President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu take questions during a news conference in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

A movement to oppose President Donald Trump organized under the hashtags #buildtheresistance and #50501, which stands for 50 protests, 50 states, is looking to spark nationwide protests on Wednesday. Organized largely online, many of the protests are planned at state capitols, with some in other cities. Flyers circulating decry Project 2025, a hard-right playbook for American government and society, and include messages such as “reject fascism” and “defend our democracy.”

Hundreds are also rallying in Washington, D.C., in support of USAID as the Trump administration seeks to dismantle the government agency aid, sending U.S. workers around the world scrambling to pack up households and shutter the institutions six-decade mission.

Here's the latest:

Democrats on Capitol Hill demand answers from Treasury Secretary on DOGE

House and Senate Democrats are demanding Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent provide answers about DOGE’s ability to access sensitive Treasury Department information on American citizens.

Senate Democrats want Bessent to meet with them, according to a letter from Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and five other senators. They say Treasury’s answers so far have been “inadequate.”

House Democrats on the powerful Ways & Means Committee led by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., wrote in a separate letter, “It is both unclear and unsettling why DOGE would be privy to this sensitive payment system and confidential taxpayer information.”

Trump offers to build a ballroom at the White House

Trump reverted back into his real estate developer mode while before signing his executive order on women’s sports when he declared that he would offer to build a ballroom for the White House.

“This room is packed,” Trump said, before diverting from the issue of sports to say that he had offered to build a ballroom for the White House several times under the Biden administration “and I never heard back.”

Trump suggested he would build a ballroom like one at his Mar-a-Lago resort and said he was “very good about building ballrooms.”

He said such a room would cost $100 million and said, “So I’m going to try and make the offer to myself, you know, because we could use a bigger room.”

It was not immediately clear if he intended to follow through on the offer and the details of such a construction project.

Judge likely to limit DOGE access to Treasury

A federal judge seems likely to order that allies of Elon Musk should not have further access to Treasury Department payment systems beyond two new Musk-aligned special government employees who already have access.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is weighing a lawsuit from federal workers’ unions trying to prevent Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing federal payment systems, which the plaintiffs call a massive privacy invasion.

A Justice Department attorney said no one outside of the Treasury Department has gotten access to the records, other than new special government employee Marko Elez, who reports to Tom Krause.

Kollar-Kotelly is expected to sign an order late Wednesday as she considers the unions’ push for broader restrictions on access to the system that handles trillions of dollars’ worth of federal payments.

Demonstrators gather outside the Arizona State Capitol

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix on Wednesday, waving signs opposed to Trump and Musk while chanting “stop the coup,” “deport Elon” and “no hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here!”

Karolyn Switzer, 82, of Payson, Arizona, said she and a friend drove 90 minutes to attend because she was “thoroughly disgusted” with the way Trump and Musk have been running the country. She said she was especially concerned by the potential for the removal or reduction of services and benefits to a myriad of federal programs, including Social Security and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. She was frightened by other recent moves by Trump and Musk.

“It scares me to see a bunch of young, inexperienced computer nerds in places like the U.S. Treasury,” said Switzer, a retired computer programmer with 49 years of experience. She was referring to Wired’s recent reporting that a group of young engineers was enlisted to work for the Department of Government Efficiency, the special commission headed by Musk.

Hundreds of people protest in Sacramento

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside of the California Capitol building in Sacramento to oppose the Trump administration’s actions and rhetoric.

Rallygoers yelled chants and held signs that decried Trump as a threat to democracy, diversity, immigrants and LGBTQ+ Americans.

“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! His tyranny has got to go,” protesters chanted at one point. One person held a sign that read: “Mexicans aren’t going anywhere.” Many waved American flags.

The demonstration comes days after the state Legislature, which is dominated by Democrats, approved bills that Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to sign to help protect the state’s progressive policies from challenges by the White House.

—By Sophie Austin

More than 2,000 people protest at Minnesota Capitol

Over 2,000 protesters bundled up and braved wind chills at around 5 degrees F (-15 C) on the steps of the Minnesota Capitol in St. Paul, including several hundred who marched from a nearby college.

The crowd far exceeded the 200 people originally estimated by organizers before word spread on social media.

Annastacia Belladonna-Carrera, executive director of Common Cause Minnesota, told the protesters through a megaphone that they need to hold power accountable.

