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Trump signs order designating English as the official language of the US
Press Release |
2025/03/01 06:08
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President Donald Trump signed on Saturday an executive order designating English as the official language of the United States.
The order allows government agencies and organizations that receive federal funding to choose whether to continue to offer documents and services in language other than English.
It rescinds a mandate from former President Bill Clinton that required the government and organizations that received federal funding to provide language assistance to non-English speakers.
“Establishing English as the official language will not only streamline communication but also reinforce shared national values, and create a more cohesive and efficient society,” according to the order.
“In welcoming new Americans, a policy of encouraging the learning and adoption of our national language will make the United States a shared home and empower new citizens to achieve the American dream,” the order also states. “Speaking English not only opens doors economically, but it helps newcomers engage in their communities, participate in national traditions, and give back to our society.”
More than 30 states have already passed laws designating English as their official language, according to U.S. English, a group that advocates for making English the official language in the United States.
For decades, lawmakers in Congress have introduced legislation to designate English as the official language of the U.S., but those efforts have not succeeded.
Within hours of Trump’s inauguration last month, the new administration took down the Spanish language version of the official White House website.
Hispanic advocacy groups and others expressed confusion and frustration at the change. The White House said at the time it was committed to bringing the Spanish language version of the website back online. As of Saturday, it was still not restored.
The White House did not immediately respond to a message about whether that would happen.
Trump shut down the Spanish version of the website during his first term. It was restored when President Joe Biden was inaugurated in 2021. |
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Trump administration says it’s cutting 90% of USAID foreign aid contracts
Court Watch |
2025/02/27 08:06
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The Trump administration said it is eliminating more than 90% of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall U.S. assistance around the world, putting numbers on its plans to eliminate the majority of U.S. development and humanitarian help abroad.
The cuts detailed by the administration would leave few surviving USAID projects for advocates to try to save in what are ongoing court battles with the administration.
The Trump administration outlined its plans in both an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press and filings in one of those federal lawsuits Wednesday.
The Supreme Court intervened in that case late Wednesday and temporarily blocked a court order requiring the administration to release billions of dollars in foreign aid by midnight.
Wednesday’s disclosures also give an idea of the scale of the administration’s retreat from U.S. aid and development assistance overseas, and from decades of U.S. policy that foreign aid helps U.S. interests by stabilizing other countries and economies and building alliances.
The memo said officials were “clearing significant waste stemming from decades of institutional drift.” More changes are planned in how USAID and the State Department deliver foreign assistance, it said, “to use taxpayer dollars wisely to advance American interests.”
President Donald Trump and ally Elon Musk have hit foreign aid harder and faster than almost any other target in their push to cut the size of the federal government. Both men say USAID projects advance a liberal agenda and are a waste of money.
Trump on Jan. 20 ordered what he said would be a 90-day program-by-program review of which foreign assistance programs deserved to continue, and cut off all foreign assistance funds almost overnight.
The funding freeze has stopped thousands of U.S.-funded programs abroad, and the administration and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency teams have pulled the majority of USAID staff off the job through forced leave and firings.
Widely successful USAID programs credited with containing outbreaks of Ebola and other threats and saving more than 20 million lives in Africa through HIV and AIDS treatment are among those still cut off from agency funds, USAID officials and officials with partner organizations say. Meanwhile, formal notifications of program cancellations are rolling out.
In the federal court filings Wednesday, nonprofits owed money on contracts with USAID describe both Trump political appointees and members of Musk’s teams terminating USAID’s contracts around the world at breakneck speed, without time for any meaningful review, they say.
“‘There are MANY more terminations coming, so please gear up!’'' a USAID official wrote staff Monday, in an email quoted by lawyers for the nonprofits in the filings.
The nonprofits, among thousands of contractors, owed billions of dollars in payment since the freeze began, called the en masse contract terminations a maneuver to get around complying with the order to lift the funding freeze temporarily.
So did a Democratic lawmaker.
