,” the letter said.

Several studies have also been delayed or remain missing from the CDC’s preeminent scientific publication, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Anne Schuchat, a former principal deputy director at the CDC, said she would be concerned if there was political oversight of scientific material: “Suppressing information is potentially confusing, possibly dangerous, and it can backfire.”

The Trump administration has begun firing several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees.

Probationary workers  (recent hires who joined the federal workforce within the last one to two years) were targeted in late night emails on 2/14/25 notifying  them they had been fired, David Spero, president of the Professional  Aviation Safety Specialists union, said in a statement.   

The impacted workers include personnel hired for FAA radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association said in a brief  statement on 2/17/25 it was “analyzing the effect of the reported federal  employee terminations on aviation safety, the national airspace system  and our members.” 

Other fired FAA employees were working on an early warning radar system the Air Force had announced in  2023 for Hawaii to detect incoming cruise missiles. 

Spero said that the employees were fired “without cause nor based on performance or  conduct,” and the emails were “from an ‘exec order’  Microsoft email address” — not a government email address.  

The FAA is already suffering from a lack of controllers. Federal officials have been raising concerns about an overtaxed and understaffed air traffic control system for  years. Among the reasons they have cited for staffing shortages are  low pay, long shifts, intensive training and mandatory  retirements.  

Vice President JD Vance, who was on his first international trip as vice president this week, declined a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and instead privately met with Alice Weidel, the co-leader of AfD, his office confirmed.

This comes the day after  one day after he chastised European leaders at the Munich Security Conference for shunning far-right parties in  their countries.

The AfD is opposed to increasing the powers of the European Union. and opposes immigration into Germany, especially Muslim immigration. It is the second-strongest party in Germany. Several state associations and other factions of AfD have been linked to or accused of harboring connections with far-right nationalist and proscribed movements, such as PEGIDA, the Neue Rechte, and the Identitarian movement, and of employing historical revisionism, as well as xenophobic rhetoric. As AfD has campaigned for traditional roles for women, it has aligned itself with groups opposed to modern feminism. The youth wing of the party has used social media to campaign against aspects of modern feminism, with the support of party leadership.    

Over time, a focus on German nationalism, on reclaiming Germany's sovereignty and national pride, especially in repudiation of Germany's culture of shame with regard to its Nazi past, became more central in AfD's ideology and a central plank in its populist appeals.

In 2001, 12 years before the founding of the AfD, former AfD Bundestag member Wilhelm von Gottberg expressed his views on the remembrance of the Holocaust by quoting Italian neofascist Mario Consoli in saying "Any pretext, no matter how flimsy [...], is good enough to remind people of the Holocaust. The propaganda steamroller is getting stronger rather than weaker over the years, and in more and more countries the Jewish 'truth' about the Holocaust is being given legal protection. The Holocaust must remain a myth, a dogma that is beyond the reach of any free historical research.

Over 1,000 people gathered at the Stonewall National Monument in New York City’s West Village to protest the removal of any references to trans people from the Stonewall Park Service Website.

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has requested access to  an Internal Revenue Service system that retains the personal tax  information of millions of Americans.

Access to the files had not been granted as of this weekend . 

The  Nashville Tennessean reports that at least 13 Tennessee counties saw books removed  from public school library shelves over 2024, marking the  highest number of book removals in the state since the passage of  the Age Appropriate Materials Act in 2022.

Nearly  1,400 books (1,155 unique titles), were either fully  removed from school libraries or heavily age-restricted between December  2023 and January 2024.

Classic titles like “The  Color Purple" by Alice Walker, “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card,  “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut and other titles joined the  growing list of books banned in schools across the state.

Agents with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will no longer wear body cameras during field operations after a social media post publicized how to identify individual agents.

"All U.S. Border Patrol Agents will cease the use of body-worn cameras (BWC) in all operational environments," CBP said in a statement to NewsNation, which originally reported the news.

The directive comes after a post on Reddit claimed that the mobile application BLE Radar, which uses Bluetooth to scan for low-energy devices such as phones, smartwatches and speakers, can track CBP body cameras from a distance of 100 yards.

New York authorities have charged five individuals for the brutal torture and killing of Sam Nordquist, whose body was dumped in an empty field after weeks of physical and psychological abuse.

