"Where you can find almost anything with A Click A Pick!"
Go to content
US Monthly Headline News
Story by Suzanne Blake

Since newly Trump-appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has taken over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency has mandated a complete halt of and review of services to "promote consistency" under the new administration.

Newsweek reached out to the CFPB via email for comment.

Why It Matters
The CFPB was first created after the 2008 banking recession to protect customers from unfair and predatory corporate behavior.

The halt means the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will cease crafting regulations or enforcing any rules or investigations. The halt was "effective immediately," The Washington Post reported.

What To Know
Republicans have attacked the CFPB as anti-business, with lawmakers calling to remove funding from the program. Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk has also pushed for Congress to eliminate the CFPB.

Former President Joe Biden's administration saw the CFPB make significant changes for predatory lenders under the CFPB's former director, Rohit Chopra. The CFPB also lowered the burden of medical debt and helped customers see lower fees after missing credit card bills.
Trump is wasted billions of gallons of water. If California has limited water for drinking and farming in the summer they can thank Trump for wasting that water.

Story by Ella Nilsen, CNN

The US Army Corps of Engineers opened two dams on Friday in Central California and let roughly 2.2 billion gallons of water flow out of reservoirs, after President Donald Trump ordered the release with the misguided intent to send water to fire-ravaged Southern California.

Trump celebrated the move in posts to Truth Social post on Friday and Sunday, declaring, “the water is flowing in California,” and adding the water was “heading to farmers throughout the State, and to Los Angeles.”

There are two major problems, water experts said: The newly released water will not flow to Los Angeles, and it is being wasted by being released during the wet winter season.

“They were holding extra water in those reservoirs because of the risk that it would be a dry summer,” Heather Cooley, director of research for California water policy organization the Pacific Institute. “This puts agriculture at risk of insufficient water during the summer months.”

On Friday, Trump posted that 1.6 billion gallons was being released adding that “in 3 days, it will be 5.2 billion gallons.”
By  KEN MORITSUGU and HUIZHONG WU

BEIJING (AP) — China announced retaliatory tariffs on select American imports and an antitrust investigation into Google on Tuesday, just minutes after a sweeping levy on Chinese products imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump took effect.

American tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico were also set to go into effect Tuesday before Trump agreed to a 30-day pause as the two countries acted to address his concerns about border security and drug trafficking. Trump planned to talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the next few days.

This isn’t the first round of tit-for-tat actions between the two countries. China and the U.S. engaged in an escalating trade war in 2018 when Trump repeatedly raised tariffs on Chinese goods and China responded each time.
By Kalea Hall, Nora Eckert and Victoria Waldersee

Feb 4 (Reuters) - Donald Trump is keeping some of the world’s biggest automakers guessing whether the U.S. president will follow through on threats to slap their vehicles and supply chains with import taxes that could cause hefty vehicle-price spikes for U.S. consumers.

Trump reiterated on the weekend he would impose 25% tariffs this week on goods from Mexico and Canada - including on vehicles made by General Motors (GM.N), opens new tab and Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE), opens new tab - but delayed a decision for a month after discussions with each country's leader.

Such tariffs would cause “dramatic and immediate” financial fallout for U.S. automakers and other companies manufacturing vehicles in Mexico and Canada to sell in the U.S., said Sam Fiorani, vice president at research firm AutoForecast Solutions.
The uncertainty over Trump's threat has left the industry largely unable to take substantive action to mitigate potential damage, lest the regulatory landscape change with the president's next social media post.
The congresswoman compared herself to Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert in a fierce takedown of the new regime.
By Ron Dicker

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) called President Donald Trump a “white supremacist” and said she was “tired of the white tears” during an impassioned interview on CNN Monday. (Watch the videos below.)

Crockett, who is Black, was responding to host Laura Coates’ mention of Darren Beattie being nominated to serve under Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Beattie, a former speechwriter for Trump, was reportedly fired during the first term after it emerged that he attended a conference with white nationalists. In October 2024, he wrote on X: “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.”

“Your reaction,” Coates asked.

