Top Items:
Washington Post:
NIH cuts billions of dollars in biomedical funding, effective immediately — The move halts a large slice of money for most universities and research institutions virtually overnight, imperiling vital research in everything from cancer to heart disease. — The Trump administration …
RELATED:
Samuel Bagenstos / Inside/Outside:
Indirect Costs and Trump's Attack on Independent Voices
Discussion:
CNN, STAT, Reuters, Forbes, New York Times, Talking Points Memo, Inside Medicine, Raw Story, Ars Technica and grants.nih.gov
Shayna Jacobs / Washington Post:
Federal judge blocks Musk's DOGE from access to Treasury Department material — The judge also ordered Musk and his team to “immediately destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from Treasury Department's records and systems, if any.” — NEW YORK — A federal judge issued …
Discussion:
Townhall, CBS News and Instapundit
RELATED:
Washington Post:
In chaotic Washington blitz, Elon Musk's ultimate goal becomes clear — Shrink government, control data and — according to one official closely watching the billionaire's DOGE — replace “the human workforce with machines.” — Billionaire Elon Musk's blitzkrieg on Washington has brought …
Discussion:
Daily Mail, The Gateway Pundit and Crooks and Liars
New York Times:
Judge Halts Access to Treasury Payment Systems by Elon Musk's Team — The order came in response to a lawsuit filed by 19 attorneys general accusing the president of failing to faithfully execute the nation's laws when he let DOGE comb through federal computer systems.
Discussion:
DNyuz, Truthout, Fox Business, Mother Jones, emptywheel, The Post Millennial, Washington Examiner, Business Insider, CBS News, Althouse, The Japan Times, Politico and Washington Post
Kyle Cheney / Politico:
Judge orders sweeping restriction on DOGE access to sensitive Treasury payment systems
Discussion:
CNN, ZeroHedge News, Law & Crime, UPI, Fox Business, Bloomberg, Fox News, Gothamist and Tampa Free Press
NBC News:
Federal judge temporarily blocks DOGE from accessing sensitive Treasury Department payment systems
Federal judge temporarily blocks DOGE from accessing sensitive Treasury Department payment systems
Discussion:
Reuters, Rolling Stone, Axios, The Dispatch and CBS News
Alex Galbraith / Salon:
“The greatest threat we've ever faced”: US Treasury division classifies DOGE staff as extreme danger
“The greatest threat we've ever faced”: US Treasury division classifies DOGE staff as extreme danger
Discussion:
Wired
Joey McFadden / The Daily Beast:
Trudeau Caught on Hot Mic Revealing Trump's Plans for Canada — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told business leaders that U.S. President Donald Trump's interest in annexing Canada was a very real plan aimed at controlling the country's vast mineral resources.Trudeau was caught …
Discussion:
The Guardian, Townhall, Daily Mail, CBS News, New York Post and Toronto Star
RELATED:
Alex Isenstadt / Axios:
Why Trump's in-your-face campaign will never end … - On Jan. 31, the Rapid Response account posted a message portraying House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) as violent for promising that Democrats will “fight” Trump's agenda “legislatively... in the courts, and ... in the streets.”
Laurel Wamsley / NPR:
Russell Vought takes the helm at CFPB as Musk's DOGE accesses key systems — Russell Vought, an architect of Project 2025 and the new director at the Office of Management and Budget, is now also the acting leader of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, according to a source familiar with the situation.
New York Times:
Advocate of Jan. 6 Rioters Now Runs Office That Investigated Them — Ed Martin, a loyal Trump soldier, oversees the U.S. attorney's office, which is likely to help turn the investigative powers of the government on several of the president's perceived enemies.
RELATED:
Greg Sargent / New Republic:
Did Trump Quietly Kill a Sensitive Pentagon Probe into Elon Musk? — In December, more than a month before Donald Trump took the presidential oath of office, The New York Times reported a blockbuster scoop: Elon Musk and his SpaceX company had repeatedly failed to meet federal reporting requirements designed …
Miranda Devine / New York Post:
Trump stripping the security clearances of numerous antagonists — including NY AG Letitia James, DA Alvin Bragg — President Trump has ordered security clearances stripped from a new hit list of antagonists. — Just days after revoking Joe Biden's access to classified information …
Discussion:
The Guardian, The Post Millennial, The Gateway Pundit, NPR, Al Jazeera, USA Today and New York Times
Neal Rothschild / Axios:
Elon's X army takes the wheel … - Musk, who typically posts between 50 and 100 tweets per day, is taking the bottom-up approach by letting foot soldiers supply suggestions that get seen — and acted on — by his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). … Then on Monday, he declared that Trump “agreed” to shut it down.
Discussion:
Fox News
RELATED:
Abdallah Fayyad / Vox:
The real lesson of the DOGE racist tweets scandal
The real lesson of the DOGE racist tweets scandal
Discussion:
American Thinker, Vanity Fair, The American Saga, People For, Twitchy, The Daily Signal, The Gateway Pundit, The Guardian, HuffPost, Arizona Republic, Raw Story, New Republic, Daily Mail, Politico, Mercury News, Rolling Stone, Forbes, Washington Post, driftglass, New York Post, Mediaite, Washington Examiner, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Crooks and Liars and Breitbart
The Atlantic:
Trump's Conquest of the Kennedy Center Is Accelerating — The president has begun purging the board of Washington's premier arts organization. — Donald Trump's hostile takeover of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is moving quickly. — On Friday night …
Deidre McPhillips / CNN:
Measles outbreak expands in West Texas around county with low vaccination rate — A measles outbreak is growing in a rural area of West Texas where vaccination rates are well below the recommended level. — In late January, two children in Gaines County were hospitalized for measles.