“We, the people, are the ultimate power in our democracy,” Belladonna-Carrera said.

Those protesting expressed their anger not just at Trump but also Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Some signs read “Impeach Trump,” “Impeach President Musk and the Other One,” and “Nobody Elected Elon.”

USAID has a big impact across the globe

The United States is the world’s largest source of foreign assistance by far, although several European countries allocate a much bigger share of their budgets.

While aid to Africa dwarfs the roughly $2 billion that Latin America receives annually, the Western Hemisphere has long been a spending priority of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

USAID has been critical in protecting the Amazon rainforest, fighting cocaine in South America, response to HIV, girls’ education and free school lunches in Africa and funding in Ukraine to help during the war, along with countless other efforts.

? Read more about the global impact of USAID

Trump meets privately with Texas Gov. Abbott

Trump has met with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, calling him “a great friend” and saying “he’s really done a great job at the border.”

The two met behind closed doors. But Abbott joined many elected officials to watch the president sign a subsequent executive order designed to prevent people assigned male at birth from participating in women’s or girls’ sports.

Abbott has been an outspoken proponent of hardline immigration policies.

During the Biden administration, Texas sent thousands of migrants detained along its border with Mexico to northern cities like New York.

Trump will bar transgender athletes from the 2028 Olympics

Trump said his administration will deny visas to any transgender female athletes trying to compete at the 2028 Olympic games in Los Angeles.

The president said he’s directing his Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to deny entry to people he described as men “fraudulently” attempting to compete in the games as female athletes.

He said he’s also directing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to notify the governing body of the Olympic Games of the U.S. position on transgender athletes.

Trump is signing order banning transgender female athletes

Trump is holding a ceremony to sign an executive order to ban transgender female athletes from competing in women or girls’ sporting events.

“From now on women’s sports will be only for women,” Trump said before the signing.

Trump was talking before taking pen to paper Wednesday as members of Congress and women, including some women athletes, looked on in the East Room of the White House.

DOGE looks at Medicare, Medicaid systems

Billionaire Elon Musk’s federal cost-cutting initiative, DOGE, is taking a look at the systems and technology at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The agency spends more than $1 trillion providing health insurance for roughly half the country.

Two agency officials are working with DOGE, CMS spokeswoman Catherine Howden said in a statement.

“We are taking a thoughtful approach to see where there may be opportunities for more effective and efficient use of resources in line with meeting the goals of President Trump,” Howden said.

Trump administration ramps up pressure on federal workers to quit

An email encouraging federal workers to accept financial incentives to quit is reminding them that buyouts or furloughs could come next.

“The majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force,” said an email that was distributed by the Office of Personnel Management on Wednesday and viewed by The Associated Press.

The deadline to apply for the deferred resignation program, which includes pay until Sept. 30, is 11:59 p.m. ET on Thursday.

Democrats have warned workers not to take the offer, saying it wasn’t properly authorized.

The email said there would be fewer civil service protections for employees who remain.

“Employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability and conduct as we move forward,” said the email.

Rubio promises to rebuild foreign aid. Democrats call shuttering USAID an illegal coup

Rubio said the Trump administration will now “work from the bottom up” to determine which U.S. aid and development missions abroad should resume.

“This is not about ending foreign aid. It is about structuring it in a way that furthers the national interest of the United States,” he said in Guatemala City.

In Washington, Democratic lawmakers and hundreds of others rallied outside the Capitol to protest the fast-moving shutdown of an independent government agency.

“This is illegal and this is a coup,” California Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs cried.

“We are witnessing in real time the most corrupt bargain in American history,” Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen shouted.

“Lock him up!” members of the crowd chanted.

? Read more on outrage and anxiety over USAID

USAID contractor says they are placed in danger with cut offs

A USAID contractor posted in an often violent region of the Middle East said the shutdown of the agency had placed the contractor and the contractor’s family in greater danger, cut off from some ways to reach the U.S. government for help if needed.

The contractor woke up one morning earlier this week blocked from access to government email and other systems, and an emergency “panic button” app was wiped off the contractor’s smartphone. Other USAID staff globally reported the same problem, although emergency comms were being restored to some on a spotty basis.

“You really do feel cut off from a lifeline,” the contract staffer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a Trump administration ban forbidding USAID workers from speaking to people outside their agency.