“He needs to go,” Crockett replied. “Right now we have a white supremacist that is sitting in the White House. He is backed up by other white supremacists.”

The lawmaker noted a high percentage of violent crime among white supremacists who “for whatever reason sit and they serve at the pleasure of the president. ... They were the ones there on Jan. 6 tearing our democracy down physically and now we have them tearing us down from within.”
An executive order — which President Donald Trump is expected to sign sometime this month — was expected to lay out a two-part strategy for shuttering the agency.
By Juan Perez Jr.

The Trump administration is finalizing plans to dismantle the Education Department through an executive order that would build on the president’s campaign promise to hammer the longtime conservative target.

The order — which President Donald Trump is expected to sign sometime this month, according to a White House official — was expected to lay out a two-part strategy for shuttering the agency, according to two people familiar with the plans and granted anonymity to discuss them.

It would direct the department to craft a plan to wind down its functions using its existing administrative authority. But the order was also expected to call for the agency to inventory a complex set of laws needed to delegate the department’s powers to other agencies and then close the department, an acknowledgment that some of conservatives’ biggest desires for change hinge on congressional approval. Such an order would launch a complex initiative. Some conservatives concede they currently lack enough support for legislation to close the department and farm its core functions out to other federal agencies.
Story by Zac Anderson, USA TODAY

President Donald Trump announced Monday that proposed U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods have been paused for 30 days, citing efforts by Canadian leaders to secure the border.

The announcement followed an afternoon call between Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trump had threatened 25% tariffs on all Canadian goods beginning this week unless the country did more to stop the flow of unauthorized migrants and fentanyl into the U.S.

Trudeau said in a statement that Canada is spending $1.3 billion on "reinforcing the border." Roughly 10,000 "frontline personnel are and will be" working on border protection, the country is appointing a "Fentanyl Czar" and will designate drug cartels as terrorists, Trudeau said. He added that Canada would spend $200 million on a new intelligence program targeted at organized crime and fentanyl.
Story by Sarah K. Burris

President Donald Trump spoke to reporters from the Oval Office on Monday about his trade tariffs and his talk with Canadian and Mexican leadership — and signed an executive order establishing a sovereign wealth fund for the nation.

But his news conference was littered with comments that left onlookers wondering if he knew what was happening.

It started when he asked a staffer which executive order he was signing. Then he was bombarded with questions including what he thought of markets tanking after he announced tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China over the weekend, and about Elon Musk's closing of the office housing the U.S. Agency of International Development. He was also questioned over Musk's accessing the personal data of government employees.

Those who watched couldn't help but ridicule as the president struggled to answer — and they fact-checked his statements.

Journalist Aaron Rupar called out a Trump claim that 300,000 Americans die annually from fentanyl overdoses — even though Trump's own executive order on tariffs to China cites 75,000 deaths from the drug. "This is a lie," he wrote.
Space constraints and court orders have led ICE to release migrants on monitoring programs after they’re arrested.
By Julia Ainsley

The Trump administration aggressively publicized the arrests of more than 8,000 immigrants by federal agents since Inauguration Day, with the promise that those detained would be part of a historic mass deportation. But NBC News has learned that some have already been released back into the United States on a monitoring program, according to five sources familiar with the operations.

Since he took office, President Donald Trump and his allies have promoted immigration operations in cities like Chicago and New York, where agents across federal agencies were called in to increase the number of arrests.

But arresting more people inside the United States on allegations of immigration violations means they need to be held somewhere. And significant space constraints in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities — and federal court orders forbidding indefinite detention — have forced the agency to release some of those arrested in the roundups rather than hold them until deportation.

ICE posts arrest figures daily on X, but it does not disclose how many of those arrested are released, remain in detention or have been deported.
By David Goldman, CNN

CNN — Just about everyone thought it was a bluff. Top analysts from the biggest banks on Wall Street said it was highly unlikely. Stocks were trading like it wouldn’t happen. Some companies built contingency plans, but they weren’t exactly rushing to make changes.

