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US Monthly Headline News January 2025
Story by Joe Patrice

The federal funding freeze never rested on anything approaching firm legal footing, so when the administration swiftly issued a retraction before Judge McConnell of the District of Rhode Island was set to hear the matter, that seemed to be the end of this farcical episode. But it was actually the beginning of an even dumber legal strategy that has now imploded like one of Elon’s rockets.

All because the new White House Press Secretary decided to head to social media to brag that the administration would never back down and appears to have accidentally admitted that the administration was trying to defraud the court all along.

Oops.
Story by Carl Gibson

President Donald Trump recently ordered the release of massive amounts of water from two California dams, and now local farmers are scrambling to preserve precious freshwater resources needed for dry summer months.

The Los Angeles Times reported Friday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — acting on Trump's orders — released water from the Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and the Schafer Dam at Lake Success, which are both in Tulare County in the San Joaquin Valley. Whereas water was originally flowing from the Terminus Dam at 57 cubic feet per second (cfs), it's now reportedly flowing at more than 1,500 cfs. The flow from Lake Success went from 105 cfas to 990 cfs as of Friday morning.

In a post to his official X account, Trump tweeted a "photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California," writing: "Today, 1.6 billion gallons and, in 3 days, it will be 5.2 billion gallons." He suggested that the water release would help officials in the Golden State fight wildfires in Southern California.

In an effort to not only rewrite the history of his January 6 insurrection but to exact revenge on the agents and lawyers who worked to hold him and his rioting supporters accountable, Donald Trump appears to be in the midst of a massive purge of the FBI and the DOJ, turning them into agencies that cater to his interests and concerns instead of the law. Rachel Maddow explains.
Story by Justine Calma

Key resources for environmental data and public health have already been taken down from federal websites, and more could soon vanish as the Trump administration works to scrap anything that has to do with climate change, racial equity, or gender identity.

Warnings floated on social media today about an impending purge at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), spurring calls to save as much data as soon as possible. The CDC shares data on a wide range of topics, from chronic diseases to traffic injuries, tobacco use, vaccinations, and pregnancies in the US — and it’s just one of the agencies in the crosshairs.

Fortunately, researchers have been archiving government websites for months. This is typical with every change in administration, but there was even more imperative with the return of Donald Trump to office. Access to as much as 20 percent of the Environmental Protection Agency’s website was removed during the first round of Trump’s deregulatory spree. And now, it seems, similar moves are happening fast.

The CDC’s social vulnerability index and environmental justice index — tools that could show whether particular populations might face disproportionate health risks — have both been taken offline within the past week. In 2007, during the Bush administration, social scientists, geographers, and statisticians started developing the social vulnerability index (SVI), which incorporated demographic and socioeconomic factors including poverty, race, and ethnicity over the years.
Story by Erik Sherman

A shocking video shows a Tesla using self-driving technology to around parked aircraft near a series of hangars. Unfortunately for the vehicle and the aircraft, the Tesla couldn’t identify the Cirrus Vision Jet as an obstacle and ran right into it. While you might expect viewers to joke at Tesla’s expense, they also gave the stationary jet a pretty hard time.

Pilots and aviation industry workers on social media roasted a self-driving Tesla and a parked airplane after the EV struck the jet
An Instagram video shows a Tesla EV using its self-driving functions to nonchalantly cruise onto a slick flight line. The camera, which seems to be attached to a nearby structure, captures the autonomous vehicle as it drives into the tail-end landing gear of a Cirrus Vision Jet.

Surprisingly, the video doesn’t show the Tesla doing much to slow or stop before striking the stationary airplane. Moreover, after the self-driving EV strikes the Cirrus, the vehicle attempts to keep moving.

Now, of the many regulars you’d expect at a smaller airfield, the Tesla chose a pretty pricey target. A new Cirrus Vision Jet starts at above $3 million. Even used models are firmly in the seven-figure range.

Consequently, one viewer joked that the insurance situation was likely a waking nightmare. “Insurance company: ‘You hit what’?” Another commenter skewered the Tesla self-driving suite by saying, “Tesla Autopilot is about as good as drunk driving.” Ouch. “I guess the Teslas Autopilot doesn't have ‘airplane mode,’” joked another viewer.
Story by Josh Marcus

Federal employees are beginning to see the impacts of Donald Trump’s executive orders on gender and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, as well as facing continued pressure to accept buyouts and resign from the government later this year.