The administration was attempting to “blow through Congress and the courts by announcing the completion of their sham ‘review’ of foreign aid and the immediate termination of thousands of aid programs all over the world,” said Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
A coalition representing major U.S. and global businesses and nongovernmental organizations and former officials expressed shock at the move. “The American people deserve a transparent accounting of what will be lost — on counterterror, global health, food security, and competition,” the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition said.
The State Department said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had reviewed the terminations.
In all, the Trump administration said it will eliminate 5,800 of 6,200 multiyear USAID contract awards, for a cut of $54 billion. Another 4,100 of 9,100 State Department grants were being eliminated, for a cut of $4.4 billion.
The State Department memo, which was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, described the administration as spurred by a federal court order that gave officials until the end of the day Wednesday to lift the Trump administration’s monthlong block on foreign aid funding. |
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Defense secretary defends Pentagon firings, says more dismals may come
Court Watch |
2025/02/23 10:22
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insists President Donald Trump ’s abrupt firing of the nation’s senior military officer amid a wave of dismissals at the Pentagon wasn’t unusual, brushing aside outcry that the new administration is openly seeking to inject politics into the military. He also suggested more firings could come.
“Nothing about this is unprecedented,” Hegseth told “Fox News Sunday” about Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. being removed Friday night as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The president deserves to pick his key national security advisory team.”
Hegseth said “there are lots of presidents who made changes” citing former commanders in chief from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George H.W. Bush to Barack Obama, who the defense secretary said “fired or dismissed hundreds” of military officials.
Months into his first term, Obama relieved Army Gen. David McKiernan as the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Trump, however, vowed while running for his second term to eradicate “woke” ideologies from the military and moving swiftly to dismiss so many top leaders means keeping a campaign promise.
Hegeseth and Trump have made no secret about focusing on pushing aside military officers who have supported diversity, equity and inclusion in the ranks. The administration says its is on better fortifying a lethal fighting force.
Brown was just the second Black general to serve as chairman. His 16 months in the post were consumed with the war in Ukraine and the expanded conflict in the Middle East. Trump in 2020 nominated Brown as Air Force’s chief of staff.
Trump wants to replace Brown Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine, who retired in December. It is unclear what recalling Caine to active-duty service will require. The position requires Caine to be confirmed by the Senate.
Hegseth said Friday’s dismissals affected six three- and four-star generals and were “a reflection of the president wanting the right people around him to execute the national security approach we want to take.”
He called Brown “honorable” but said he is “not the right man for the moment,” without citing specific deficiencies. After the 2020 murder of George Floyd, Brown in a video spoke of his experience as a Black pilot, apparently making him fodder for the Trump administration’s wars against inclusion initiatives in the military.
Of Caine, the Defense secretary said that Trump “respects leaders who untie the hands of war fighters in a very dangerous world.”
Retired Gen. George Casey, commander of U.S. and multinational forces in Iraq from 2004 to 2007 under Republican President George W. Bush, called the firings “extremely destabilizing.” He also noted that the Trump administration can change Pentagon policy without changing personnel, but added, that what happened is “”within the president’s prerogative.”
“That’s his prerogative,” Casey told ABC’s “This Week.” “He is the commander in chief of the armed forces.”
Still, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee told ABC that the firings were “completely unjustified” and that “apparently, what Trump and Hegseth are trying to do is to politicize the Department of Defense.”
Hegseth was also asked on Fox News about officials potentially compiling lists of more defense officials they plan to fire. He said there was no list but suggested that more dismissals could indeed be coming.
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Musk gives all federal workers 48 hours to explain what they did last week
Court Watch |
2025/02/20 10:22
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Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been given little more than 48 hours to explain what they accomplished over the last week, sparking confusion across key agencies as billionaire Elon Musk expands his crusade to slash the size of federal government.
Musk, who serves as President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting chief, telegraphed the extraordinary request on his social media network on Saturday.
“Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk posted on X, which he owns. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
Shortly afterward, federal employees — including some judges, court staff and federal prison officials — received a three-line email with this instruction: “Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.”
The deadline to reply was listed as Monday at 11:59 p.m., although the email did not include Musk’s social media threat about those who fail to respond.
