“The top Democrat on the U.S. House committee tasked with holding the Trump administration accountable said Tuesday during a debate on a Republican proposal that the GOP knows President Donald Trump cannot legally ‘delete whole federal agencies’ or ‘take a chainsaw to beloved programs like Social Security and Medicaid.’ ‘Congressional Republicans also know these dangerous, deeply unpopular cuts would never be approved by Congress through regular order,’ said Rep. Gerry Connolly [D-VA], ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. ‘So now they’ve brought us H.R. 1295, the so-called Reorganizing Government Act, in a desperate attempt to circumvent the normal congressional process.’ The bill, said Connolly, would more accurately be called the Dismantling Government Act …” (03/26/25)
“Federal health officials said Tuesday they are pulling back $11.4 billion in COVID-19-related funds for state and local public health departments and other health organizations throughout the nation. ‘The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,’ the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement. The statement said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expects to recover the money beginning 30 days after termination notices, which began being sent out on Monday.” (03/26/25)
“The U.S. Supreme Court appeared sympathetic on Wednesday to the Federal Communications Commission’s defense of the mechanism it uses to fund a multi-billion dollar effort to expand phone and broadband internet access to low-income and rural Americans and other beneficiaries. The justice heard arguments in an appeal by the agency and a coalition of telecommunications firms and interest groups of a lower court’s ruling that the FCC funding operation effectively levied a ‘misbegotten tax’ on consumers in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s vesting of legislative authority in Congress. It was the latest case to come to the Supreme Court challenging the power of federal agencies. A majority of the nine justices, citing a range of concerns, seemed wary of adopting the lower court’s ruling against the FCC.” (03/26/25)
“A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a U.N.-backed multinational security mission said on Wednesday. The Kenyan officers were on their way Tuesday to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch ‘suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,’ according to the mission’s statement, adding that ‘specialized teams have been deployed’ to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media.” (03/26/25)
“Crypto influencer Ben Armstrong, also known as ‘BitBoy,’ has been arrested in Florida after disclosing on social media just days ago that a warrant was out for his arrest. Florida’s Volusia County Division of Corrections listed Armstrong as a fugitive from justice who was taken in custody on March 25 at 7:18 pm local time. Days prior, Armstrong said in a March 21 X post that he could ‘confirm that the warrants for my arrest’ were due to sending emails to Cobb County, Georgia Superior Court Judge Kimberly Childs while acting as his own attorney.” (03/26/25)
“Their collective name, ‘coalition of the willing,’ suggests that the loose grouping of Ukraine’s allies certainly wants to help. But as the nearly three dozen nations gather again for more talks in Paris, it is still far from clear exactly what kind of aid they are preparing that could contribute toward their goal of making any ceasefire with Russia lasting. French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been driving the coalition-building effort with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, is expecting 31 delegations around the table Thursday morning at the presidential Elysee Palace. That’s more than Macron gathered for a first meeting in Paris in February — evidence that the coalition to help Ukraine, possibly with boots on the ground, is gathering steam, according to the presidential office. The big elephant in the room will be the country that’s missing: the United States.” (03/26/25)
“he Oscar-winning director of a documentary on the Israel-Palestinian conflict was released from detention on Tuesday, a day after being injured and [abducted] during a raid by Israeli [squatters] on his village in the occupied West Bank. Hamdan Ballal, co-director of the award-winning ‘No Other Land,’ said he had been assaulted by [squatters] after filming them attacking a neighbour’s house and then returning to make sure his own house was not attacked.” (03/25/25)
“South Korean governments committed numerous human rights violations over decades in a controversial programme that sent at least 170,000 children and babies abroad for adoption, a landmark inquiry has found. It said the government’s lack of oversight enabled the ‘mass exportation of children’ by private agencies that were driven by profit, and found examples of fraud, falsified records and coercion. Since the 1950s, South Korea has sent more children abroad for adoption than any other country, with most sent to Western countries. South Korea has since moved to tighten its adoption processes, but some adoptees and their biological parents say they are still haunted by what they went through. The BBC spoke to one woman who claimed her adoptive parents ‘took better care of the dog than they ever did of me’. ‘This is a shameful part of our history,’ said Park Sun-young, the chairperson of the commission, at a press briefing.” (03/26/25)
“Democrat James Malone is projected to win a special election for the state Senate in Pennsylvania in a district that President Donald Trump won by 15 points in November. The race was too early to call late Tuesday. With 99 percent of the estimated vote counted, Malone, the mayor of East Petersburg, was leading his Republican opponent, Lancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons, by less than 500 votes, according to returns posted by the Pennsylvania Secretary of State. However, Democrats declared victory …. Meanwhile, Parsons wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he was ‘disappointed in the numbers’ and that ‘it appears we will come up a little short.’ The candidates were running to fill a vacancy in northern Lancaster County after state Senator Ryan Aument, a Republican, quit to take a job working for U.S. Senator Dave McCormick.” (03/25/25)
“The Trump administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to cut hundreds of millions of dollars for teacher training. A federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the cuts, finding they were already affecting training programs aimed at addressing a nationwide teacher shortage. An appeals court turned away a plea from the administration to allow them to resume. The government asked the high court to step in, arguing that the order is one of several issued by federal judges around the country wrongly forcing it to keep paying out millions in grant money. The Supreme Court called for a response to the appeal by Friday. It comes after U.S. District Judge Myong Joun issued a temporary restraining order sought by eight Democratic-led states that argued the cuts were likely driven by efforts from President Donald Trump’s administration to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs.” (03/26/25)
