Politics

A band of Republican lawmakers sank an effort Tuesday by Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to kill a plan to allow remote voting for lawmakers who become new parents, a bitter dispute that brought the House floor to a halt.

A procedural rule vote to advance the House GOP’s package of bills for the week failed 206-222, with nine Republicans bucking Johnson and voting with all 213 Democrats. The failed vote means that, for now, those pieces of legislation cannot move forward for final votes.

Teams that fulfilled requests for government documents lost their jobs on Tuesday as part of the Trump administration's 10,000-person staff cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services. Their work, mandated by Congress since the 1960s under the Freedom of Information Act or FOIA, gives the public a view of the inner workings of federal health agencies.

Some public records teams were entirely cut at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies on Tuesday, according to multiple current and former staffers who did not want to be named because of fears of retribution. A few people have been left standing on other FOIA teams within these agencies, for now.

Unlike other systems that Doge has accessed, two former HHS officials say, the UAC portal contains no financial or employee records and is intended to be a means of tracking unaccompanied children to provide them with care. The portal’s data is highly sensitive because the children’s case files may include reports of trauma such as physical or sexual abuse, and because the data could be used for immigration enforcement purposes.

“I certainly would be concerned about Doge access to the portal – why it was used, which child information was accessed and for what purpose? Were mental health records accessed?” former HHS official Jen Smyers said. “These are the most vulnerable children in their most vulnerable moments.”

A coalition of advocacy organizations sued the Trump administration Monday over President Donald Trump's executive order requiring Americans to present proof of citizenship to register to vote. Such a requirement — beyond exceeding the president's authority over state-run elections — would effectively silence the voice of college students registering for the first time, unsheltered voters and Native voters, argued the Arizona Students' Association, one of the parties to the lawsuit.

"We really saw firsthand what it looks like in Arizona if we do have these onerous citizenship requirements, so we really wanted to be a part of the voice fighting back to make sure that doesn't happen across the country," Kyle Nitschke, the organization's co-executive director, told Salon, referring to a now-blocked state law that also requires proof of citizenship. In a statement accompanying the lawsuit, he described Trump's order as a "clear attack on our voting rights," arguing that a federal proof of citizenship requirement would further disenfranchise college students.

“You are receiving this email as one of approximately 7,000 probationary employees who were separated from service and have been reinstated in compliance with recent court orders,” the email states. “At this time, while you remain on administrative leave, you will soon receive instructions for how to return on full-time duty by April 14.”

The agency recently reinstated these probationary employees to comply with rulings from federal judges, but put them on paid administrative leave, rather than bring them back to work.

The IRS says employees who choose to return to their jobs will soon be given instructions on obtaining a Personal Identity Verification (PIV) card, IT equipment and workspace assignments.

Crawford, a Dane County circuit judge who was backed by Democrats, secured a 10-year term on the court over Brad Schimel, a Waukesha County circuit judge and a former Republican attorney general. As the first major battleground state election of President Donald Trump’s second term, the technically nonpartisan contest drew national attention and became the most expensive state Supreme Court race in U.S. history.

Some also pointed out that Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, sued in Wisconsin this year challenging a state law banning carmakers from owning dealerships. The case could end up before the state Supreme Court.

Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín’s order runs through April 16 and requires the Trump administration to resume funding for the Acacia Center for Justice and other nonprofit groups.

Martínez-Olguín determined that nonprofit groups have legal standing to sue the government to preserve funding. Plaintiffs are arguing that they’re entitled to funds through the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008.

Martínez-Olguín’s order prevents the termination of funding for legal representation for these children, allowing the Acacia Center for Justice to continue its services while legal proceedings continue.

Since January, the Trump administration has held up federal money across many different agencies while it says it's reviewing the spending. Along with Oregon, Democratic officials from 21 states and the District of Columbia sued, saying the trillions in federal dollars were already allocated by Congress. A federal judge on March 6 ordered that the money start flowing again.

But the states are telling the judge that, in particular with the FEMA funding, the administration is not following his order.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday largely upheld the Food and Drug Administration’s denials of two companies’ applications to sell flavored liquids for use in e-cigarettes. In a unanimous ruling, the justices threw out a ruling by the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit holding that the FDA had improperly pulled a “regulatory switcheroo” when it gave the companies instructions that they followed but then ignored those instructions and denied authorization while imposing new requirements. In a 46-page ruling by Justice Samuel Alito, the court sent the case back to the court of appeals so that it could take another look at one aspect of the dispute – specifically, whether it made a difference that the FDA had changed its position and failed to consider marketing plans that the companies had submitted as part of their applications.

In a less-publicized move, Blasingame, a former bilingual educator, proposed omitting several chapters from a textbook for aspiring educators titled “Teaching.” One of those chapters focuses on how to understand and educate diverse learners and states that it “is up to schools and teachers to help every student feel comfortable, accepted and valued,” and that “when schools view diversity as a positive force, it can enhance learning and prepare students to work effectively in a diverse society.”

