Top Items:
Reuters:
Exclusive: White House uses USAID funds for budget director Vought's security, documents show — The White House budget office is using millions of dollars from the former U.S. foreign aid agency to pay for the security detail of Russell Vought, President Donald Trump's budget chief …
Discussion:
New York Magazine, Mother Jones, Mediaite, Wonkette, MS NOW, The Independent, Crooked Media, Raw Story and The Moderate Voice
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Washington Post:
White House, RFK Jr. shake up health leadership after controversies — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s health department is undergoing a major leadership overhaul. — The White House and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are shaking up the health department's leadership team ahead of the midterms …
Discussion:
Politico, The Hill, MS NOW and Joe.My.God.
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Joseph Choi / The Hill:
HHS shaking up top personnel to push Trump, MAHA priorities ahead of midterms — Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday announced a reshuffling of top staffers in his department as the Trump administration looks to shore up health wins that can boost GOP success in the upcoming midterms.
Carl Hulse / New York Times:
Congress Jets Off as D.H.S. Shuts Down — Despite a deadlock over funding for the agency, lawmakers left town and left Democratic and White House negotiators to try to work out a deal in their absence. — When a disruptive government shutdown nears, the Capitol is usually occupied …
Discussion:
Washington Post, The Hill, UPI, Salon, Townhall, New York Sun, FOX 10 Phoenix, Joe.My.God. and CBS News
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Washington Post:
ICE plans to spend $38.3 billion turning warehouses into detention centers — Documents released Thursday offer the most complete picture to date of the Trump administration's controversial and costly plan to overhaul immigrant detention using industrial buildings.
Discussion:
The Guardian, The Parnas Perspective, NOTUS, Joe.My.God., PennLive and MS NOW
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Brittany Gibson / Axios:
ICE reveals $38B plan for immigrant mega-jails
ICE reveals $38B plan for immigrant mega-jails
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, Reuters, The Independent, Project Salt Box, NewsMax.com, Bloomberg and The National Pulse
Associated Press:
Feds investigating whether 2 ICE officers lied about the shooting of a Venezuelan man in Minneapolis — Federal authorities have opened a criminal probe into whether two immigration officers lied under oath about the shooting of a Venezuelan man in Minneapolis last month.
Discussion:
CBS News, Straight Arrow News, The Hill, NewsMax.com, Associated Press, KSTP-TV, Raw Story, The Independent, FOX 32 Chicago and KVIA-TV
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Politico:
ICE says federal agents appear to have lied about confrontation that led to shooting … Agents had initially said that two men — Alfredo Aljorna and Julio Sosa Celis - assaulted them with a broom and a shovel before one of them shot Sosa Celis. … Local law enforcement and prosecutors are also investigating the incident.
Discussion:
New York Post, NOTUS, The Hill, Washington Examiner, MS NOW, Mediaite, Truthout, Raw Story, New Republic and CBS News
Samuel Oakford / Washington Post:
The Don Lemon indictment: Video appears to contradict key claims — The former CNN anchor, now an independent journalist, faces criminal charges after covering a protest at a church in St. Paul last month — Video footage appears to contradict key aspects of a federal indictment's descriptions …
Discussion:
twitchy.com, The National Pulse, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, NewsMax.com and NewsNation
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Andrew Solender / Axios:
Dems tell DOJ to “immediately cease” Epstein files “spying” — A trio of top House Democrats wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi demanding that the Department of Justice “immediately cease” cataloguing members' searches of the unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files.
Discussion:
The Hill, Washington Examiner, Courthouse News Service, NewsMax.com, Techdirt, MS NOW, Semafor, ABC News and CNN
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Alexander Willis / Raw Story:
‘Later found dead’: Dem lawmaker flags explosive Trump allegation in Epstein files
Discussion:
New York Post
Josephine Walker / Axios:
MAGA-land demands Epstein answers after Bondi's hearing
MAGA-land demands Epstein answers after Bondi's hearing
Discussion:
New York Sun, The Hill and Media Matters for America
Meredith Lee Hill / Politico:
Meet the YOLO Republicans: Lawmakers with nothing to lose are threatening Trump's grip on Congress … When a vote to overturn his Canada levies came to the floor Wednesday, “I was in the cloakroom, and I heard people say, ‘I hate tariffs,’ and then voted” to leave them in place, Bacon recalled.