__By Ellen Knickmeyer

VA nurses are in short supply. Unions say encouraging them to quit could make things worse

The nurses who care for military veterans are in such short supply that staffing shortages are considered severe at most Veterans Administration hospitals.

Encouraging the 100,000 VA nurses to quit now will worsen a crisis that’s already affecting the care of more than 9 million enrolled veterans.

Federal employees face a Thursday deadline if they want to accept buyouts and resign with pay through Sept. 30.

Mary-Jean Burke, a leader of the American Federation of Government Employees, says the more they learn from the Office of Personnel Management, the more it seems “too good to be true.” The union is discouraging its members from taking the offer.

? Read more about the Veterans Administration nurses

A Black church in DC that was vandalized by the Proud Boys gains control over the group’s trademark

A judge has awarded a historic Black church in Washington control over the Proud Boys trademark after the far-right group defaulted on a $2.8 million judgment.

The ruling in D.C. Superior Court grants rights to the trademark of the group’s name to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church and bars the Proud Boys members from selling any merchandise with its name or symbols without the church’s consent. The ruling also allows the church to try to seize any money made from selling the group’s merchandise.

The church filed the lawsuit to try to recoup damages from vandalism made by group members after a December 2020 pro-Donald Trump rally. Black Lives Matter banners were torn down and burned at two churches, including Metropolitan African Methodist. There were also violent clashes between opposing protesters and arrests were made that night.

Enrique Tarrio, then the leader of the Proud Boys, confessed to participating in the burnings and was later sentenced to more than five months in jail on those and other charges. Tarrio was later sentenced to 22 years in federal prison for orchestrating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.

? Read more about the ruling

Democrats demand answers over Musk’s access to sensitive data

Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee questioned the White House Wednesday about President Donald Trump’s decision to grant billionaire Elon Musk and his staff access to classified information and the personal data of millions of Americans.

Writing to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, the lawmakers said national security and Americans’ personal privacy must be protected from security lapses that could occur as Musk and his staff look to overhaul the federal workforce.

Musk and inspectors at the Department of Government Efficiency now have access to information contained within dozens of agencies, including medical and financial data belonging to millions of Americans, and classified material about foreign intelligence or the identity of undercover operatives.

In their letter, the senators asked how department staff were vetted and what safeguards are in place to prevent the misuse of information.

Democratic lawmakers also invited themselves into House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office to meet with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over DOGE’s access of a highly private federal payment system.

Rep. Judy Chu, D-Ca., and Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., who are both members of the powerful Ways & Means Committee, headed over to the speaker’s suite to demand answers. It was unclear if the speaker or the Treasury secretary were on hand to meet and discuss.

More pushback on Trump’s Gaza plan, this time from Republicans

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called Trump’s proposal for a U.S. takeover of Gaza as “problematic.”

“The idea of Americans going in on the ground in Gaza is a non starter for every senator,” the South Carolina lawmaker told reporters Wednesday. “So I would suggest we go back to what we’ve been trying to do which is destroy Hamas and find a way for the Arab world to take over Gaza and the West Bank, in a fashion that would lead to a Palestinian state that Israel can live with.”

Callers swamp Senate offices, only to get busy signals and voicemail

Callers are getting busy signals and voicemail inboxes too full to leave comments at many U.S. Senate offices. There’s a deluge of people trying to voice their opinions on Trump’s Cabinet picks, executive orders and moves to dismantle various federal programs.

The problem was confirmed in a memo distributed to Senate staff obtained by The Associated Press.

Constituents want to reach their representatives as Trump and his ally Musk work to dismantle much of the federal government, shuttering agencies, temporarily freezing funding and pushing workers to resign.

One popular social media post urges opponents to call their lawmakers six times a day, every day — two calls to each of their senators and two to their House members. “You should NOT be bothering with online petitions or emailing,” it said.

? Read more on efforts of constituents to reach Congress

McConnell’s office says he’s doing fine, using wheelchair as precaution

“Senator McConnell is fine,” his spokesman David Popp said.

The office sent a statement after the former GOP leader, who suffered from childhood polio, stumbled on a small series of steps exiting the Senate.

“The lingering effects of polio in his left leg will not disrupt his regular schedule of work,” Popp said.

McConnell was using a wheelchair as a precautionary measure at the Capitol.

EPA to resume payments for major programs

The Environmental Protection Agency will resume payments for major programs including Superfund site cleanup, clean drinking water infrastructure and habitat restoration, according to a Tuesday memo obtained by The Associated Press and first reported by E&E News.

