NYC Mayor Mamdani wins Trump backing for 12,000-unit federal housing project and a detained Columbia student’s release in one White House visit after bringing mocked-up newspaper front pages.
Hillary Clinton denies any Epstein knowledge in House Oversight deposition paused after Rep. Boebert leaks her photo, with Republicans also raising debunked Pizzagate conspiracy.
Judge allows Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom construction to continue, ruling the legal challenge was insufficient while calling the private funding mechanism a “Rube Goldberg” arrangement.
Melania Trump will preside over a UN Security Council meeting Monday in a first for any first lady, while the U.S. owes the organization nearly $4 billion in unpaid dues.
DOJ tells court the $608M federal reimbursement Florida counted on for its Everglades detention facility won’t cover construction costs and may not materialize at all.
USDA transfers massive DC headquarters to GSA as part of plan to cut capital-area workforce from 4,600 to 2,000, with $1 billion in deferred maintenance costs piling up.
Trump’s Treasury undersecretary for terrorism financing exits after objecting to blanket surveillance of Minneapolis Somali community, with administration offering him ambassador to Germany instead.
Vance and Oz announce $259 million Medicaid payment freeze to Minnesota, citing fraud from a COVID-era nutrition scandal as Walz calls it “a campaign of retribution.”
Trump’s fraud division nominee Colin McDonald tells Senate he “follows the facts” but won’t say whether he’d refuse a presidential order to prosecute Trump’s enemies.
Surgeon general nominee Casey Means tells Senate committee that vaccines “save lives” after questioning childhood vaccine safety on Joe Rogan’s podcast, while senators flag her inactive medical license.
Federal judiciary asks Congress to take courthouse control from GSA after DOGE cuts eliminated nearly half the agency’s staff, leaving buildings with collapsing ceilings and contaminated water.
White House weighs executive order requiring banks to collect citizenship information from all customers, a new enforcement tool that banks say has no clear legal basis.
Trump declares “golden age” in record longest State of the Union, pivoting from economic sales pitch to blaming Democrats for “destroying” the country.
Maryland attorney general sues to block ICE from converting a $102 million warehouse into a 1,500 person detention facility in a town of 2,000 without environmental review or public input.
U.S. Forest Service stops issuing firefighter pants containing PFAS “forever chemicals” after ProPublica revealed the agency knew about the contamination for years and stayed silent.
Bipartisan calls grow for Rep. Tony Gonzales to resign over affair with congressional staffer who later died by suicide, as explicit text messages surface.
FEMA warns its national emergency functions are “significantly constrained” during shutdown days before State of the Union, with continuity staff furloughed and disaster work frozen.
Education Department transfers school shooting emergency grants and community schools oversight to HHS as McMahon continues dismantling the agency only Congress can legally close.
Judge Cannon blocks public release of Jack Smith’s classified documents report, citing her own 2024 ruling that his appointment was unconstitutional.
DHS suspends TSA PreCheck and Global Entry starting Sunday as 61,000 TSA employees work without pay in the second week of a shutdown while ICE operates uninterrupted on $75 billion in pre-secured funding.
NASA’s Artemis II moon rocket requires rollback to its assembly building after a helium pressurization failure, pushing the first crewed lunar mission since 1972 from March into April.
New Mexico orders investigation into forced sterilization of Native American women by the Indian Health Service, which a 1976 federal audit found sterilized 3,406 women without informed consent before the government stopped counting.
South Carolina hospitals are not required to report measles hospitalizations, leaving doctors unable to tell patients how severe the outbreak is as cases approach 1,000.
DHS seeks to build a single biometric search engine combining face recognition, fingerprints and iris scans across all its agencies after dismantling its own privacy review process.
Leaked DHS document reveals plans for “mega” detention centers holding 7,000 to 10,000 people each, more than double previous estimates, with all facilities operational by November.
ICE quietly changes cause of Cuban detainee’s death from “medical distress” to “spontaneous use of force” weeks after medical examiner ruled it a homicide by asphyxiation during restraint.
Lawmakers find ICE holding facility in Mesa designed for 12-hour stays has detained people for days and weeks with no beds, showers, medical staff or oversight policies.
Deputy AG Blanche fires court-appointed U.S. attorney for Eastern District of Virginia hours after federal judges unanimously selected him, the third such firing in seven months.
Internal documents reveal Homeland Security agent shot and killed a 23-year-old U.S. citizen during a traffic detour on South Padre Island last March, nearly a year before the public learned of it.
Trump administration proposes spending $2 billion a year to rebuild disease surveillance systems it abandoned by leaving the WHO, roughly three times the $680 million it contributed annually.
NASA formally declares Boeing’s 2024 Starliner crew flight a serious failure after internal report reveals astronauts nearly lost control of the spacecraft during docking.
Trump-appointed Fine Arts Commission unanimously approves White House ballroom after receiving 2,000 public comments that were “over 99%” in opposition.
National Governors Association withdraws from annual White House meeting after Trump reverses course and again excludes two Democratic governors he had briefly agreed to include.
Federal agencies told to surveil disabled employees’ social media and challenge medical records when reevaluating telework accommodations, as guidance dismisses anxiety as “unlikely” barrier to office work.
DHS halts FEMA disaster travel during shutdown despite Stafford Act funding, requiring headquarters approval for staff responding to 14 active disaster declarations from last month’s winter storms.
NIH director Bhattacharya adds acting CDC director to his portfolio, becoming the fifth person to lead the agency in 18 months as the 210-day nomination deadline approaches in late March.
Noem diverted over 750 Coast Guard flights from regular missions to deportation runs, using her authority over the only military branch that reports to DHS.
New law requires IRS to tell taxpayers the specific line where math errors occurred on their returns instead of sending vague correction notices.
Trump appoints his 26-year-old assistant to the arts commission set to vote Thursday on advancing his controversial White House ballroom project.
FBI formally refuses to share evidence with Minnesota investigators in Alex Pretti shooting, as bystander video appears to show agents took his gun before killing him.
Trump attacks $16 billion Gateway tunnel project days after court forced release of frozen federal funds, denying he demanded Penn Station and Dulles be renamed for him.
Trump blames Maryland Gov. Moore for month-old Potomac sewage spill from a federally regulated pipe and deploys FEMA, currently shut down, to lead cleanup.
TSA officers work without pay as DHS shutdown enters its first weekend, with more than 5,100 flights delayed Saturday and 1,110 officers leaving the agency in October and November alone.
Federal Reserve research finds the average U.S. tariff rate jumped from 2.6% to 13% in 2025, with American consumers and businesses absorbing 94% of the cost through August and 86% by November.
Six months after an explosion killed two workers at the nation’s largest coke plant, Trump exempted the facility from Biden-era benzene monitoring rules at U.S. Steel’s request.
TSA requires 61,000 airport workers to stay on the job without pay after DHS funding lapses, weeks after a 43-day shutdown left many still recovering financially.
Congressman Raskin confirms a whistleblower’s account of inhumane conditions at a Baltimore ICE facility after a surprise inspection found 55 detainees packed into a single room.
WHO formally condemns a CDC-funded trial that would withhold a proven hepatitis B vaccine from 7,000 newborns in Guinea-Bissau, calling the study unethical and scientifically unjustified after two months of global backlash.
Two top RFK Jr. aides leave HHS in a White House-driven shakeup to sharpen health messaging ahead of midterm elections, including the acting CDC director who rarely visited the agency.
State Department orders roughly 1,400 nonprofit public libraries to stop processing passport applications, threatening closures and layoffs in states where most libraries are nonprofit entities.
