Tag: federal
Federal funding freeze halts key infrastructure projects in tribal communities
By Nate Perez The Tebughna Foundation threw a big celebration in February after the Environmental Protection Agency awarded the nonprofit $20 million to renovate or replace 20 homes contaminated with asbestos and lead for the Native Village of Tyonek in Alaska. The project, which would also connect the homes to solar panels, aimed to upgrade…
Federal judge orders USDA to unfreeze funds to Maine
Juliana Kim A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze federal funding that was allocated to Maine from the U.S. Department of Agriculture — funds that had been withheld following President Trump’s clash with Maine Gov. Janet Mills over the issue of transgender athletes. U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock granted Maine’s request for…
Federal judge rules return of Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador prison
White House has said US courts can’t order return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose wife has been protesting outside court A federal judge on Friday afternoon ordered the US to return a Maryland man mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison after a Trump administration attorney was at a loss to explain what happened. The…
Federal judge drops corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams
By Ryan Lucas , Carrie Johnson A federal judge on Wednesday formally dismissed the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, granting the controversial request from the Justice Department that generated a public outcry and spurred the largest mass resignation of senior federal prosecutors in decades. The order from U.S. Judge Dale Ho…
The Trump administration restructures federal health agencies, cuts 20,000 jobs
By Selena Simmons-Duffin , Diane Webber The Trump administration Thursday announced a major restructuring of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that will cut 20,000 full-time jobs. The cuts include employees who have taken the Trump administration’s Fork in the Road offer and early retirement, plus an additional reduction in force of 10,000…
Dems want to investigate Signal blunder. And, federal return-to-office complications
By Brittney Melton here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day. CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard appeared before U.S. senators yesterday to answer tough questions about how the security breach that led to secret…
Federal judge blocks Trump effort to ban transgender troops from military service
Elena Moore A federal judge in Washington D.C. has issued a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration over its attempt to ban transgender troops from serving in the U.S. military. Tuesday’s decision by U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes temporarily blocks the Department of Defense from carrying through with a policy directive designed to remove…
Federal judge blocks Trump’s plan to target ‘alien enemies’ for deportation
Ximena Bustillo In his latest move to clamp down on illegal immigration and immigration more broadly, President Trump has filed a presidential action invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a seldom-used law that gives the president authority to detain or deport nationals of an enemy nation during wartime. It’s only the fourth time in…
Universities across the U.S. freeze hiring as federal funding hangs in the balance
By Rachel Treisman Harvard University, the University of Washington and the University of Pittsburgh are among the latest institutions of higher education to announce hiring freezes, citing the uncertainty around federal funding. Leaders at a growing number of universities across the country say they are looking for ways to cut costs and buy time, as…
As Trump and DOGE Block Federal Grants, Wildfire Prevention Projects Are at Risk
Wildfire Prevention Projects at Risk as Federal Grants Vanish Efforts to limit wildfires in a conservative swath of northern Colorado are the latest casualty of the Trump administration’s on-and-off federal spending freeze By Corbin Hiar & E&E News A helicopter flies through the Cache La Poudre Canyon as flames score the forest south of the…
Trump administration cancels $400 million in federal dollars for Columbia University
Elena Moore The Trump administration says it has canceled $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University over what it described as the school’s failure to police antisemitism on campus. The cancellation was announced Friday in a joint statement from the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Education…
Trump administration can remove head of federal watchdog agency, appeals court rules
By The Associated Press WASHINGTON — An appeals court in Washington on Wednesday removed the head of a federal watchdog agency in the latest twist in a legal fight over Republican President Donald Trump’s authority to fire the special counsel. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sided with the Trump administration…
In the federal court system, law clerks find little recourse for bullying and abuse
Carrie Johnson This story includes descriptions of sexual abuse. In 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic began its rampage, a recent law school graduate started a new job in Alaska. She hoped the coveted post – as law clerk to a federal judge – would jump-start her career. Instead, it was almost derailed by harassment and…
Federal board orders government to reinstate six workers fired by Trump
Andrea Hsu Six fired federal employees must get their jobs back, at least through April 10, according to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), the independent federal agency that hears employee complaints against the government. The MSPB issued a 45-day stay of the terminations Tuesday evening in response to a request from the U.S. Office…
Federal agencies still can’t agree on ‘What did you do last week?’ email
By Shannon Bond , Stephen Fowler , Andrea Hsu , Pien Huang Federal agencies were split on whether employees should comply with Elon Musk’s directive to list five accomplishments in the past week, sowing more confusion as the midnight deadline for responding loomed, according to emails seen by NPR, and as the agency overseeing the request appeared to…