On Thursday, as their agency worked to investigate a catastrophic plane crash between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter outside of Washington, employees of the Federal Aviation Administration were reportedly among government workers who got an email encouraging them to quit and find a “higher productivity” job.

“We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so,” read an email that went out to FAA workers, as well as those at the CDC and Departments of Homeland Security and Justice, which was obtained by The New York Times. “The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.”

Earlier this week, the Trump administration offered millions of federal workers the chance to resign from their positions and keep getting paid through the end of September if they agreed to a buyout by February 6, though critics have argued the White House has neither the legal authority nor the guaranteed congressional funding to pay government workers who aren’t working.

The buyout offer comes at awkward time, especially for agencies involved in transit.
Story by Sarah K. Burris

The aides Elon Musk brought to help him purge the federal workforce have locked staffers of a U.S. government human resources agency out of the computer systems with millions of employees' personal information.

Reuters cited two agency officials revealing that Musk, who has not been hired, appointed, or confirmed to any government position, is at work trying to cut $2 trillion from the annual U.S. budget. Musk would still need to find over $1.3 trillion in additional cuts if every federal employee was cut. The cost of the entire federal workforce in 2022 was approximately $271 billion, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

The New York Times reported this week that billionaire Musk brought in his computer engineers to handle his ongoing demands.
Trump broke the law and now plans to fire the people who investigated him for breaking the law.

Story by ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump administration officials are moving to fire FBI agents engaged in investigations involving President Donald Trump in the coming days, two people familiar with the plans said Friday.

It was not clear how many agents might be affected, though scores of investigators were involved in various inquiries touching Trump. Officials acting at the direction of the administration have been working to identify individual employees who participated in politically sensitive investigations for possible termination, said the people who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The terminations would be a major blow to the historic independence from the White House of the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency and would reflect the Trump’s determination to bend the law enforcement and intelligence community to his will. It’s part of a startling pattern of retribution waged on federal government employees, following the forced ousters of a group of senior FBI executives earlier this week as well as a mass firing by the Justice Department of prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team who investigated Trump.
Why does Elon Musk's and his allies want access to the Social Security payment system? What were they going to do with that access?

Story by Elizabeth Urban

A top Treasury official has left the agency after Elon Musk's allies allegedly demanded access to the Social Security payment system, according to a new report.

On Friday, David A. Lebryk announced his retirement from the Treasury after briefly being named acting secretary by President Donald Trump last week, according to an email obtained by the Washington Post.

Three sources told the outlet that prior to his departure, Lebryk and Musk had gotten into an argument after officials from the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which Musk was named to help lead, asked for access to the payment system.

The payment systems, which control the distribution of more than $6 trillion dollars in funds to families and businesses through Social Security, Medicare, federal salaries, grants and others, are usually only managed by a select number of people.
Erin Alberty, Russell Contreras

Some Native American tribes say tribal members are being harassed by federal immigration agents, while others fear they could be wrongly caught up in immigration raids.

Why it matters: The angst among some Indigenous tribes reflects the confusion and fear even among legal citizens during the Trump administration's immigration raids.

The big picture: Several tribes have issued warnings and advice to their members based on what they say have been encounters in which U.S. immigration agents have demanded proof of citizenship — episodes that the tribes have linked to racial profiling.

   The alarm comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says its agents are arresting more than 1,000 undocumented immigrants a day, part of President Trump's push to deport "millions" of people not authorized to stay in the U.S.

   Immigration raids in cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles — and Trump's new directives to allow searches in schools and churches in addition to workplaces and homes — have heightened concerns in communities across the country.
Story by Billal Rahman

The Mayor of Douglas City Council in Arizona has told Newsweek why he declared a state of emergency in response to President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

Mayor Jose Grijalva, a Democrat, said his economy depends on the cross-border relationship with the Mexican town of Agua Prieta, two miles away.

He said he simply wants to let Trump know that his city may need funds to sustain its economy if it loses out as a result of the president's policies. "This isn't political in nature," he said.

Why It Matters
Immigration and mass deportations were a key component of President Trump's successful 2024 campaign. Americans largely support the president's mass deportation plans but disagree about how policies should be carried out. A poll by The New York Times and Ipsos from January 2 to 10 found that 55 percent of voters strongly or somewhat supported such plans. Eighty-eight percent supported "deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have criminal records."

While most Americans support immigration reform, border communities are more divided. Towns like Douglas face worker shortages and high compliance costs under Trump's policies, straining key industries like construction and agriculture.
Story by Griffin Eckstein

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his pro-austerity Department of Government Efficiency tried to access key systems responsible for paying out the federal government’s salaries and bills, pushing a high-ranking career civil servant to quit the Treasury Department.