The internal memo from Gregg Treml, acting Chief Financial Officer, complies with a recent court order temporarily freezing the Trump administration’s broad pause on federal financial assistance.

Funding will continue to flow “while ongoing litigation proceeds or until otherwise directed by a court,” the memo said.

Palestinians reject Trump’s call to expel them from Gaza

Saeed Abu Elaish’s wife, two of his daughters and two dozen others from his extended family were killed by Israeli airstrikes over the past 15 months. His house in northern Gaza was destroyed. He and surviving family now live in a tent set up in the rubble of his home.

But he says he will not be driven out, despite Trump’s call for transferring all Palestinians from Gaza so the U.S. could take over the devastated territory and rebuild it for others.

“We categorically reject and will resist any plans to deport and transfer us from our land,” he said from the Jabaliya refugee camp.

? Read more reactions from Palestinians to Trump’s comments on Gaza

Sen. Mitch McConnell stumbles on Senate steps

The Republican former leader fell slightly on a few steps while exiting the Senate chamber after late-morning votes.

Mitchell was immediately scooped up by colleagues, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., and they headed into a private GOP lunch.

Daines said McConnell seemed just fine. “He walked on his own power to lunch,” he said.

McConnell of Kentucky experienced a more serious fall two years ago and has since had a few other stumbles and setbacks while back at the Capitol. He ended his run as the longest serving Senate leader at the end of the last congressional session.

Protests against Trump and Project 2025 begin in cities across the US

A movement to protest the early actions of President Donald Trump’s administration took off Wednesday, as thousands of demonstrators gathered outside a federal courthouse in Philadelphia and at state capitols in Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin and Indiana.

Protesters waved signs decrying Trump; billionaire Elon Musk, the leader of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency; and Project 2025, a hard-right playbook for American government and society.

“Democracy is not a spectator sport! Do something,” said one demonstrator’s sign in Philadelphia.

A movement is organizing the protests online under the hashtags #buildtheresistance and #50501, which stands for 50 protests, 50 states, one day. Social media calls for action included such messages as “reject fascism” and “defend our democracy.”

? Read more about the anti-Trump protests

White House press secretary confirms hundreds of arrested migrants have been released, not deported

Karoline Leavitt said 461 people in the country illegally who have been arrested since Trump took office were released back into the U.S. rather than being deported.

Leavitt said that, as of Wednesday morning, more than 8,000 migrants have been arrested since Jan. 20. The people released from immigration custody amount to about 6% of them.

Leavitt said they were released for health reasons, because individuals weren’t likely to be deported quickly, or because of a lack of capacity in immigration detention facilities.

Trump campaigned on ending “catch and release,” accusing the Biden administration of releasing migrants too easily. Trump also has signed an executive order mandating “removing promptly all aliens.”

Cybersecurity expert: DeepSeek’s chatbot could be riskier than TikTok

Feroot CEO Ivan Tsarynny says “It’s mindboggling that we are unknowingly allowing China to survey Americans and we’re doing nothing about it.”

Former Homeland Security and National Security Agency official Stewart Baker says DeepSeek “raises all of the TikTok concerns plus you’re talking about information that is highly likely to be of more national security and personal significance than anything people do on TikTok.”

Congress voted to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company to divest or face a nationwide ban, but then the app received a 75-day reprieve from President Donald Trump to work out a sale.

?Read more about DeepSeek’s code:

New Chinese AI company DeepSeek tied to Chinese government-run telecom, researchers find

The chatbot offered by the new Chinese AI company DeepSeek appears to be more closely tied to the Chinese state than previously known. Cybersecurity experts say using it may be more risky than watching videos on TikTok.

The web login page of DeepSeek’s chatbot contains some heavily obfuscated computer script. According to the cybersecurity research firm Feroot Security, deciphering it reveals computer infrastructure connections to China Mobile, a state-owned telecom that’s banned in the United States because it feeds information to the Chinese military.

?Read more about

White House walks back Trump’s suggestion of permanent resettlement for Gaza residents

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has contradicted Trump’s suggestions that the residents of the Gaza Strip could be permanently relocated elsewhere.

“The president has made it clear that they need to be temporarily relocated out of Gaza,” Levitt said during her briefing with reporters. “It’s a demolition site.”

