US politics

US politics

On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as a member of the National Council on the Humanities is terminated, effective immediately,

President Donald Trump is weighing slashing "thousands" of federal jobs ahead of a meeting with his budget director, Russell Vought, as the White House looks to ratchet up pressure on Democrats to end a government shutdown that has entered its second day. "It's likely going to be in the thousands," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday, saying that the "entire team at the White House" was working to identify possible cuts.

For twenty years, the Political Gabfest has been the podcast that makes politics make sense. Through five presidencies, countless Supreme Court decisions, and more political plot twists than anyone could have predicted in 2005, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz have been your weekly guides through it all. Now they're hitting the road to celebrate this milestone with the listeners who've made the Gabfest what it is today.

The Trump administration is cancelling $7.6 billion in grants that supported hundreds of clean energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in last year's presidential election. The cuts were announced in a social media post late Wednesday by Russell Vought, the White House budget director: "Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left's climate agenda is being cancelled." The move comes as President Donald Trump threatens cuts and firings in his fight with congressional Democrats over the federal government shutdown.

From Politico: FBI Director Kash Patel has ended a training and intelligence-sharing partnership with the Anti-Defamation League, accusing the organization of spying on conservative groups. Patel announced the decision in a social media post Wednesday, criticizing a partnership celebrated under former FBI Director James Comeya political adversary of President Donald Trump who was charged last week in an indictment sought by the Justice Department.

The Energy Department said in a statement Thursday that 223 projects were terminated after a review determined they did not adequately advance the nation's energy needs or were not economically viable. Officials did not provide details about which projects are being cut, but said funding came from the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and other DOE bureaus.

Avilés is currently working to secure the support of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, according to a DSA member, who said Avilés would likely only run if she receives the organization's endorsement. NYC-DSA's Electoral Working Group has scheduled an initial endorsement forum next Wednesday to give Avilés a chance to make a case for her candidacy. Avilés declined to comment on her plans.

"It has come to our attention that individuals visiting their loved ones have been routinely subjected to inhumane and unsafe conditions while waiting for entry into the facility," the group wrote in a letter addressed to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem and GEO Group CEO David Donahue. In July, an appeals court struck down New Jersey's ban on private prisons.

On Thursday, Vance took to X to respond to a clip of Reid discussing racism in the United States. The original video was taken in March, but was reposted by a conservative social media account this week. In the talk, Reid discusses that her parents got a rude awakening after immigrating to the United States. My mother got the rude awakening, like, oh, it's racist here, that's weird, she said, adding that her mother realized this was not a land of opportunity for Black people.

Donald Trump, always one to tout his knack for dealmaking, declared on Tuesday that he'd just struck one of his best deals ever. "This is one of the biggest medical announcements that this office has ever made," Trump said in the Oval Office, flanked by his top health officials. They'd gathered to announce that the administration had cut a deal with the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. Trump couldn't help but smirk. "I'm surprised you're agreeing to this," he told Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer.

Speaking inside the Second Avenue Subway Community Information Center on 125th Street, Espaillat stressed that the community has waited over 100 years for the project and vowed to keep pressing for federal support. We've got to continue the fight for the funding to be there, he said. And again, I think the main and most important thing is that the project that we've been waiting for for over 100 years continues to move forward.

In the days since Donald Trump directed his "Secretary of War" to marshal troops against "domestic terrorists" in Portland, encouraging the use of "full force" in a city he likened to a "war zone," I have been hanging around the demonstration that the president wants to crush. What I've found is an atmosphere that is more like a carnival than combat.

In particular, they seek "transition minerals," which are vital to the shift away from fossil fuels. These include lithium, cobalt, copper, and nickel (often called critical minerals, essential for rechargeable batteries), as well as rare-earth minerals such as yttrium, scandium, and lanthanides (integral components of green infrastructure). Freedom from dirty energy, it would appear, requires doubling down on the decidedly nonrenewable practice of mineral extraction.

But this was just wild, you know? Von said. And people are sending messages and hateful stuff, and, you know, You think all these illegals should and all this type of shit. I could talk to you ad nauseam about that, but this wasn't the time for it. It just was something they used and put out there and everybody saw, right?

An Ecuadorian man who asked to remain unnamed while his open immigration case unfolds stood with his wife, Gloria, as he showed amNewYork a GPS monitor wrapped around his ankle. This partial freedom came with a significant cost to the family $20,000 despite the man having no criminal record. Gloria's husband arrived in the US from Ecuador in 2023. When he walked into an immigration appointment in Malta, NY, he thought he was following the rules and complying with the law.