Sam was a 24-year-old transgender man who worked at a group home for disabled people in Little Canada. Nordquist identified as biracial and was close with his mother and two siblings.

“He would give you the shirt off his back” his mother Linda Nordquist told Nexstar’s WROC. “Very kind, loved his family, loved his nieces and nephew, very outgoing, worked hard.”

Nordquist, originally from Minnesota, travelled to New York in September to meet his online girlfriend and was staying at a motel in Canandaigua, about 30 minutes from Rochester. His family lost touch with him after January 1, 2025, and noted that in his communications up to his disappearance, he seemed "not like himself".

The New York State Police did a wellness check on February 9, after Nordquist's family filed a missing person’s report with the Canandaigua Police, and they uncovered a "deeply disturbing pattern of abuse" at the motel, according to New York State Police Captain Kelly Swift.

"In my 20-year law enforcement career, this is one of the most horrific crimes I have ever investigated," Captain Swift said at a press conference.

The suspects arrested are:

Precious Arzuaga, 38, of Geneva, New York

Jennifer A. Quijano, 30, of Geneva, New York

Kyle Sage, 33, of Hopewell, New York

Patrick A. Goodwin, 30, of Rochester, New York

Emily Motyka, 19, of Lima, New York

All five were arraigned and are being held without bail at the Ontario County Jail.

Ontario County District Attorney Jim Ritts described the case as "beyond depraved," and said "This is by far the worst homicide investigation that our office has ever been a part of," as per The NY Post. 

"No human being should have to endure what Sam endured," Major Kevin Sucher, commander of the New York State Police troop overseeing the Finger Lakes region, said as per the Associated Press.

Vigils were held shortly after the discovery of Nordquist's death, one hosted in Red Wing, Minnesota where he had attended high school, and another vigil at a public library in Canandaigua.  

A vigil to celebrate Sam’s life and  enduring legacy will be held on Friday, February 21, at The Church of  the Village in New York City. 

Organizers are also looking into honoring Nordquist at an upcoming exhibit on Minnesota's LGBTQ history. 

President Donald Trump is using an emergency appeal to call on the Supreme Court to let him fire Hampton Dellinger, who was named by President Joe Biden in 2023 to lead the  Office of Special Counsel for a five-year term and confirmed by the  Senate in early 2024.       

The case, Bessent v. Dellinger, could eventually determine whether Congress may create independent agencies that are  protected from the whims of the White House, or whether presidents can  fire anyone seen as a potential critic.     

The Office of Special Counsel  investigates and prosecutes allegations of abuses of civil service law, handles allegations of whistleblower retaliation and is an independent agency. Created during the Carter administration, Congress made clear the special counsel could be removed “by the president only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

The director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office fired Dellinger on February 7 in a brief email which mentioned none of the for-cause requirements that Congress required.

The Supreme Court is closed for Presidents’ Day on 2/17/25. The Justice  Department’s appeal will likely be placed on the court’s docket Tuesday  and the court could move relatively quickly, potentially handing down an  order within a few days.  

Advocates are planning to gather across the country, on Presidents Day to protest President Trump.

The protests are being organized by The 50501 Movement -  which stands for 50 protests, 50 states, one movement, which formed on Reddit and now has over 100,000 supporters on the  page.

A Delta Air Lines passenger jet coming in from Minneapolis made a crash landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday afternoon, flipping upside down on the tarmac with its tail and one wing shorn off.

All 80 people aboard (76 passengers and 4 crew members, including 2 flight attendants) clambered out of the jet. At least 18 of them suffered injuries, some of them critical but none life threatening.

Despite dozens of passengers being strapped upside down in their seats, the crew managed to evacuate the entire plane in less than 90 seconds.

The authorities are investigating the cause of the accident, which occurred amid strong winds and drifting snow.

Below is a partial list of the cities which held protests on 2/17/25. The number of people attending varies, from small amounts of people gathered together in small towns, to thousands of protestors in large cities. Many of the protestors braved frigid winter temperatures to attend.