According to The Washington Post, David Lebryk, the current deputy secretary of the Treasury Department, is expected to leave the agency after decades of nonpolitical service.

Sources told the Post that Lebryk pushed back on attempts by Musk surrogates to access the nation’s system for doling out paychecks, Social Security and Medicare benefits, tax refunds and federal contracts.
Is Trump showing us he is a bigot?

Story by AFP

US President Donald Trump -- speaking as the bodies of 67 people were being pulled from Washington's Potomac River -- launched an extraordinary political attack Thursday, blaming diversity hires for the midair collision between an airliner and a military helicopter.

The Republican confirmed the deaths of all those aboard both aircraft, and also cited pilot error on the helicopter in the nighttime crash.

But he chiefly used a press conference to open fire at what he said were left-wing diversity practices under his predecessors Joe Biden and Barack Obama that he said kept out good employees at the Federal Aviation Administration.

"I put safety first. Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first," Trump said. "They actually came out with a directive: 'too white.' And we want the people that are competent."
Story by Sarah K. Burris,Matt Laslo

WASHINGTON — Republicans confessed their own constituents are concerned after President Donald Trump issued atotal freeze across all government spending.

Raw Story spoke to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) before the White House tried to retract its letter from the Office of Management and Budget announcing the freeze.

She let out a deep sigh and said she heard about the funding freeze not only from Republican mayors but "mayors all over."

"We had a meeting with our staff on the Indian Affairs Committee so — very concerned about some of the tribal programs," she said, adding they're "hearing from our communities, hearing from our non-profits — non-profits are really quite anxious. So, yeah, yesterday was a really challenging day because a lot of people are anxious and concerned with no answers and they called us. And we had to share that we don't have any answers for them right now."

Murkowski said her office is working to be responsive, but there is simply no information to help.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) said that she turned to Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) on Tuesday, telling him, "A lot of this stuff is your stuff."
Story by Sophie Clark

At least 12 people pardoned by President Donald Trump in his first and second terms—including two last week—have since been apprehended by the police.

The White House has been contacted via email for comment.

Why It Matters
The number of pardons that went to Trump's political allies, former aides, celebrities and military contractors in his first term, and the blanket pardon of Capitol rioters which is unpopular with several Republicans, has led some to question whether the president chooses to overlook law and justice when it comes to his friends.

Combating crime is seen as important to 92 percent of Americans, per a recent YouGov poll, and Trump ran in both 2016 and 2024 on a platform of law and justice.

What To Know
Trump pardoned 238 people in his first term and has already pardoned more than 1,500 Capitol rioters following his reelection, as well as seven people involved in blockading a Michigan abortion clinic in 2020.

At least 10 people pardoned between 2016 to 2021, and two people pardoned last week, were charged again on new crimes after their presidential release from prison. A third Capitol rioter remains on the run from police due to a prior warrant.

Two Capitol rioters have had run-ins with the police, one fatal, within a week of being pardoned. January 6 participant Matthew Huttle was fatally shot by an officer after allegedly resisting arrest at a traffic stop in Indiana.
Story by Euronews

An American Airlines aeroplane carrying 60 passengers and four crew members has collided with an army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, prompting a large search-and-rescue operation in the nearby Potomac River.

However, the authorities on the scene have reasons to conclude no one on the two aircraft survived the crash, they said at a second press conference in Washington on Thursday morning local time.

"We don't believe there are any survivors from this accident," DC fire chief John Donne

"All of us are working together to search the area and find all victims," Donnelly added.

So far, 27 bodies were recovered from the plane, while one body was recovered from the helicopter. The army Black Hawk helicopter was on a training flight at the time, carrying a crew of three soldiers, according to officials.

The body of the plane was found upside down in three sections in waist-deep water. The wreckage of the helicopter was also found. The icy weather conditions were complicating recovery operations, which were still ongoing on Thursday.

Both aircraft were in standard flight patterns on a clear night with good visibility, authorities said.
Story by Tara Copp

The Defense Department's intelligence agency has paused observances of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Pride Month, Holocaust Days of Remembrance and other cultural or historical annual events in response to President Donald Trump's ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal workplace.

The instructions were published Tuesday in a Defense Intelligence Agency memo obtained by The Associated Press and affect 11 annual events, including Black History Month, which begins Saturday, and National Hispanic Heritage Month.

