Trump’s Moves to Upend Federal Bureaucracy Touch Off Fear and Confusion

Agencies are gripped with uncertainty about how to implement the blizzard of new policies as workers frantically try to assess the impact on their lives.

The New York Times (Gift)

The only person in the world with a functioning pig organ is thriving after a record 2 months

An Alabama woman passed a major milestone Saturday to become the longest living recipient of a pig organ transplant – healthy and full of energy with her new kidney for 61 days and counting.

AP News

‘We’re watching mass delusion happen’: Trump’s return to White House brings cascade of lies

“It’s a continuation of Donald Trump’s brand,” said Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill. “He knows that sunlight is the best disinfectant so he’s going to continue to lie to mask what he’s doing. If you can undermine institutions and credible sources of information, you can get away with lying and deceiving people. We’re watching that mass delusion happen right before our eyes in the Trump administration 2.0.”

The Guardian

Many Trump plans are pipe dreams. But the ones that may really happen threaten the whole planet.

I’m not worried about attacking Greenland, but I am terrified for our environment.

LGBTQ Nation

‘Pee-wee Herman’ star Paul Reubens comes out as gay after death: Reports

“I was out of the closet, and then I went back in the closet,” he said in the documentary, according to Out and the New York Post. “I wasn’t pursuing the Paul Reubens career, I was pursuing the Pee-wee Herman career.”

USA Today

Trump Gives Elon Musk Access to All Unclassified Data in the US Government

But as flagged by Wired, under the executive order, the Trump Administration didn’t create a new federal advisory committee. It instead repurposed the United States Digital Service (USDS), an existing government organization with sweeping access to vast caches of data across government agencies, including the sensitive information of US citizens, as the “United States DOGE Service” — a move that seemingly opens the door for Musk and his operatives to access a massive amount of data without much transparency oversight.

Futurism

Rutgers University Cancels HBCU Conference, Citing Trump’s Anti-DEI Executive Order

“We were very excited to bring the HBCUs and Registered Apprenticeship Mini-Conference to you next week,” the email read. “Unfortunately, due to President Trump’s Executive Orders…we have been asked to cease all work under the auspices of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility HUB at Jobs for the Future, which the U.S. Department of Labor funds.”

Black Enterprise

Everything else you need to know about Trump’s anti-trans order

The definition claims to be based on the “immutable biological reality of sex,” despite ignoring biological variance in intersex people. “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” the executive order reads. “These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.” All of America’s major medical associations disagree and recognize trans, nonbinary, and intersex people as natural manifestations of human diversity.

Into

Bad Bunny fears Puerto Rico will become the new Hawaii. He’s not alone.

Those who grew up in Puerto Rico say it wasn’t uncommon to hear Hawaii mentioned in debates around statehood — a question the island has wrestled with for more than a century.

Like Hawaii, Puerto Rico was annexed to the US in the late 19th century. While the former went on to become a fully-fledged state, the latter remains a territory with limited voting privileges.

Business Insider

Did a Private Equity Fire Truck Roll-Up Worsen the L.A. Fires?

Why couldn’t the LAFD keep its equipment in working order? A lot of people blame budget cuts, but there’s another root issue – increasing prices and metastasizing production delays for these vehicles. The cost of fire trucks has skyrocketed in recent years––going from around $300 -500,000 for a pumper truck and $750-900,000 for a ladder truck in the mid-2010s, to around $1 million for a pumper truck and $2 million for a ladder truck in the last couple years. Meanwhile, the time it takes to get a fire truck delivered has grown dramatically, from less than a year before the pandemic to anywhere between 2 and 4.5 years today. (It’s not just trucks, all fire equipment is increasing quickly in price, from air supply packs to maintenance contracts.)

The Big Newsletter

Energized neo-Nazis feel their moment has come as Trump changes everything

Far-right chatrooms are abuzz as extremists plan to use the next four years as ‘breathing room’ and look to expand

The Guardian

Alaskans say Trump can change the name of Denali but can’t make people call it Mount McKinley

King and many others who live in the mountain’s shadow say most Alaskans will never stop calling the peak Denali, its Alaska Native name, despite President Donald Trump’s executive order that the name revert to Mount McKinley — an identifier inspired by President William McKinley, who was from Ohio and never set foot in Alaska.

AP News

Air Force cuts Tuskegee Airmen, WASP history class from boot camp on Trump order

A video on the famed unit, as well as one on World War II-era women pilots, was part of three courses removed from Air Force basic training curriculum.

