A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Thursday night to unfreeze foreign aid spending President Trump halted during his first week in office, the latest of several legal roadblocks to Mr. Trump’s aggressive first-month agenda. The ruling by Judge Amir H. Ali of the Federal District Court in Washington found that Mr. Trump’s executive … Read more
One of Elon Musk’s closest friends, a billionaire co-founder of Airbnb, is taking a role in President Trump’s administration to help Mr. Musk carry out his drive to slash the federal bureaucracy, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Joe Gebbia, the Airbnb co-founder, is a board member at Tesla who lives in … Read more
In less than a month in power, President Trump’s political appointees have embarked on an unapologetic, strong-arm effort to impose their will on the Justice Department, seeking to justify their actions as the simple reversal of the “politicization” of federal law enforcement under their Biden-era predecessors. The ferocious campaign, executed by Emil Bove III — … Read more
Louisiana’s top health official said in an internal memo to the state’s Health Department on Thursday that it would no longer use media campaigns or health fairs to promote vaccination against preventable illnesses. The official, Dr. Ralph L. Abraham, Louisiana’s surgeon general, wrote in the memo that the state would “encourage each patient to discuss … Read more
Hours after President Trump paved the way for upending the United States’ trade relationship with India with broad “reciprocal” tariffs, he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented a united front during a news conference on Thursday at the White House. Mr. Modi became the latest head of state to seek to placate an increasingly power-flexing … Read more
One of the strongest storms of the season is slamming California with heavy rain, including fire-ravaged Los Angeles, where residents are bracing for the possibility of mudslides and landslides. A line of severe thunderstorms from north of Pasadena to Malibu was moving east Thursday evening, bringing wind gusts of up to 70 mph and even … Read more
Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s plane experienced a mechanical issue while en route to Munich, Germany, on Thursday, according to a State Department spokesperson. The plane has turned around and is returning to Joint Base Andrews and Rubio will continue his travel to Germany and the Middle East on a separate aircraft, the spokesperson added. … Read more
While Elon Musk has vaulted into a powerful role overhauling government agencies and upending Washington, the world’s richest person has suffered a $106 billion drop in wealth due to steep decline in shares of his Tesla electric car company. Tesla’s stock price has plummeted 30% from its all-time high in December, including a 21% selloff … Read more
A fourth federal judge, this one in Boston, has issued an injunction blocking President Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. Federal judges in Maryland, Washington State and New Hampshire have already issued similar injunctions to stop the executive order from being enacted. The order instructs the government … Read more
During his confirmation hearings two weeks ago to lead the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeated several unfounded claims about autism. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer who has made money through books, speeches and lawsuits while sharing vaccine skepticism, refused to say that vaccines don’t cause autism despite many high-quality … Read more