Blasingame did not offer additional details about her opposition to the chapters during the meeting. She didn’t have to. The school board voted 6-1 to delete them.

“In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety; financial stability; the core foundations of our democracy,” Booker said on the floor. “These are not normal times in America. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.”

“Generations from now will look back at this moment and have a single question — where were you?”

An effort by the Trump administration to unilaterally strip the temporary protected status (TPS) of approximately 350,000 Venezuelan refugees living in the United States was blocked Monday night by a federal court judge who described the order by Secretary of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as being "motivated by unconstitutional animus."

In a 78-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco said Noem's rescinding of an order made under the Biden administration "threatens to: inflict irreparable harm on hundreds of thousands of persons whose lives, families, and livelihoods will be severely disrupted, cost the United States billions in economic activity, and injure public health and safety in communities throughout the United States. At the same time, the government has failed to identify any real countervailing harm in continuing TPS for Venezuelan beneficiaries."

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has placed its entire staff on administrative leave.

The IMLS is a relatively small federal agency, with around 70 employees, that awards grant funding to museums and libraries across the United States.

“A year from now people will notice things are missing that used to be there and Doge and others promoting this will say: ‘See, told you government can’t do things’, rather than: ‘We broke it and it got worse,’” he said.

Now, in a decision that could have major implications for states’ efforts to regulate abortion help and helpers in the post-Roe era, a federal judge in Montgomery, Alabama, has ruled that Attorney General Steve Marshall’s threats to prosecute abortion advocates violate fundamental protections for free speech and the right to travel.

“Alabama’s criminal jurisdiction does not reach beyond its borders, and it cannot punish what its residents do lawfully in another State,” US District Judge Myron H. Thompson declared in a 131-page ruling issued Monday, adding: “The Attorney General cannot prosecute those who assist people in Alabama to travel out of state to obtain a lawful abortion.”

The order from U.S. Judge Dale Ho brings an end to the case against Adams, who had pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, bribery, wire fraud and other charges following his indictment last year.

Ho said he was dismissing the case with prejudice, meaning the government could not bring the charges again later — contrary to the Justice Department's request to dismiss the case without prejudice.

Adams was scheduled to go on trial in April until new leadership at the Justice Department under the Trump administration ordered prosecutors in New York in February to drop the case.

A second said his planes’ air conditioning kept breaking — an experience consistent with at least two publicly reported onboard incidents — and their lavatories kept breaking, something another flight attendant reported as well. But the planes kept flying. “They made us flush with water bottles,” he said.

But the flight attendants were most concerned about their inability to treat their passengers humanely — and to keep them safe. (In 2021, an ICE spokesperson told the publication Capital & Main that the agency “follows best practices when it comes to the security, safety and welfare of the individuals returned to their countries of origin.”)

A standard flight had more than a dozen private security guards — contractors working for the firm Akima — along with a single ICE officer, two nurses, and a hundred or more detainees. (Akima did not respond to a request for comment.) The guards were in charge of delivering food and water to the detainees and taking them to the lavatories. This left the flight attendants, whose presence was required by the FAA, with little to do.

Global X Airlines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Crossing_Airlines

But on Saturday, interior department officials reportedly granted at least two Doge employees the access they had requested, the two people told the Times.

With this access, the Doge employees now have visibility into sensitive employee information, like social security numbers, and are able to more easily hire and fire federal workers, according to the Times, citing the two people with knowledge who spoke with the newspaper on condition of anonymity due to fear of retribution.

Employees across the massive U.S. Department of Health and Human Services began receiving notices of dismissal on Tuesday in a major overhaul expected to ultimately lay off up to 10,000 people. The notices come just days after President Donald Trump moved to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights at HHS and other agencies throughout the government.

In its announcement, issued Tuesday night, the USDA said grant recipients will have 30 days to review and revise their project plans to align with President Trump’s Unleashing American Energy Executive Order, which prioritizes fossil fuel production and cuts federal support for renewable energy projects.

Some of the roughly 6,000 grant applicants have already completed the solar, wind, or other energy projects and are awaiting promised repayment from the government. Others say they can’t afford to take on the projects they’d been planning unless the grant money comes through.

The move comes after a federal appeals court last week upheld a court order barring the Trump administration from expelling detained immigrants suspected of gang affiliation, but not convicted or charged with gang-affiliated criminal activity, to a maximum-security Salvadoran mega prison under the Alien Enemies Act.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said in a post on BlueSky that if the Trump administration is "not violating the AEA court order," this action means "these people had final orders of removal." He added, however, that he "wouldn't trust any allegations of gang membership."

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In an aborted plan to roll out the news, the agency would have emphasized the importance of vaccinating people against the highly contagious and potentially deadly disease that has spread to 19 states, the records show.

“The decision to vaccinate is a personal one,” the statement said, echoing a line from a column Kennedy wrote for the Fox News website. “People should consult with their healthcare provider to understand their options to get a vaccine and should be informed about the potential risks and benefits associated with vaccines.”