Reuters United States Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of present 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, pointing out senior State Department authorities. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January to combat antisemitism and has vowed to deport non-citizen college students and others who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have actually been continuous for months amidst Israel’s military assault on Gaza after Hamas’ October 2023 attack.

CIA fires an unspecified variety of new officers

The Central Intelligence Agency fired a slew of recent hires today, three people familiar with the matter stated, cuts that existing and former U.S. intelligence officers warned would run the risk of destructive U.S. national security. The shootings under U.S. President Donald Trump’s brand-new CIA director, John Ratcliffe, come as Trump commands huge federal workforce reductions overseen by billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Veterans, farm groups knock Trump cuts at Democrat-run Arizona city center

Arizona farm groups and veterans brought together by Democratic attorney generals of the United States lashed out at U.S. President Donald Trump’s federal cuts, saying the president was overlooking judges who obstructed his executive orders and harming former service members. They spoke at an often raucous town hall on Wednesday night organized by the country’s 23 Democratic chief law officers, who have filed lawsuits to ask judges to obstruct a string of Trump executive orders, including his suspension of trillions of dollars in federal grants, loans and financial backing.

‘We remain in a dark area,’ US judge says on increasing risks

Threats versus U.S. judges are rising and lawyers need to do more to push back versus heated rhetoric, 4 federal judges said in a panel conversation on Thursday. Speaking at an American Bar Association conference on crime in Miami, U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware of Las Vegas federal court stated risks against the judiciary had actually gone up « exponentially. »

Trump’s FDA candidate tepidly backs function for vaccine consultants in safeguarded Senate appearance

Martin Makary, President Donald Trump’s nominee to run the U.S. FDA, told legislators on Thursday he would convene a committee of vaccine advisers but said he would reevaluate which scientific concerns need their input. It was among numerous concerns on which Makary, a Johns Hopkins doctor, 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, supervise of staff cuts

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

Push for irreversible US daylight conserving time frozen as Trump states Americans are divided

A three-year congressional effort to make daytime saving time long-term in the United States appears to have stopped, with President Donald Trump stating on Thursday that Americans are evenly divided over the issue. Daylight conserving time – putting the clocks forward one hour throughout the summer season half of the year to take advantage of the longer evenings – has remained in place in nearly all of the United States because the 1960s, however proponents have pushed to make it year-round.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs deals with new indictment, is implicated of ‘forced labor’

U.S. prosecutors on Thursday unveiled a new indictment against Sean « Diddy » Combs, implicating the hip-hop mogul of forcing staff members to work long hours and threatening to punish those who did not assist in his two-decade sex trafficking scheme. Combs, 55, still deals with a scheduled May 5 trial in Manhattan on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transport to engage in prostitution. He has actually pleaded innocent.

US federal employees hit back at Trump mass shootings with class action grievances

U.S. civil servant who have actually been fired in the Trump administration’s purge of just recently employed workers are reacting with class action-style complaints declaring that the mass firings are illegal and tens of countless individuals should get their tasks back. Lawyers at two companies said on Thursday that they had filed 6 appeals with the federal Merit Systems Protection Board since recently and, together with other law practice, plan to bring about 15 more on an agency-by-agency basis on behalf of big groups of employees who were fired in current weeks.

Trump administration need to make some foreign aid payments by Monday, judge guidelines

The Trump administration should make some payments to foreign help contractors and grant recipients 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 avoid a due date for the payments. The judgment by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali came at completion of a hearing in a suit by professionals and non-profit grant receivers challenging President Donald Trump’s comprehensive freeze of U.S. foreign help, a day after the groups got an increase from the Supreme Court. It orders the federal government to pay invoices sent by the complainants in the event before February 13.