Task and Purpose

Trump slaps tariffs on Colombia after it turns back migrant deportation planes

President Donald Trump said on Sunday he would impose sweeping retaliatory measures on Colombia, including tariffs and sanctions, after the South American country turned away two U.S. military aircraft with migrants being deported as part of the new U.S. administration’s immigration crackdown.

Reuters

Eggs are pricey again. What’s the government doing about it?

Bird flu is surging in the US again and has, once again, sent egg prices skyrocketing. Nearly 13 million birds have been infected or culled in the past month alone, contributing to shortages. A carton of eggs today costs more than $4 on average, up from about $2.50 a year ago.

Vox

Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship sparks GOP divisions 

Other Republicans disagree. Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), who represents the southernmost tip of Florida, said the 14th Amendment — adopted in 1868 to provide citizenship rights to freed slaves and their descendants — is “pretty clear cut” and no president, including Trump, has the power to roll it back. 

“I believe if you’re born in the United States, you’re a citizen of the United States,” Gimenez said. “So I think the way to actually solve the problem that you’re trying to solve is to control the border.”

The Hill

Colombia’s disappeared: As a coalition, former enemies now search for loved ones and dream of peace

The fight among leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug lords and government forces left more than 450,000 people killed and 124,000 disappeared. These figures are on par with other conflicts in Latin America, where thousands have vanished under similar circumstances.

AP News

Stranded in Mexico City, these migrants hoping to reach the United States have no good options

Then President Trump issued decrees that effectively shut down migration along the U.S.-Mexico border, leaving tens of thousands of migrants marooned in camps, shelters and other accommodations across Mexico, from the southern hinterlands to the Rio Grande.

Los Angeles Times

Israel accuses Hamas of breaching ceasefire, refuses to open crossing points to northern Gaza

Tens of thousands of Palestinians waited, blocked on the road, to return to their homes in northern Gaza on Sunday, voicing frustration after Israel accused Hamas of breaching a ceasefire agreement and refused to open crossing points.

USA Today

International peacekeepers killed as fighting rages around eastern Congo’s key city

Fighting with M23 rebels in eastern Congo has left at least 13 peacekeepers and foreign soldiers dead, United Nations and army officials said Saturday.

NPR

About 70 people killed in attack on hospital in Sudan’s Darfur region, WHO chief says

Around 70 people were killed in an attack on the only functional hospital in the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan, the chief of the World Health Organization said Sunday, part of a series of attacks coming as the African nation’s civil war escalated in recent days.

AP News

Ghana’s parliament passed a bill banning LGBTQ+ identity. It was just declared dead.

The country’s new president said that the country should focus more on “education” than penalizing LGBTQ+ people.

LGBTQ Nation

Where can Labor turn for ideas on how to win the Australian election? How about Mexico?

Last year, as an anti-incumbent wave swept the globe, Mexico’s ruling left-wing Morena party recorded a landslide victory.

Those who study Latin American politics say the result offers lessons for Australia’s Labor government in its quest to buck the global trend, and retain power at this year’s general election.

Claudia Sheinbaum won the election convincingly to become Mexico’s first female president by supporting the policy platform pioneered by her predecessor and party founder, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The Guardian

Britain has ‘first dibs’ on Greenland, island’s last Danish minister says

Donald Trump would need Keir Starmer’s approval for his new ‘aggressive’ Arctic strategy which sent Denmark into ‘crisis mode’

The Telegraph

Trump wants Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians from Gaza. Here’s why the idea is rejected

President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Egypt and Jordan take in Palestinians from the war-ravaged Gaza Strip is being met with a hard “no” from at least one of the two U.S. allies along with the Palestinians themselves, who fear Israel would never allow them to return.

AP News

Conservative proposals on migration light fire under German election

Germany’s conservative CDU/CSU alliance is to put forward two motions in the nation’s parliament this week to stiffen migration policy amid an increasingly febrile debate following a recent double murder and ahead of elections next month.

“Current asylum and immigration policy jeopardizes the security of the people and the confidence of all of society in the state,” a party document seen by dpa over the weekend says.

dpa

Israel massacres 22 in Lebanon on ceasefire withdrawal deadline

At least 22 have been massacred in southern Lebanon after Israel opened fire on them as they tried to return to their homes.

The New Arab

Peru’s disappeared: Dozens look for relatives lost to violence. A woman who knows their sorrow helps

Thousands more have disappeared thought Latin America under dictatorships, during armed conflicts or due to organized crime. Their wives, mothers and daughters have historically fought for justice, but Flores’ case is distinctive because even after finding her husband’s remains 40 years ago, her loss led her to commit to a greater cause.

AP News