Reuters United States Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of US domestic news briefs.

US to use AI to withdraw visas of students it views as Hamas fans, Axios reports

The U.S. State Department will utilize expert system to revoke visas of foreign students who it perceives as supporters of Palestinian Hamas militants, Axios reported on Thursday, citing senior State Department authorities. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January to combat antisemitism and has promised to deport non-citizen college trainees and others who took part in pro-Palestinian protests that have been continuous for months amidst Israel’s military assault on Gaza after Hamas’ October 2023 attack.

CIA fires an unspecified number of new officers

The Central Intelligence Agency fired a multitude of current hires this week, 3 people familiar with the matter said, cuts that present and previous U.S. intelligence officers warned would risk destructive U.S. national security. The firings under U.S. President Donald Trump’s brand-new CIA director, John Ratcliffe, come as Trump administers over huge federal workforce reductions managed 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 combined by Democratic chief law officers lashed out at U.S. President Donald Trump’s federal cuts, saying the president was disregarding judges who obstructed his executive orders and damaging previous service members. They spoke at an often raucous city center on Wednesday night organized by the nation’s 23 Democratic chief law officers, who have filed suits to ask judges to obstruct a string of Trump executive orders, including his suspension of trillions of dollars in federal grants, loans and monetary assistance.

‘We’re in a dark area,’ US judge says on rising threats

Threats against U.S. judges are rising and lawyers should do more to push back against heated rhetoric, four federal judges said in a panel discussion on Thursday. Speaking at an American Bar Association conference on clerical crime in Miami, U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware of Las Vegas federal court stated hazards versus the judiciary had actually increased “significantly.”

Trump’s FDA nominee tepidly backs function for vaccine advisors in safeguarded Senate appearance

Martin Makary, President Donald Trump’s candidate to run the U.S. FDA, informed legislators on Thursday he would assemble a committee of vaccine consultants however said he would review which clinical issues need their input. It was one of a number of issues on which Makary, a Johns Hopkins doctor, kept his cards close to his chest while dealing with the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee for two 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 acquainted with the matter. The billionaire Tesla CEO and his Department of Government Efficiency will play an advisory role just, Trump stated, according to the source. Musk remained in the space and told the cabinet he was good with Trump’s strategy, the source said.

Push for irreversible US daylight saving time frozen as Trump says Americans are divided

A three-year congressional effort to make daytime saving time irreversible in the United States appears to have actually stopped, with President Donald Trump stating on Thursday that Americans are evenly divided over the problem. Daylight conserving time – putting the clocks forward one hour during the summer half of the year to make the most of the longer evenings – has actually remained in place in nearly all of the United States since the 1960s, however advocates have actually pushed to make it year-round.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs deals with brand-new indictment, is accused of ‘forced labor’

U.S. district attorneys on Thursday unveiled a brand-new indictment versus Sean “Diddy” Combs, implicating the hip-hop magnate of requiring workers to work long hours and threatening to punish those who did not help in his two-decade sex trafficking scheme. Combs, 55, still faces a scheduled May 5 trial in Manhattan on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to participate in prostitution. He has pleaded innocent.

US federal workers countered at Trump mass firings with class action complaints

U.S. government staff members who have actually been fired in the Trump administration’s purge of recently hired workers are reacting with class action-style grievances declaring that the mass firings are prohibited and tens of countless individuals need to get their jobs back. Lawyers at 2 firms stated on Thursday that they had submitted six appeals with the federal Merit Systems Protection Board since last week and, in addition to other law office, plan to cause 15 more on an agency-by-agency basis on behalf of big groups of workers who were fired in current weeks.

Trump administration should make some foreign help payments by Monday, judge rules

The Trump administration must make some payments to foreign aid 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 demand to avoid a due date for the payments. The judgment by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali came at the end of a hearing in a lawsuit by specialists and non-profit grant receivers challenging President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging freeze of U.S. foreign aid, a day after the groups got a boost from the Supreme Court. It purchases the government to pay billings submitted by the complainants in the case before February 13.