And maybe it was, after all. US President Donald Trump and Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum on Monday announced a deal to delay tariffs by a month after Mexico agreed to place 10,000 soldiers at the border.

That sent stocks on the verge of a comeback after they initially tumbled Monday. The Dow was down by around 130 points, or 0.3%, after tumbling nearly 600 points at the opening bell. The S&P 500 sank 0.7% and the Nasdaq Composite was 1% lower — both well off their lows.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies also reversed course and were broadly higher mid-morning.

Auto industry stocks, which had been particularly hard hit because virtually all American-made cars are manufactured at least in some part in Mexico or Canada, rebounded. GM (GM) was down less than 2% after falling more than 7% earlier in the day, Jeep and Chrysler maker Stellantis (STLA) was down 3% and Ford (F) fell more than 1% — well off their lows.

But, globally, stocks crumbled. Major European indexes were down across the board, and Asian markets closed sharply lower. The US dollar rose sharply.
João da Silva, Nick Edser & Natalie Sherman

US shares have halted their slide, after the president of Mexico said she had reached a deal with US President Donald Trump to suspend tariffs on the country's goods.

The announcement, which was confirmed by Trump, arrested a global sell-off in financial markets, sparked by his decision to move forward with tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China, and his pledge that tariffs on the EU would "definitely happen".

After opening down more than 1%, the three major indexes in the US regained some ground, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average off about 0.4% at midday.

Investors are bracing for a turbulent period that could hit the earnings of major companies and dent global growth.
Corbin Bolies

Vice President JD Vance appeared to walk back President Donald Trump’s persistent claims that “DEI” policies could be to blame for last week’s deadly D.C. plane crash after the Army released the final pilot’s name.

Vance told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on Sunday he and Trump believed the Biden administration’s diversity, equity, and inclusion policies helped cause a staffing shortage among air traffic controllers, potentially leading to the crash between an American Airlines jet and a military helicopter that killed 67 people.

But when asked about Trump’s repeated suggestions that air traffic controllers were hired because of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, Vance demurred. None of the air traffic controllers have been named and the Army on Saturday released the name of the third person aboard the Black Hawk helicopter, a female pilot whose family initially objected to disclosing her identity.
Story by David McAfee

It was reported on Sunday that two officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) were threatened with arrest and then put on leave after refusing to let Elon Musk access systems at the agency, and experts and observers quickly pounced.

In a report on Sunday, CNN said that personnel from DOGE were initially stopped after they tried to physically access USAID facilities in Washington, D.C., on Saturday night.

The DOGE personnel, who do not officially work for the U.S. government, demanded access and then threatened to call U.S. Marshalls, according to reports.
Story by Lauren Irwin

Tech billionaire Elon Musk said he believes the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is a “criminal organization” that should “die.”

“USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die,” Musk posted to the social platform X.

Musk was responding to the news that senior officials at USAID physically attempted to block people from Musk’s new department, the “Department of Government Efficiency,” from having access to secure systems, NBC News reported.
Are Trump and Musk trying to help Russia and China and hurt America? Russia’s and China’s influence will increase in places that no longer receive American aide.
Musk announced the planned closure of the foreign assistance agency early Monday on social media.
By David Ingram

Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Monday that he and President Donald Trump were in the process of shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development, escalating their war on the federal bureaucracy and defying the constitutional power of Congress to determine how money is spent.

Musk, the head of Trump’s government efficiency initiative, announced the shutdown in the middle of the night in an audio-only appearance on his social media site X.

“We’re shutting it down,” he said. At another point, he said "we’re in the process” of “shutting down USAID.”

Musk did not say what legal authority he believed the White House has to shut down a federal agency without congressional approval, or how quickly the administration planned to act. He said the idea had “the full support of the president” and that he had spoken with Trump on the matter several times.

“With regard to the USAID stuff, I went over [it] with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down,” he said. “I actually checked with him a few times [and] said, ‘Are you sure?’” he said. He said that Trump responded, “Yes.”
Story by Katie Hawkinson

Two top security chiefs with the U.S. Agency for International Development are on leave after they carried out their legal obligation to protect classified information from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, the Associated Press reports.

