Reuters United States Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

US to use AI to revoke visas of trainees it sees as Hamas fans, Axios reports

The U.S. State Department will utilize expert system to withdraw visas of foreign students who it views as advocates of Palestinian Hamas militants, Axios reported on Thursday, citing senior State Department authorities. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January to combat antisemitism and has pledged to deport non-citizen college students and others who participated in pro-Palestinian protests that have actually been ongoing for months amid Israel’s military assault on Gaza after Hamas’ October 2023 attack.

CIA fires an undefined variety of new officers

The Central Intelligence Agency fired a variety of current hires this week, 3 people knowledgeable about the matter said, cuts that current and former U.S. intelligence officers alerted would run the risk of damaging U.S. national security. The firings under U.S. President Donald Trump’s brand-new CIA director, John Ratcliffe, come as Trump administers over enormous federal workforce decreases supervised by billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Veterans, farm groups knock Trump cuts at Democrat-run Arizona town hall

Arizona farm groups and veterans combined by Democratic lawyers basic blasted U.S. President Donald Trump’s federal cuts, saying the president was neglecting judges who blocked his executive orders and damaging previous service members. They spoke at an in some cases raucous city center on Wednesday night arranged by the nation’s 23 Democratic attorney generals of the United States, who have actually filed suits to ask judges to obstruct a string of Trump executive orders, including his suspension of trillions of dollars in federal grants, loans and financial support.

‘We remain in a dark area,’ US judge says on rising threats

Threats against U.S. judges are increasing and attorneys should do more to push back against heated rhetoric, four federal judges stated in a panel discussion on Thursday. Speaking at an American Bar Association conference on white collar criminal activity in Miami, U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware of Las Vegas federal court stated risks versus the judiciary had actually gone up “exponentially.”

Trump’s FDA nominee tepidly backs function for vaccine consultants in guarded Senate appearance

Martin Makary, President Donald Trump’s candidate to run the U.S. FDA, told legislators on Thursday he would assemble a committee of vaccine advisers however stated he would reassess which clinical issues need their input. It was one of a number of concerns on which Makary, a Johns Hopkins physician, kept his cards near his chest while facing the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee for 2 hours.

Trump tells cabinet secretaries they, not Musk, are in charge of personnel cuts

U.S. President Donald Trump informed his cabinet members on Thursday that they, not Elon Musk, have the final say on staffing and policy at their firms, according to a source acquainted with the matter. The billionaire Tesla CEO and his Department of Government Efficiency will play an advisory role only, Trump stated, according to the source. Musk was in the space and informed the cabinet he was good with Trump’s strategy, the source stated.

Promote long-term US daytime saving time frozen as Trump states Americans are divided

A three-year congressional effort to make daylight saving time permanent in the United States appears to have halted, with President Donald Trump stating on Thursday that Americans are equally divided over the problem. Daylight conserving time – putting the clocks forward one hour throughout the summer half of the year to maximize the longer evenings – has been in location in almost all of the United States because the 1960s, however advocates have actually pushed to make it year-round.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs deals with new indictment, is accused of ‘required labor’

U.S. prosecutors on Thursday revealed a new indictment versus Sean “Diddy” Combs, implicating the hip-hop mogul of requiring staff members to work long hours and threatening to penalize those who did not assist in his two-decade sex trafficking scheme. Combs, 55, still faces a scheduled May 5 trial in Manhattan on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pleaded not guilty.

US federal workers countered at Trump mass firings with class action complaints

U.S. federal government employees who have actually been fired in the Trump administration’s purge of just recently employed workers are responding with class action-style problems claiming that the mass shootings are prohibited and tens of thousands of people need to get their tasks back. Lawyers at two companies stated on Thursday that they had submitted 6 appeals with the federal Merit Systems Protection Board since recently and, together with other law companies, plan to bring about 15 more on an agency-by-agency basis on behalf of large groups of workers who were fired in recent weeks.

Trump administration should make some foreign help payments by Monday, judge rules

The Trump administration must make some payments to foreign aid professionals and grant receivers by 6 p.m. (1100 GMT) on Monday, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed the administration’s request to prevent a due date for the payments. The judgment by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali came at completion of a hearing in a claim by specialists and non-profit grant recipients challenging President Donald Trump’s comprehensive freeze of U.S. foreign aid, a day after the groups got a boost from the Supreme Court. It orders the federal to pay billings submitted by the plaintiffs in the event before February 13.