Ajo Arizona

Phoenix Arizona

Tucson Arizona

Little Rock Arkansas

Camarillo California

Carlsbad California

Fresno California

Irvine California

Long Beach California

Monterey California

Montreal California

North Hollywood California

Oakland California

Sacramento California

San Diego California

San Francisco California

San Jose California

Santa Barbara California

Santa Cruz California

Santa Rosa California

Denver Colorado

Fort Collins Colorado

Hartford Connecticut

Washington. D.C.

Fort Myers Florida

Ocala Florida

Orlando Florida

Palm Springs Florida

Sarasota Florida

Tampa Florida

Atlanta Georgia

Honolulu Hawaii

Maui Hawaii

Boise Idaho

Chicago Illinois

Edwardsville Illinois

Indianapolis Indiana

Des Moines Iowa

Frankfort Kentucky

New Orleans Louisiana

Portland Maine

Annapolis Maryland

Baltimore Maryland

Frederick Maryland

Boston Massachusetts

Plymouth Massachusetts

Lansing Michigan

Muskegon Michigan

Niles Michigan

Duluth Minnesota

Minnetonka Minnesota

Saint Paul Minnesota

Jefferson City Missouri

Helena Montana

Missoula Montana

Carson City Nevada

Trenton New Jersey

Wayne New Jersey

Albuquerque New Mexico

Silver City New Mexico

Albany New York

Finger Lakes New York

New York City New York

Asheville North Carolina

Charlotte North Carolina

Hillsborough North Carolina

Raleigh North Carolina

Columbus Ohio

Oklahoma City Oklahoma

Ashland Oregon

Bend Oregon

Coos Bay Oregon

Hood River Oregon

Portland Oregon

Redmond Oregon

Salem Oregon

Media Pennsylvania

Pittburgh Pennsylvania

Sellersville Pennsylvania

West Chester Pennsylvania

Providence Rhode Island

Columbia South Carolina

Greenville South Carolina

Summerville South Carolina

Nashville Tennessee

Austin Texas

Conroe Texas

Houston Texas

Palestine Texas

Salt Lake City Utah

Montpelier Vermont

Richmond Virginia

Bellingham Washington

Everett Washington

Mount Vernon Washington

Olympia Washington

Seattle Washington

Sequim Washington

Spokane Washington

Port Angeles Washington

Port Townsend Washington

Madison Wisconsin

There were also protests in Canada outside U.S. Embassies.

The United States Army has ended a  long-standing partnership with Ashley Hall, an all-girls preparatory  school in Charleston, South Carolina, as part of the widespread changed in  approach to diversity under President Donald Trump.

For  the first time since 2017, the Army Corps of Engineers will not  participate in Ashley Hall's annual "Introduce a Girl to Engineering  Day," an outreach event scheduled for 2/21/25.

As of 2/17/25 the  Trump administration has fired more than 10,000 federal workers across multiple agencies as part of its "large-scale reductions" in the government workforce.

This is likely just the beginning of the job cuts.

Trump signed an executive order on 2/11/25 seeking a significant reduction in the size of the government. It instructs heads of federal departments and agencies to make "large-scale reductions in force."

The initial firings focused on employees in their first year of their federal job, as they lack the ability longer-term employees have to appeal their terminations. Coupled with about 75,000 workers who took President Trump's buyouts, the job cuts amount to nearly 4% of the federal government's 2.3 million workers.

Here's where firings have occurred so far.

Federal Aviation Administration: Several hundred fired

The Trump administration has begun firing several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees. Probationary workers were targeted in late night emails on 2/14/25 notifying  them they had been fired, 

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Layoffs and a court challenge

A federal judge on Friday blocked the dismissal of any more workers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to multiple reports. More than 100 employees were laid off before the pause, NPR reported. A court challenge was filed by a union representing workers seeking to block Trump's efforts to eliminate the CFPB.

Department of Education: 60 employees fired, dozens put on leave

Termination notices were sent to more than 60 probationary employees across multiple work groups, including the offices of general counsel, special education and rehabilitation services, and federal student aid. Dozens of employees have been put administrative leave, multiple outlets including the New York Times and Washington Post reported, amid the Trump administration's efforts to remove diversity, equity and inclusion positions from the government.

President Trump has said he would like to dismantle the Education Department. Last week DOGE, the department canceled nearly $1 billion in educational research contracts.