Discussion:
CNBC, Drezner's World and NewsNation
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Finya Swai / Politico:
Trump pushes voter ID ‘whether approved by Congress or not!’
Discussion:
Straight Arrow News, Democracy Docket, Scripps News, CNBC, Fox News, Newsweek, NewsMax.com, Mediaite, CBS News, Raw Story and Boston.com
Katie Rogers / New York Times:
Ramping Up Election Attacks, Trump Does Not Let Reality Get in His Way
Ramping Up Election Attacks, Trump Does Not Let Reality Get in His Way
Discussion:
MS NOW
C. Frances / The Intercept:
The Woman Alex Pretti Was Killed Trying to Defend Is an EMT. Federal Agents Stopped Her From Giving First Aid. — MINNEAPOLIS — The struggle that killed Alex Pretti began with a shove. It ended with gunshots. — In the final moments before he was shot and killed by federal authorities in Minneapolis …
Discussion:
New Republic
New York Times:
Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts — The department has sent Google, Meta and other companies hundreds of subpoenas for information on accounts that track or comment on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, officials and tech workers said.
Discussion:
Joe.My.God.
New York Times:
Meta Plans to Add Facial Recognition Technology to Its Smart Glasses — In an internal memo last year, Meta said the political tumult in the United States would distract critics from the feature's release. — Five years ago, Facebook shut down the facial recognition system for tagging people …
Discussion:
Electronic Frontier Foundation, Gizmodo, NextDraft, The Verge, The Information and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »
Colby Smith / New York Times:
U.S. Inflation Eased at Start of the Year — Inflation in the United States eased at the start of 2026, providing a reprieve to the Federal Reserve as it contends with yet another year of consumer prices rising faster than the central bank's target. — Here is what the latest Consumer Price Index showed on Friday.
Discussion:
NBC News, The White House, The Washington Free Beacon, Wall Street Journal, The Daily Caller, Jared's Substack, Washington Post, Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, PBS NewsHour, CBS News, The Hill, Florida's Voice, NewsMax.com, FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul, Independent Women, Townhall, twitchy.com, RedState, Newsweek, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Denver Post, Axios, NOTUS, The American Conservative and Semafor
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ProPublica:
What Meetings Among Trump Lawyers Reveal About the FBI's Seizure of Election Records in Georgia — The Missouri prosecutor overseeing an investigation into the 2020 vote in Fulton County, Georgia, has taken part in meetings since last fall with lawyers tasked by President Donald Trump to reinvestigate his loss to Joe Biden.
Discussion:
Public Notice, New York Magazine and Honolulu Star-Advertiser
The Athletic:
President Trump pardons Hall of Famer Joe Klecko and four other former NFL players — Share full article — President Donald Trump pardoned former NFL players Joe Klecko, Nate Newton, Jamal Lewis, Travis Henry and the late Billy Cannon on Thursday, according to White House pardon czar Alice Marie Johnson.
Discussion:
The Guardian, ESPN, TheGrio, New York Times, MLive.com, Breitbart, Washington Times, New Jersey Online, The Hill, Mediaite, NewsMax.com, Blaze Media, Fox News, MS NOW and OutKick
Paul Krugman:
The MAGA Bubble Is Imploding — Americans aren't buying Trumpist gaslighting about the economy … Attorney General Pam Bondi's meltdown on Wednesday while being questioned the House Judiciary Committee was exceptional, even by this administration's rock-bottom standards.