That contradicted Trump, who said on Tuesday night of Gaza, “If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people, permanently, in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot and not be killed and not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza.”

Rubio calls Trump’s proposal in Gaza ‘generous’

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that President Donald Trump’s proposal to take “ownership” of Gaza and redevelop the area into “the Riviera of the Middle East” was a “generous” offer.

“It was not meant as a hostile move,” Rubio said. “It was meant as a, I think, a very generous move.”

He said it is “akin to a natural disaster” and people can’t live there because there are unexploded munitions, debris and rubble.

“In the interim, obviously people are going to have to live somewhere while you’re rebuilding it,” the top diplomat said.

Trump previewed his plan to Israel’s leader

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “was indeed” aware of Trump’s plan for the U.S. to take “ownership” of Gaza before he publicly announced it.

Leavitt said during a briefing with reporters that she was not present to witness Netanyahu’s reaction to Trump’s plan but said “this is something the president has been socializing and thinking about for quite some time.”

Rubio suggests USAID workers have themselves to blame

The U.S. secretary of state said the original intention was to keep the U.S. Agency for International Development running pending a review of whether and how money was being spent in alignment of U.S. foreign policy under President Trump.

But he said the Trump administration received no cooperation, and employees were acting in “contravention” and “insubordination.”

“It is not the direction I wanted it. It’s not the way we wanted to do it initially, but it is the way we will have to do it now,” Rubio said, referring to the sudden order late Tuesday to pull almost all USAID workers overseas off the job and out of the field.

Rubio spoke at a press conference with the Guatemalan president in the country’s capital.

Guatemala strikes deal with Rubio to accept migrants from other countries deported from the US

Guatemala’s president said Wednesday after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio that his country will accept migrants from other countries being deported from the United States.

Under the “safe third country” agreement announced by President Bernardo Arevalo, the deportees would then be returned to their home countries at U.S. expense.

Immigration, a Trump administration priority, has been the major focus of Rubio’s first foreign trip as America’s top diplomat, a five-country tour of Central America.

In El Salvador, he announced a similar but broader agreement, which included an offer to accept American citizens jailed in the U.S. for violent crimes.

Pro-Trump Arab American group changes its name after the president’s Gaza ‘Riviera’ comments

A group that played a key role in Donald Trump’s voter outreach to the Arab American community alongside his allies is rebranding itself after the president said that the U.S. would “take over” the Gaza Strip.

Bishara Bahbah, chairman of the group formerly known as Arab Americans for Trump, said during a phone interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday that the group would now be called Arab Americans for Peace.

The name change came after Trump held a Tuesday press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House and proposed the U.S. take “ownership” in redeveloping the area into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

FBI agents who ‘simply followed orders’ in Jan. 6 probes won’t be fired, a Justice official says

FBI agents “who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner” while investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol are not at risk of being fired, a top Justice Department official said in a memo to the bureau workforce obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

But the memo from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove also provides no reassurances for any agents found to have “acted with corrupt or partisan intent” and suggests those employees, if there any, should be concerned about a massive and highly unusual review process the Trump administration Justice Department has embarked upon.

The message from Bove is aimed at providing a measure of clarity about highly unusual Justice Department demand for the names of agents who participated in the investigation, a request seen within the FBI as a possible precursor for mass firings.

__By Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer

GOP quashes Democratic effort to force Musk to appear for congressional oversight questions

Republicans blocked Democratic efforts Wednesday to subpoena Musk to appear before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform during a hearing on “Rightsizing Government.”

Musk is leading Trump’s “government efficiency” effort. He’s positioned personnel in key federal agencies where they have sought to close the U.S. Agency for International Development and gain access to sensitive payment systems at the Treasury Department.

“Who is this unelected billionaire that he can attempt to dismantle federal agencies, fire people, transfer them, offer them early retirement and have sweeping changes to agencies without any congressional review, oversight or concurrence?” said Rep. Gerry Connolly, the panel’s ranking Democrat.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., then moved to table the motion, and Republicans quashed it with a 20-19 vote.

Frustrated anti-Trump protesters get a reality check as Democrat notes Republicans hold power

Demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. Capitol to protest the shutdown of USAID seem increasingly frustrated with Democratic lawmakers, chanting “do your job!”

Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia took the microphone and described how Democrats plan to fight the changes in court, withhold support for Trump nominees and hopefully win future elections.