Department of Energy job cuts include nuclear agency firings

About 1,200 to 2,000 workers in the department were terminated, including some at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the U.S. nuclear weapons fleet and secures radiological materials around the world. Less than 0.5% of the NNSA workforce was dismissed, an Energy Department spokesperson said in a statement. Some NNsA employees at first identified for dismissals were later reinstated, Jill Hruby, former NNSA administrator in the Biden administration, said in an email to USA TODAY.

Department of Health and Human Services: CDC, NIH firings

Thousands of probationary employees were fired across the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), according to multiple reports.

Roughly 1,300 probational workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 10% of the agency's workforce, were fired on Friday, the Associated Press and NPR reported.

Workers were also fired at the National Institutes of Health, where a "huge" number of nurses from the NIH Clinical Center were let go, Reuters reported, citing anonymous sources. Some facilities may be forced to close due to staffing shortages.

Department of Homeland Security: Firings at several federal agencies

More than 400 employees, identified as "non-mission critical personnel in probationary status," were fired at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to CBS News and ABC News.

Department of the Interior: National Park Service hit with firings

At least 2,300 federal workers had their positions terminated. Among them were 800 Bureau of Land Management employees and about 1,000 National Park Service workers.

Department of Veterans Affairs: 1,000 fired

More than 1,000 of the department's 43,000 probationary employees were terminated.

Environmental Protection Agency: 388 firings at federal agency

The agency fired 388 employees who were on probationary status "after a thorough review of agency functions in accordance with President Trump’s executive orders," said Jeff Landis, an agency spokesman.

General Services Administration: Agency drops 100-plus workers

More than 100 probationary employees at the agency, which manages the nation's real estate portfolio, have been pressured into either resigning or facing being put on leave and then terminated, Reuters reported.

Internal Revenue Service: Mass firings could be in the thousands

The IRS is preparing to fire thousands of workers next week, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. It was unclear how many thousands of employees would be fired at the IRS, which grew to about 100,000 people – including roughly 16,000 probationary workers – under the Biden Administration to increase its including its ability to audit corporations and wealthy taxpayers. Job cuts could affect the IRS' work to process upcoming tax returns, according to The New York Times.

Office of Personnel Management loses dozens of workers

Dozens of probationary employees at the agency, which had instructed other federal agencies to let go its probationary employees, also fired dozens of its own workers in a Thursday afternoon group call, CBS News and CNN reported.

Small Business Administration: About 20% of workers fired

About 20% of the agency's staff, or about 720 SBA employees, including hundreds of probationary employees, were fired, Politico reported.

U.S. Forest Service: About 3,400 workers fired

The agency, which is within the Department of Agriculture, fired about 3,400 probational workers, or nearly 10% of the Forest Service workforce of 35,000 employees. A source familiar with the cuts told USA TODAY the layoffs do not include firefighters, law enforcement officers, bridge inspectors or meteorologists.

United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

About 10,000 USAID employees, excluding essential personnel, were placed on administrative leave last week.

Source: USA Today, “Which agencies have been hit by federal layoffs? What to know about NPS, NIH, IRS, more” Mike Snider, Joey Garrison, 2/15/25, updated 2/17/25

On 2/18/25, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said that over the weekend, it accidentally fired "several" agency employees who were working on a response to the H5N1 avian flu outbreak.

The agency said it is now trying to quickly reverse the firings.

"Although several positions supporting [bird flu efforts] were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters," a USDA spokesperson said in a statement. "USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service frontline positions are considered public safety positions, and we are continuing to hire the workforce necessary to ensure the safety and adequate supply of food to fulfill our statutory mission."

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston abruptly closed to visitors on 2/18/25, and the federal agency that operates the site did not provide any explanation for the sudden disruption.

Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, wrote in a social media post that an official with the National Archives and Records Administration, which oversees presidential libraries, had instructed the Kennedy Library to fire probationary staff members, forcing the temporary closure. 

President Donald Trump today signed an executive order aimed at curtailing the powers of independent agencies, undermining the powers granted them through legislation. 

Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response: 

“Trump’s illegal executive order on independent agencies aims to shield corporations from accountability and centralize more power with Trump and his minions. This is a profoundly dangerous idea for the nation’s health, safety, environment and economy – and for our democracy. Congress made independent agencies independent of the White House for good reason.”