The latest unusual directive from Musk’s team injects a new sense of chaos across beleaguered multiple agencies, including the National Weather Service, the State Department and the federal court system, as senior officials worked to verify the message’s authenticity Saturday night and in some cases, instructed their employees not to respond.
Thousands of government employees have already been forced out of the federal workforce — either by being fired or offered a buyout — during the first month of Trump’s administration as the White House and Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency fire both new and career workers, tell agency leaders to plan for “large-scale reductions in force” and freeze trillions of dollars in federal grant funds.
There is no official figure available for the total firings or layoffs so far, but The Associated Press has tallied hundreds of thousands of workers who are being affected. Many work outside of Washington. The cuts include thousands at the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Health and Human Services, the Internal Revenue Service and the National Parks Service, among others.
Labor union leaders quickly condemned the ultimatum and threatened legal action.
AFGE President Everett Kelley called the new order an example of Trump and Musk’s “utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people.”
“It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life,” Kelley said. “AFGE will challenge any unlawful terminations of our members and federal employees across the country.”
Musk on Friday celebrated his new role at a gathering of conservatives by waving a giant chainsaw in the air. He called it “the chainsaw for bureaucracy” and said, “Waste is pretty much everywhere” in the federal government.
McLaurine Pinover, a spokesperson at the Office of Personnel Management, confirmed Musk’s directive and said that individual agencies would “determine any next steps.”
What happens if an employee is on leave or vacation? Again, she said individual agencies would determine how to proceed.
In a message to employees on Saturday night, federal court officials instructed recipients not to respond.
“We understand that some judges and judiciary staff have received an email ... directing the recipient to reply with 5 accomplishments from the prior week. Please be advised that this email did not originate from the Judiciary or the Administrative Office and we suggest that no action be taken,” officials wrote.
Judges around the country got emails from Musk’s team in late January, apparently by mistake, U.S. District Judge Randolph Daniel Moss said earlier this month. Moss said he’d also gotten a message and ignored it.
The National Weather Service leadership acknowledged some confusion in a message to its employees late Saturday as well.
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Trump’s tariffs expose Ukraine’s steel industry to another war
Legal Business |
2025/02/17 10:26
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The steel mill in a partially occupied region of Ukraine is a dystopian maze of flames, chutes and tentacled pipes, vast enough to be a small city. Thunderous blazes of sparks flash above the open furnaces where workers smelt iron ore into streams of molten metal day and night.
The Zaporizhstal Iron and Steelworks, one of Ukraine’s largest steel plants, lies in the country’s industrial east, where Russia’s 3-year invasion of its neighbor threatens to throttle production at any moment. Daily battles unfold along a front line 40 kilometers (25 miles) away as the plant churns out materials for military equipment and for foreign manufacturers to use in cars, appliances, and construction.
“Morale is not as high as it was before. We are pretty tired here,” plant supervisor Serhii Zhyvotchenko said, reflecting on the hardships. “But there is no way to go back; the only way is forward.”
Last week, though, a second war came to the doorstep of the hulking factory complex: the possible trade war that U.S. President Donald Trump has provoked since returning to office four weeks ago. Trump imposed tariffs of at least 25% on all imported steel and aluminum, a decision that could hurt an essential sector of Ukraine’s battered economy.
Last week, though, a second war came to the doorstep of the hulking factory complex: the possible trade war that U.S. President Donald Trump has provoked since returning to office four weeks ago. Trump imposed tariffs of at least 25% on all imported steel and aluminum, a decision that could hurt an essential sector of Ukraine’s battered economy.
The tariff order was not the only action by the president or his administration to cause alarm in Kyiv last week. Trump signaled changing winds in U.S. policy by having a direct call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom former President Joe Biden and other Western leaders had tried to isolate since Putin sent troops into Ukraine.
Trump also said that he would “probably” meet in person with the Russian leader in the near future, heightening concerns that Kyiv would be left out of or undermined in any ceasefire talks. Comments by both the president and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth rejecting NATO membership for Ukraine further reinforced the fear that the country no longer had Washington in its corner.
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