After DOGE’s government-inspection teams requested classified documents this week, USAID Director of Security John Voorhees and his deputy Brian McGill barred them from access because they didn’t have adequate security clearance, the AP reports.

Now, they are on leave after carrying out their legal responsibility to protect classified information. Musk’s staffers have since gained access to the materials, including intelligence reports.

DOGE staffers made a similar move at the Treasury Department on Saturday gaining access to the Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems, according to the AP’s reporting.
Story by Chance Townsend

A bombshell report from Reuters has revealed that Elon Musk has locked U.S. government officials out of key data systems containing personal information on millions of federal employees.

According to the report, which cites two anonymous federal agents, senior officials at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) suddenly lost access to crucial department databases. The move reportedly stems from Musk’s leadership at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a role assigned to him by former President Donald Trump to "curb government spending."

Despite DOGE’s limited authority over OPM and other federal agencies, a "team of current and former" Musk employees have embedded themselves deep within the agency since Trump took office on Jan. 20. Since the inauguration DOGE has morphed from a non-governement advisory panel into the rebranded tech unit inside the White House.

According to the report, the team set up sofa beds in the OPM Director’s office to work around the clock, securing access to a massive database known as Enterprise Human Resources Integration. This system holds sensitive information, including birth dates, Social Security numbers, performance appraisals, home addresses, pay grades, and service records of government employees.

As a result, tracking Musk and his allies’ activities within OPM has become significantly more difficult.
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.
One America News, Breitbart and the New York Post will take desks from NBC, NPR and the New York Times
Edward Helmore

The Trump administration’s program to shake up media representation at official briefings and press calls in Washington is set to affect the Pentagon, with credentialed media being rotated out of assigned workspaces for media newcomers.

The conservative-leaning One America News Network is set to replace NBC News, Breitbart will be given space held by National Public Radio, the New York Post has been offered the New York Times’ workspace and HuffPost will replace Politico.

The changes are set to take place on 14 February in what the Pentagon calls a new “annual media rotation program”, according to an internal memo seen by CNN.

The moves are largely symbolic as outlets are not losing access to Pentagon briefings, but are in keeping with the Trump administration’s plans to mix the access of traditional news outlets with a cohort of non-traditional news outlets, including podcasters, bloggers and TikTokers.
The DNC’s chair election marks a first step for a party looking to fill a void of leadership after the 2024 election.
By Ben Kamisar

Ken Martin, the longtime leader of the state Democratic Party organization in Minnesota, will be the new Democratic National Committee chair after winning Saturday’s election, as his party looks to turn the page and recover from a dismal 2024.

Martin had been the front-runner from the beginning of the race, leveraging his relationships with the more than 400 voting members of the DNC that he forged over more than a decade of work inside the institutional Democratic Party. And those relationships proved essential, as he clinched a majority of the voting members on the first ballot.

The race hinged more on the candidates’ organizing and fundraising resumes than on their postures regarding the ideological soul of the party, as it did in 2017, after President Donald Trump’s previous election win. Martin was the more experienced hand with deep party relationships, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler had been at the center of some of Democrats’ highest-profile races in recent years, and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley had unique electoral and government experience.

Addressing the DNC membership after his victory, Martin called for party unity after a relatively quiet race that got chippy at times, and for the party to focus on opposing President Donald Trump.
Delano Massey

Black History Month arrives under a new threat as President Trump aims to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and establish federal guidance against heritage months.

Why it matters: Conservatives argue Black history lessons induce guilt, while critics of Trump's agenda view the president's work as an effort to erase hard truths.

Driving the news: As every president since 1976 has done, President Trump signed a proclamation recognizing Black History Month on Friday.

Yes, but: The proclamation comes after weeks of targeting DEI initiatives through decision making and rhetoric. In his first days back in office, President Trump dismantled federal DEI programs, halting efforts to bolster diversity and inclusion.

The executive order ended programs to bolster diversity and inclusion on the federal level in schools.
Back to content