Missouri State Representative Phil Amato has introduced House Bill 807, nicknamed the “Save MO Babies Act.” This bill would create a list of “at risk” pregnant women in the state in order to “reduce the number of preventable abortions.”

The bill summary states that, if passed, Missouri would create a registry of every expecting mother in the state “who is at risk for seeking an abortion” starting July 1, 2026. The list would be created through the Maternal and Child Services division of the Department of Social Services. The bill did not specify how the “at risk” would be identified.

The bill would also mandate the promotion of “the safe and healthy birth of children in the state through the utilization of existing resources; coordinate community resources and provide assistance or services to expecting mothers identified to be at risk for seeking abortion services; and prevent abortions through the adoption of children by fit and proper adoptive parents.”

HuffPost has reported that while DOGE claims to be eliminating wasteful spending, Donald Trump has already spent $10.7 million of taxpayer  money to play golf since taking office.

He has taken a golf trip every weekend since his inauguration, and he has played golf at his own properties on 9 of his first 30 days in office. 

HuffPost’s $10.7 million tally is based on a 2019 report by the Government Accountability Office breaking down the costs of  Trump’s golf trips during his first term. The GAO calculated a total cost of  $3,383,250 for each trip. About one-third of that was the flight cost of  Air Force One, with additional expenses for flying  down vehicles, including two presidential limousines, for Trump’s  motorcade and reimbursing the Coast Guard for stationing a gunship in  the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast and heavily armed boats in the  Intracoastal Waterway. 

Those costs are based on 2017 dollars and are likely somewhat higher today.

HuffPost was able to use those figures to derive totals for his other golf destinations, including courses he owns in Doral,  Florida; Palos Verdes, California; Bedminster, New Jersey; Ireland and Scotland.

In his State of the State address, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he is "watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now."

Pritzker, specifically cited recent federal cuts that have impacted various  programs and Illinoisans, among other measures and actions taken by the  president and Musk and has been slashing federal spending.

"The Trump administration cut off funding for food safety inspectors  for nearly a month, impacting more than 70 meat and poultry facilities  in Illinois. Without these inspectors, the supply chain collapses,  prices go through the roof, from farmers to truckers to meat packers to  retailers, jobs will be lost," Pritzker said. "Meals on Wheels programs —  which home deliver 12 million meals per year to 100,000 seniors and  people with disabilities in Illinois – are on the federal chopping  block. This is real. The new administration and the Republican Congress  and Elon Musk intend to take these programs away."

He went on to say the following:

“I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

“The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.”

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations. 

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most."

The Senate voted 51-49 on Thursday to confirm Kash Patel to serve as FBI director.

Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) were the two Republicans to vote against Patel.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12-10 along party lines last week to recommend Patel's nomination to the full Senate. All of the panel's Republicans supported Patel, with Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) accusing Democrats of unfairly waging a "harassment" campaign against the nominee.

In January 2025 CNN reported for years the FBI and the CIA had issues with Patel’s handling of national security secrets. The CIA asked the first Trump Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into his activities, alleging that Patel circulated classified information about Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election to government officials not authorized to see it, in an effort to discredit the FBI investigation of Russian interference. Patel denies mishandling classified documents and the DOJ referral did not lead to prosecution. Patel's FBI security clearance file remains flagged to indicate the CIA referral had been made.

In 2023 Patel wrote “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy” (which is currently a best seller on Amazon) that features a list of "deep state" officials to target. Democrats argued Patel would use the FBI to go after the president's perceived enemies.

Trump promoted the book, saying “A brilliant roadmap highlighting every corrupt actor, to ultimately return our agencies and departments to work for the American People...we will use this blueprint to help us take back the White House and remove these Gangsters from all of Government!”

The Department of Justice has shut down the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database, a federal misconduct tracking system that was intended to prevent officers with disciplinary records from being rehired by other agencies, the Washington Post reported.

The database, created in 2022 under an executive order by former President Joe Biden, tracked misconduct among nearly 150,000 federal law enforcement officers and agents, according to the report. It was operational for just over a year, with all 90 executive branch agencies contributing disciplinary records dating back to 2017.