The memo's authenticity was confirmed by a U.S. official who said the pause was initiated by the DIA and appears not to be policy across the Defense Department. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
To carry out its mass deportation plans, the government is also considering redirecting money from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)
Michelly Teixeira

The Trump administration is considering reallocating funds from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Coast Guard, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) cover the rising costs of deportations, according to sources familiar with the discussions, as reported by NBC News.

ICE, responsible for enforcing President Donald Trump's push for mass deportations, faces a significant budget shortfall. A former and a current Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told the outlet that the cost of deporting a single person during the previous administration averaged about $10,500, from arrest to removal. With Trump's directive to deport 'millions and millions' of people and increase daily arrests to between 1,200 and 1,500 people, the costs are expected to soar.
Story by David Voreacos and Patricia Hurtado

(Bloomberg) -- A judge who will decide the punishment for Bob Menendez must weigh the former senator’s half century of public service against calls by prosecutors to imprison him for 15 years after he was convicted of systematically exploiting his power for personal profit.

US District Judge Sidney Stein will sentence the New Jersey Democrat on Wednesday for bribery, extortion and acting as an agent of Egypt while he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The two businessmen found guilty of giving Menendez gold bars, cash and a convertible received sentences of seven and eight years in prison at the hearing Wednesday.

Prosecutors said in a court filing that Menendez’s corruption was “perhaps more serious” than that of any US senator ever. Lawyers for Menendez, 71, suggested a term of about two years, or even home detention and community service. They said prosecutors seek a “vindictive and cruel” punishment that would amount to a death sentence for a man his age.

“Senator Menendez has suffered extreme public shame and upheaval, and his finances and reputation are destroyed,” his lawyers wrote. “He is the butt of late-night talk show jokes, and his name will live in infamy as the first politician in history to be convicted of being a foreign agent.”
Story by Rebecca Mezistrano

The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady in January, marking its first policy meeting of the year. Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth, joined TheStreet to discuss what higher for longer rates means for the economy in 2025.

CONWAY GITTENS: So, Brian, if rates are going to be higher for longer, what does that do to the economic picture for 2025? We already have housing still struggling. Manufacturing is in a recession. We just got some new data how consumers are becoming more delinquent on their credit card debt. So if rates are going to be higher for longer, what does that mean?

BRIAN JACOBSEN: Yeah, that's a great point. And really what it means is continued economic slowing in the parts that have already experienced the slowing. The problem in the economy is that it's really broken into two parts. You have the services, and especially those that are more geared towards higher net worth, higher income individuals who continue to spend. And then you have like manufacturing and then the parts of the economy more geared towards lower income individuals. And that part remains in contraction. And so I fear that in 2025, we're going to continue to see the spread widen, this gulf, widen between the services and manufacturing. Now, of course, a lot could change on the policy front. We really have to monitor that. But I do think that inflationary pressures are going to continue to really abate. But those economic divergences might continue to widen.
Story by Brad Reed

An inspector general who was fired by President Donald Trump last week was reportedly escorted from her office by security after she refused to accept that she had been lawfully terminated from her job.

Reuters reports that United States Department of Agriculture inspector general Phyllis Fong, who had worked at the department for more than two decades, showed up to work on Monday and insisted that she was staying despite Trump's declaration last week that she and a dozen other inspectors general would be fired.

The law requires the executive branch to give Congress a 30-day notice if it intends to terminate inspectors general, which has led many legal observers to conclude that Trump violated the law when he moved to purge independent watchdogs from the federal government.
Petty Betty is at it again. Trump pulling security clearances and protective details from people who criticized him is as petty as it gets.

Story by TARA COPP

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is pulling security protections and clearance for Gen. Mark Milley, retired Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, and has ordered the Pentagon's inspector general to review Milley's actions while serving as the nation's top uniformed officer to determine if a demotion is warranted.

The inspector general review will include “an inquiry into the facts and circumstances surrounding Gen. Milley’s conduct so that the Secretary may determine whether it is appropriate to reopen his military grade review determination,” Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot said late Tuesday.

“The Secretary informed General Milley today that he is revoking the authorization for his security detail and suspending his security clearance as well," he said.

Milley served as chairman during President Donald Trump's first term. While the relationship initially went well, it soured deeply and fast, as Milley tried to advise and contain the president on a host of issues.

He pushed back on the president's interest in using the military domestically to quell protesters after the death of George Floyd, and he was at the center of a controversy in 2021 when he made independent calls to his Chinese counterpart.
Story by Marni Rose McFall

The nation's immigration enforcement agency has reportedly detained a legal migrant in Ohio, who had been working in the U.S. for 30 years, as it conducts raids under the mass deportation operation of President Donald Trump.