Victoria Albert / Wall Street Journal:
The Battles Inside Kristi Noem's DHS: Five Takeaways From the Journal's Investigation — Criticism of the Homeland Security secretary's tactics exploded during the Minnesota immigration enforcement surge — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has for months been the headline-grabbing …
New York Times:
Justice Department Sues Harvard for Admissions Records — The Trump administration appears to have renewed its pressure campaign against Harvard since President Trump backtracked this month on a possible settlement with the Ivy League school. — The Trump administration sued Harvard University on Friday …
ProPublica:
“Not Ready for Prime Time.” A Federal Tool to Check Voter Citizenship Keeps Making Mistakes. — When county clerk Brianna Lennon got an email in November saying a newly expanded federal system had flagged 74 people on the county's voter roll as potential noncitizens, she was taken aback.
Discussion:
New Republic, Democratic Erosion and Truthout
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash — Following mounting pressure and a questionable Super Bowl ad, the Amazon-owned company walked back its plan to integrate with the controversial law-enforcement technology company.
Discussion:
Associated Press, flocksafety.com, Scripps News, Business Insider, The Hill, The Ring Blog, RedState, KARE-TV, The Hollywood Reporter, CNBC, KVIA-TV, Reason, Gizmodo, Variety, TechCrunch, The Register, Futurism, UPI, CBS News, Ars Technica, Techdirt, Straight Arrow News and Mashable, more at Techmeme »
Collin Anderson / The Washington Free Beacon:
Former Penn President Liz Magill, Who Resigned in Disgrace After Disastrous Anti-Semitism Testimony, Named Dean of Georgetown Law — Liz Magill, the former University of Pennsylvania president who resigned in disgrace after arguing that calls for the genocide of Jews could be permissible under campus rules …
Discussion:
Georgetown University, Politico, Forbes, Above the Law and Jewish Insider
Wired:
Social Security Workers Are Being Told to Hand Over Appointment Details to ICE — The recent request goes against decades of precedent and puts noncitizens at further risk of immigration enforcement actions. — Workers at the Social Security Administration have been told to share information …
Financial Times:
Rubio skips Ukraine meeting with European leaders in Munich — US secretary of state cancels attendance at last minute in move that EU official calls ‘insane’ — US secretary of state Marco Rubio has skipped a meeting with European leaders on the war in Ukraine, in a move seen …
Discussion:
Fox News, Bloomberg, The Daily Signal, The Kyiv Independent, UPI, Washington Times, KVIA-TV, France 24, NewsMax.com, Reuters, Associated Press, CBS News and Radio Free Europe/Radio …
New York Times:
‘I Just Want to Get Out of Here’: ICE Is Detaining Hundreds of Children … A 7-year-old in Oregon was seeking treatment for a nosebleed last month when immigration agents detained her and her parents outside a hospital emergency room. They were taken to a federal detention center in Texas for three weeks.
Discussion:
The Bulwark
Ted Johnson / Deadline:
Stephen A. Smith Tells CBS News He Is Not Ruling Out 2028 Presidential Run: “I'd Love To Be On The Debate Stages Against Some Of These Individuals” … I have no desire to run for office." — But Smith said he was “not ruling it out because I'd love to be on the debate stages …
Discussion:
USA Today, Breitbart, Awful Announcing, twitchy.com, The Hill, The Independent, New York Post, Forbes, Mediaite, TheGrio, masslive.com and New Jersey Online
Media Matters for America:
Jesse Watters: “Epstein got his money from two Jewish billionaires” and “the Jewish banking dynasty, the Rothschilds”
Discussion:
Lawyers, Guns & Money and Wonkette
Jacob Owens / KVOA-TV:
Nanos pushes back on claims of withholding evidence in Guthrie case — TUCSON, Ariz. (KVOA) - Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos is pushing back on claims that he is withholding crucial evidence from the FBI in the Nancy Guthrie case. — Nanos denies the allegations, describing the report as “not even close to the truth.”
Washington Post:
New images of White House ballroom show it would match mansion's height — The planned 90,000-square-foot project would represent the most significant change to the White House grounds in decades. — New renderings released Friday offer the clearest look yet at President Donald Trump's …
Discussion:
CBS News
Alex Isenstadt / Axios:
South Carolin's Mark Sanford eyes a comeback — Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is considering three paths to political redemption — a run for his old House seat, a campaign for the governor's mansion he once occupied or a primary bid against Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Discussion:
NBC News