‘What did you do last week?’ email stokes confusion and anger among federal workers
Stephen Fowler A federal government-wide email asking employees “What did you do last week?” plunged workers and agencies into a weekend of confusion and conflicting directives. Billionaire White House adviser Elon Musk said failure to reply would be taken as resignation. But some department officials told their employees they could hold off on responding. Adding…
Elon Musk says federal employees must document work in email or be fired
By Emma Bowman , Brett Neely Federal workers across the U.S. government received an email on Saturday afternoon asking them to account for what they did in the past week — and Elon Musk says they will be fired if they don’t respond. The emails arrived several hours after Musk, who is leading the Department…
She worked for years to get a federal job. Within a month, she was fired
Geoff Brumfiel Rose’s brief career as a federal employee ended last Thursday. “I was winding down for the day, and then all of a sudden, I got a notification ping,” she says. She reached for her government phone, which had been issued to her just a month earlier when she took a new job at…
A federal worker tried to take Trump’s ‘Fork’ resignation offer. Here’s what happened
Andrea Hsu The “Fork in the Road” email arrived in Liz Goggin’s inbox around 11 p.m. on Jan. 28th. The email blast from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) went to nearly all federal employees — some 2.3 million people across the U.S. The memo presented federal workers with a choice: Offer your resignation…
Sweeping cuts hit recent federal hires as Trump administration slashes workforce
By Shannon Bond , Geoff Brumfiel , Andrea Hsu , Cory Turner Federal workers have begun receiving layoff notices as the Trump administration moves ahead with plans to drastically downsize the government. While the full scale of layoffs isn’t yet clear, the first round of cuts appeared to target employees who were recently hired and…
Federal Reserve’s Jerome Powell says there’s no need to rush on interest rate cuts
Scott Horsley Don’t expect interest rates to fall any time soon. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told a Senate Committee Tuesday that with a strong job market and with inflation still elevated, he and his colleagues “do not need to be in a hurry” to cut interest rates. Powell also fielded questions about President Trump’s…
Maryland federal judge blocks Trump’s birthright citizenship order
Sergio Martínez-Beltrán A federal judge in Maryland on Wednesday blocked President Trump’s executive order to end citizenship for children born on U.S. soil to parents in the country without legal status. Under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are…
Elon Musk Can Find His $2-Trillion Federal Spending Cut in Nuclear Weapons
Opinion ArgonautWednesdays Elon Musk Can Find His $2-Trillion Federal Spending Cut in Nuclear Weapons DOGE’s Elon Musk should turn his $2-trillion hatchet to wasteful and perilous U.S. nuclear weapons modernization plans By Dan Vergano edited by Jeanna Bryner Keep in touch with the Argonaut: Get email alerts for this weekly column by Dan Vergano Famously…
White House defends its ‘Fork in the Road’ offer to federal employees
Franco Ordoñez The White House is pushing back against what it is calling “misinformation” by the federal employees union, which has urged government workers not to accept an offer from the Trump administration to resign from their jobs by Feb. 6 and go on leave with pay through the end of September. In its first…
Trump Orders Sweeping Federal Aid and Grant Freeze
Trump Administration Orders Sweeping Freeze of Federal Aid The Trump administration has ordered a halt to “all federal financial assistance,” covering areas from domestic infrastructure and energy projects to foreign aid By Jennifer Scholtes, Nicholas Wu & E&E News In a two-page memo, the Office of Management and Budget ordered all federal agencies to temporarily…
A 2nd U.S. judge says Trump administration must pause its federal spending freeze
By NPR Washington Desk A judge with the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze payments for grants and other programs. The Friday ruling stems from a lawsuit filed earlier this week by Democratic attorneys general in 22 states and…
Trump administration purges websites across federal health agencies
By Will Stone , Selena Simmons-Duffin At the direction of the Trump administration, the federal Department of Health and Human Services and its agencies are purging its websites of information and data on a broad array of topics — from adolescent health to LGBTQ+ rights to HIV. Several webpages from Centers for Disease Control and…
Biden bans new offshore oil and gas drilling in most federal waters
By The Associated Press WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is moving to ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters, a last-minute effort to block possible action by the incoming Trump administration to expand offshore drilling. Biden, whose term expires in two weeks, said he is using authority under the federal…
Biden made diversifying the federal bench a top priority. Here’s a look at his legacy
Carrie Johnson President Biden leaves office this month after appointing 235 lawyers to the bench — more than a quarter of all active federal judges. He named the first Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. He appointed more women of color to federal appeals courts than all previous presidents combined.…
How the Duck Stamp Became One of the Most Successful Conservation Tools in U.S. History
How the Duck Stamp Became One of the Most Successful Conservation Tools in U.S. History Inside the fiercely competitive Federal Duck Stamp Contest, part of the wildly successful conservation program that has preserved millions of acres of waterfowl habitat By Daniel T. Ksepka edited by Kate Wong The 1997 Duck Stamp featured a painting of…
U.S. homelessness jumps to another record high, amid affordable housing shortage
Jennifer Ludden More than 770,000 people were living in shelters or outside in January, according to an annual federal report on homelessness by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The number is up 18% from last year’s count — which had also jumped from the year before — and is the largest number since…