Reuters United States Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

US to utilize AI to revoke visas of students it views as Hamas supporters, Axios reports

The U.S. State Department will utilize artificial intelligence to revoke visas of foreign students who it views as fans of Palestinian Hamas militants, Axios reported on Thursday, citing senior State Department officials. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January to combat antisemitism and has actually vowed to deport non-citizen college trainees and others who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have actually been continuous for months in the middle of Israel’s military assault on Gaza after Hamas’ October 2023 attack.

CIA fires an undefined number of brand-new officers

The Central Intelligence Agency fired a variety of recent hires this week, three individuals knowledgeable about the matter said, cuts that current and former U.S. intelligence officers cautioned would run the risk of damaging U.S. national security. The firings under U.S. President Donald Trump’s new CIA director, John Ratcliffe, come as Trump presides over massive federal labor force decreases overseen by billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Veterans, farm groups knock Trump cuts at Democrat-run Arizona town hall

groups and veterans combined by Democratic lawyers basic blasted U.S. President Donald Trump’s federal cuts, saying the president was disregarding judges who blocked his executive orders and hurting former service members. They spoke at a sometimes raucous town hall on Wednesday night organized by the nation’s 23 Democratic attorneys basic, 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 financial support.

‘We remain in a dark space,’ US judge states on increasing dangers

Threats against U.S. judges are increasing and attorneys need to do more to push back versus heated rhetoric, four federal judges stated in a panel conversation on Thursday. Speaking at an American Bar Association meeting on clerical criminal offense in Miami, U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware of Las Vegas federal court stated hazards versus the judiciary had actually gone up «greatly.»

Trump’s FDA candidate tepidly backs role for vaccine consultants in guarded Senate look

Martin Makary, President Donald Trump’s nominee to run the U.S. FDA, informed lawmakers on Thursday he would assemble a committee of vaccine advisors however said he would reevaluate which clinical issues need their input. It was among a number of issues on which Makary, a Johns Hopkins physician, kept his cards close to his chest while dealing with the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee for two hours.

Trump informs 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 final say on staffing and policy at their companies, according to a source familiar with the matter. The billionaire Tesla CEO and his Department of Government Efficiency will play an advisory role only, Trump stated, according to the source. Musk was in the space and informed the cabinet he was good with Trump’s plan, the source stated.

Push for long-term US daytime conserving time frozen as Trump states Americans are divided

A three-year congressional effort to make daytime conserving time long-term in the United States appears to have halted, with President Donald Trump saying on Thursday that Americans are uniformly divided over the problem. Daylight conserving time — putting the clocks forward one hour during the summertime half of the year to maximize the longer nights — has been in place in almost all of the United States considering that the 1960s, however advocates have pressed to make it year-round.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs faces new indictment, is accused of ‘forced labor’

U.S. prosecutors on Thursday unveiled a brand-new indictment versus Sean «Diddy» Combs, accusing the hip-hop magnate of forcing staff members to work long hours and threatening to penalize those who did not help in his two-decade sex trafficking scheme. Combs, 55, still deals with a scheduled May 5 trial in Manhattan on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pleaded innocent.

US federal employees hit back at Trump mass shootings with class action problems

U.S. civil servant who have been fired in the Trump administration’s purge of recently hired workers are responding with class action-style grievances claiming that the mass firings are prohibited and tens of countless individuals must get their jobs back. Lawyers at 2 companies said on Thursday that they had submitted six appeals with the federal Merit Systems Protection Board given that last week and, in addition to other law firms, plan to bring about 15 more on an agency-by-agency basis on behalf of big groups of workers who were fired in recent weeks.

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

The Trump administration should make some payments to foreign help contractors and grant receivers 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 request to avoid a deadline for the payments. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali came at completion of a hearing in a suit by professionals and non-profit grant recipients challenging President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging freeze of U.S. foreign help, a day after the groups got an increase from the Supreme Court. It buys the federal government to pay billings submitted by the plaintiffs in the case before February 13.