Musk associates sought to use critical Treasury payment system to shut down USAID spending, emails show  —  Four days after Donald Trump's inauguration, Elon Musk's top lieutenants at the Treasury Department asked its acting secretary, a career civil servant, to immediately shut off …

Elon Musk's DOGE is feeding sensitive federal data into AI to target cuts  —  At the Department of Education, the tech billionaire's team has turned to artificial intelligence to hunt for potential spending cuts —  part of a broader plan to deploy the technology across the federal government.

Musk aims to hobble federal workers ahead of ‘buyout’ deadline  —  Countless staffers in the government are now grappling with what to do.  —  Elon Musk has declared war on the bureaucracy.  And as a Thursday deadline nears for federal employees to take a “buyout,” he is looking to demoralize and wear down his enemy.

Rubio acting director of the National Archives  —  In addition to being the Secretary of State and the acting director of USAID, Marco Rubio is also the acting archivist of the United States, according to a high-level official.  —  Per the official, Rubio has been the acting archivist since shortly …

Pam Bondi Instructs Trump DOJ to Criminally Investigate Companies That Do DEI  —  On Wednesday evening, newly installed Attorney General Pam Bondi sent staff in several divisions of the Department of Justice more than a dozen memos within a 15-minute span, laying out the agency's new policies …

Gutting USAID threatens billions of dollars for U.S. farms, businesses  —  U.S. businesses that sold goods and services to USAID are in limbo, including American farms dealing in rice, wheat and soybeans purchased as food aid.

DOGE Teen Owns ‘Tesla.Sexy LLC’ and Worked at Startup That Has Hired Convicted Hackers  —  Experts question whether Edward Coristine, a DOGE staffer who has gone by “Big Balls” online, would pass the background check typically required for access to sensitive US government systems.

Trump goes full colonialist  —  So much for the “non-interventionist mindset.” … 🌍 🪖 🗺️  —  Though he campaigned on keeping the United States out of foreign conflicts, Donald Trump has started his second term with a blizzard of bizarre, violent, and potentially disastrous expansionist threats.

Why CBS stands at the epicenter of Trump's assault on the media  —  The television news magazine 60 Minutes — the most storied and profitable show in the history of CBS News — currently finds itself as the avatar of President Trump's onslaught against the media in the courts and the court of public opinion.

JD Vance accidentally directed us to a crucial moral question  —  Theology isn't usually part of the job description for America's vice president, but that's not stopping JD Vance from giving it a try just a couple of weeks into his new position.  —  In a Fox News segment on immigration …

Trump tells prayer breakfast he wants to root out ‘anti-Christian bias’ and urges ‘bring God back’  —  President Donald Trump will participate in the National Prayer Breakfast at the Capitol, joining a more than 70-year-old Washington tradition that brings together a bipartisan group of lawmakers for fellowship.

Trump to sign an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court  —  The order will include financial sanctions and visa restrictions against ICC officials found to have assisted in ICC investigations of U.S. citizens or allies.  —  WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday …

US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations  —  Thousands of press releases about decade-old enforcement actions topped search results, all updated with a timestamp from after Trump's inauguration  —  News of mass immigration arrests has swept across the US over the past couple of weeks.

White House Preparing Order to Cut Thousands of Federal Health Workers  —  The executive order could come as soon as next week, if the Trump administration goes ahead with plans  —  The White House is working on an executive order to fire thousands of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services workers …

Trump's Attacks on DEI Get Approval From Some in the Left Wing  —  Many Democrats and activists are rallying to defend diversity programs, but others say they distract from deeper efforts to address inequality.  —  A few days after President Trump issued an order urging the private sector to end …

Memory-Holing Jan. 6: What Happens When You Try to Make History Vanish?  —  ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.  Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published.  —  On Jan. 10, the U.S. Department of Justice released a 123-page report …

White House says it will cancel $8 million in Politico subscriptions after a false right-wing conspiracy theory spreads  —  White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, responding Wednesday to a question about a right-wing conspiracy theory, announced that the federal government would cancel $8 million worth of Politico subscriptions.

Trump team considers container company for migrant housing  —  The Scoop  —  The Trump administration is in talks with a private shipping-container company to provide temporary space to house and process thousands of migrants slated for deportation, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Oligarchs Who Came to Regret Supporting Hitler  —  They helped him in pursuit of profit.  Many ended up in concentration camps.  —  he was among the richest men in the world.  He made his first fortune in heavy industry.  He made his second as a media mogul.

Treasury Targets Oil Network Generating Hundreds of Millions of Dollars for Iran's Military  —  WASHINGTON — Today, the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is sanctioning an international network for facilitating the shipment of millions of barrels …

The Senate's Dilemma: Kash Patel and the Purging of the FBI  —  In the days since Kash Patel's nomination hearing for F.B.I. director, a crisis of historic proportions has engulfed the Justice Department and the Bureau.  The idea of Patel leading the F.B.I. through this period …

Fed Closes Climate Program, Ending Stress-Test Burden for Banks  — US central bank initiated the pilot program two years ago  — Decision impacts lenders, including JPMorgan and Citigroup  —  The Federal Reserve has ended its program that required the biggest US banks to submit data …