Newsweek has reached out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Simakovsky Law, the legal migrant's legal team, via email for comment.

Why It Matters
Immigration and mass deportations were a key component of President Trump's successful 2024 campaign. Since the commencement of his second term, hundreds of undocumented immigrants have been arrested.

Under the current administration, ICE has gained expanded powers in immigration enforcement, which includes the power to conduct raids in places of worship, schools and hospitals.

Critics say immigration raids are sowing fear in vulnerable communities and that they violate protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Issues including warrantless arrests, data collection without consent and detentions without probable cause could be deemed unconstitutional and may prompt potential legal battles over balancing immigration enforcement with individual rights.
Story by Bart Jansen, USA TODAY

The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to drop the criminal case against President Donald Trump’s two former co-defendants, who were accused of conspiring to hide classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.

U.S. Attorney Hayden O’Byrne in Florida asked the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals court to dismiss the case against the co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, in a way that it could never be filed again.

Former special counsel Jack Smith had previously dropped two federal cases against Trump, on charges he tried to steal the 2020 election and that he unlawfully retained national defense records after leaving the White House, after he won the Nov. 5 election. Longstanding department policy prohibits prosecuting a sitting president.
Story by Steve Benen

Some political observers argue that Donald Trump and his team are simply impervious to pressure. No matter how great the outrage, the argument goes, the president and his Republican operation will ignore criticisms, rewrite history, deliver marching orders, and refuse to back down.

This observation is mistaken. Indeed, several examples have emerged since the president’s second inaugural.

Take, for example, the White House’s budget office ordered a freeze to federal grants, loans and related assistance — money that Congress has already appropriated — effectively trying to shift the power of the purpose to the Trump administration. The OMB memo sparked widespread confusion, chaos and controversy.

And it’s against this backdrop that the White House rescinded the memo on Wednesday.
Story by Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney

The Justice Department on Wednesday moved to drop its effort to prosecute Donald Trump’s former co-defendants in special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case.

Prosecutors asked a federal appeals court to dismiss an appeal filed during the Biden administration that sought to reinstate criminal charges against two men Smith had charged alongside Trump.
Story by Erik De La Garza

The Pentagon is reportedly reeling from the uncertainty sparked by President Donald Trump’s head-spinning series of new executive orders – so much so that officials unsure of how to fulfill the directives paused new contracts, only to later reinstate them, according to a report in Politico.

Pentagon officials were forced to clarify on Tuesday that it would not halt Army deals for new weapons after top brass misunderstood Trump’s order on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives, the report stated. But the move already created mass confusion within the defense industry and sparked broad concerns over Trump’s extensive set of actions.

“The directives sent shock waves through the Army bureaucracy,” Politico reported. “It prompted officials to ‘put a hold on all of their contracts,’ according to a congressional aide, granted anonymity to speak about internal discussions.”

Washington DC - The Trump administration's attempt to suspend trillions of dollars in federal grants, loans, and other aid was temporarily blocked at the last minute by a federal judge as the president's shock move unleashed chaos.

Judge Loren AliKhan halted the order until at least Monday, after several non-profit groups filed suit claiming it was illegal.

Attorneys general of over 20 Democratic-led states later filed a separate suit seeking to block the Donald Trump's radical decision.

Even before the suspension was set to begin, online portals used to access the Medicaid health insurance program for poor families and disabled individuals became inaccessible.
Story by Kyle Cheney

Welcome to the “try and stop me” presidency.

Donald Trump, cheered on by compliant Republicans in Congress and confident in the ideological leanings of the Supreme Court, is using his first days in office to impose sweeping changes to the way government works and overwhelm traditional institutional checks on presidential power.

Detractors are trying to keep pace by filing a wave of lawsuits aimed at blocking some of Trump’s most far-reaching orders. Those efforts are raising the prospect of a clash that could define Trump’s second term: How would a president who is deploying maximal executive power respond if a court — perhaps the Supreme Court — tells him no?

Nowhere is Trump’s assertion of power more brazen than in his administration’s blanket Monday night order to halt federal aid spending, save for Medicare and Social Security. The move is both an affront to Congress’ constitutional power of the purse and a direct challenge to a 50-year-old federal law meant to ensure congressionally authorized funds go out the door.

Trump has also pushed legal boundaries, or blown through them completely, with his executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, his purge of in-house government watchdogs and his decision not to enforce a law mandating the sale of TikTok.
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