Discussion:
Texas Department …, Ars Technica, The Texas Tribune, Raw Story, WAGA-TV, WXIA-TV and KFF Health News
Bloomberg:
'It's a Circus': Trump Unleashes Chaos at Key US Science Agency — Muddled directives and early-morning emails at NOAA, one of the world's top weather and climate forecasters, have put the agency on edge. — The email arrived in US government workers' inboxes just after 1 a.m. East Coast time on Friday …
Discussion:
CBS News, New York Times and Heatmap News
Joe Conason / Alternet.org:
Why would a ‘Christian’ destroy the world's largest relief agency? — For Christians here and across the world, the ongoing confrontation over the fate of USAID dramatically illustrates the moral degeneration of the politicians who most fervently profess their piety.
Olivia Diaz / Associated Press:
Trump chops away at the government and the fallout is felt in the Virginia governor's race — The Trump administration's aggressive push to cut government jobs is reverberating in the early stages of this year's race for governor in Virginia. The fast-moving effort by Republican President Donald …
Miranda Devine / New York Post:
Trump rules out deporting Prince Harry: 'He's got enough problems with his wife' — Prince Harry can breathe freely in Montecito, because President Donald Trump has ruled out deporting the self-exiled British royal. — Harry's immigration status is the subject of litigation in Washington DC …
Discussion:
Daily Mail, Breitbart, Global News, EADaily, The Gateway Pundit, HELLO!, American Thinker, Whiskey Riff and Vanity Fair
Nick Robins-Early / The Guardian:
Who is helping Elon Musk gut the US government? — The billionaire's cost-cutting ‘Doge’ staff includes wealthy executives, far-right ideologues and young engineers — Elon Musk's rapid attempt to defund and depopulate the federal government has thrown US politics into chaos while the billionaire's …
Alexander B. Howard / CIVIC TEXTS:
In a harbinger of illiberalism, Trump fired the Archivist of the United States without telling her or Congress why — Good afternoon from Washington, where my daughter and I made blueberry pancakes and took the dogs for a walk before the rains rolled in. I hope you and yours are well this morning.
Discussion:
Politico and The Gateway Pundit
Emma Bubola / New York Times:
Far-Right Leaders Rally in Spain to ‘Make Europe Great Again’ — At a gathering in Madrid, members of Europe's far-right parties set aside any trepidation they might have about President Trump's threats, and instead focused on a common enemy — the European Union.
Discussion:
Politico, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Reuters
New York Times:
Now Is Not the Time to Tune Out — Don't get distracted. Don't get overwhelmed. Don't get paralyzed and pulled into the chaos that President Trump and his allies are purposely creating with the volume and speed of executive orders; the effort to dismantle the federal government …
ProPublica:
The Department of Education Told Employees to End Support for Transgender Students — ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published. — The U.S. Department of Education told employees late Friday …
Discussion:
NBC News, The Boston Globe, One America News Network and 6abc
Politico:
How spending $153M to pay its bills put USAID in DOGE's crosshairs — Aides to the president and Elon Musk suspected USAID officials were trying to go around a funding freeze. — Pete Marocco was furious. — It was Thursday, Jan. 23, and the Trump administration official had discovered …
Paul Kane / Washington Post:
This senator says Democrats need to invoke villains, namely Elon Musk — Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut calls on his party to be more aggressive in going after Trump's billionaire allies as it tries to win back the hearts of voters. — Sen. Chris Murphy thinks that Democrats have been too timid …
Rachael Bade / Politico:
She's in House GOP Leadership. Here's How She Responds to Trump Tweets. — Rep. Lisa McClain helps shape Republican messaging in the Trump era — and she's eager to defend his “out-of-the-box thinking.” — Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team spent most of Thursday huddled in the White House …
Phoebe Petrovic / Wisconsin Watch:
Children's Wisconsin hospital reinstates gender-affirming care for trans teen after canceling in wake of Trump's executive order — The order is being challenged in court as illegal and unconstitutional. — Reading Time: 4 minutes … The Gender Health Clinic at Children's Wisconsin hospital …
Discussion:
WPR
Casey Michel / The Moscow Times:
Washington Has Given Up the Fight Against Kleptocrats. Here's What Democracies Should Do — On Feb. 6, new U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a series of new directives from President Donald Trump's administration outlining her office's priorities. Taken together, they represent …
New York Times:
Trump Administration Moves to Send $8 Billion in Arms to Israel, Bypassing Some Lawmakers — President Biden announced the arms sales at the end of his administration, and President Trump is pushing it soon after his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
Discussion:
New York Post, CNN and WTOP News
Politico:
German court orders X to hand over election data in legal blow to Musk's platform — Researchers win a legal battle against the platform formerly known as Twitter, securing crucial access to social media data to probe potential election interference. — BERLIN — A German court handed Elon Musk's X …
Discussion:
DNyuz and TechCrunch, more at Mediagazer »
Naomi LaChance / Raw Story:
30K tons of food ‘going to waste’ in Houston after Trump halted aid — About 30,000 tons of food is stuck at a port in Houston after Trump halted foreign aid for 90 days. The food, intended to feed people overseas, is stalled at a warehouse,the Houston Chronicle reported.