But he acknowledged political reality: “We are where we are because we lost a presidential election and we lost two houses in November. We have a lot more tools in majority than we do in minority,” Kaine said.

Trump’s birthright citizenship order is put on hold by a second federal judge

A federal judge has ordered a second nationwide pause on President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship for anyone born in the U.S. to someone in the country illegally, calling citizenship a “most precious right.”

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman said no court in the country has endorsed the Trump administration’s interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

“This court will not be the first,” she said. “Citizenship is a most precious right, expressly granted by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.”

Boardman said citizenship is a “national concern that demands a uniform policy,” adding that “only a nationwide injunction will provide complete relief to the plaintiffs.”

Trump’s inauguration week order had already been on temporary hold nationally because of a separate suit brought by four states in Washington state, where a judge called the order “blatantly unconstitutional.”

In total, 22 states, as well as other organizations, have sued to try to stop the executive action.

?Read more about what the judge had to say

Pam Bondi is sworn in as U.S. attorney general

Before Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas administered the oath of office in the White House’s Oval Office, Trump praised Bondi’s record as a prosecutor and said she will restore “fair, equal and impartial justice” to the department.

It was the first time Trump participated in a swearing in ceremony for a cabinet member in his new term, underscoring the president’s immense personal interest in the department that charged him in two since-abandoned criminal cases.

Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, told the president that she would not let him down, saying: “I will make you proud and I will make this country proud.”

Bondi takes the reins of a Justice Department bracing for upheaval as Trump looks to exert his will over an agency that has long provoked his ire.

Senate Democrats to pull an all-nighter to protest Vought, Project 2025 and DOGE

Senate Democrats are planning an all-nighter to protest confirmation of Russ Vought as Trump’s budget director.

All 47 Democrats are opposing the Vought, who is a chief architect of Project 2025 and influential in the Musk-run DOGE cuts ripping through the federal government. While Democrats don’t have the votes as the minority party to stop the nominee, they will try to muster the stamina to rail against him all night — running out the procedural clock before the roll call.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said they will “sound the alarm on Russell Vought through the night.”

Supporters and lawmakers turn out to back USAID

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered across the street from the U.S. Capitol to protest the latest cuts and dismantling of USAID. Half a dozen Democratic members of Congress were expected to speak at the rally, the second with lawmakers this week.

Posters titled “the faces of foreign aid” showed images of doctors and farmers and teachers who administer USAID programs across the globe.

“Hell no, we won’t go!” chants began before the speakers took the mics.

USAID workers scramble for answers after Trump pulls almost all of them off the job worldwide

U.S. aid staffers around the world are scrambling Wednesday for answers and starting to pack up households or pull their children from school after a sudden Trump administration order yanking almost all of them off the job and out of the field.

In Washington, Democratic lawmakers and other supporters of the U.S. Agency for International Development planned rallies to protest the dismantling of the independent government agency established six decades ago. USAID has been one of the agencies hardest hit as the new administration and Elon Musk’s budget-cutting team target federal programs they say are wasteful or not aligned with a conservative agenda.

U.S. embassies in many of the more than 100 countries where USAID operates convened emergency town halls for the thousands of agency staffers and contractors looking for answers. Embassy officials said they had been given no guidance on what to tell staffers, particularly local hires, about their employment status.

Speaker Mike Johnson calls Trump’s plans for Gaza ‘common sense’

House Speaker Mike Johnson calls Trump’s plans to redevelop Gaza a “bold move” that should be given a look.

“If we could control that situation and bring about a lasting peace there, it would do well for everybody,” Johnson, a Republican, said at a press conference.

“It just makes sense to make the neighborhood there safer,” he said. “I think it follows common sense.”

The speaker said plans to discuss the idea further when he meets with Netanyahu on Thursday at the Capitol.

He acknowledged while Trump’s announcement surprised many Johnson by said it was also cheered by others around the world.

Russian ally hails suspension of US foreign aid

The president of a Serb-dominated part of Bosnia says U.S. funding has inflicted “serious evil” around the world for years.

Milorad Dodik was sanctioned by the Biden administration over allegations of corruption and separatist policies that are undermining the U.S.-brokered peace agreement that ended the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

In an interview with The Associated Press, he praised Trump’s election as “a magnificent event in the new political history.” He also claimed that the U.S. Agency for International Development has been used to destabilize nations.

News from © The Associated Press, 2025