Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.


US to use AI to revoke visas of trainees it sees as Hamas advocates, Axios reports


The U.S. State Department will utilize synthetic intelligence to withdraw visas of foreign trainees who it perceives as supporters of Palestinian Hamas militants, Axios reported on Thursday, citing senior State Department officials. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January to fight antisemitism and has actually vowed to deport non-citizen college students and others who participated in pro-Palestinian protests that have actually been ongoing for months amid Israel's military assault on Gaza after Hamas' October 2023 attack.


CIA fires an undefined number of brand-new officers


The Central Intelligence Agency fired a variety of current hires this week, 3 individuals knowledgeable about the matter stated, cuts that existing and former U.S. intelligence officers warned would risk damaging U.S. national security. The shootings under U.S. President Donald Trump's new CIA director, John Ratcliffe, come as Trump administers over huge federal labor force decreases managed by billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).


Veterans, farm groups slam Trump cuts at Democrat-run Arizona city center


Arizona farm groups and veterans combined by Democratic attorney generals of the United States lashed out at U.S. President Donald Trump's federal cuts, saying the president was disregarding judges who obstructed his executive orders and harming former service members. They spoke at an in some cases raucous city center on Wednesday night organized by the country's 23 Democratic lawyers general, who have filed lawsuits to ask judges to block a string of Trump executive orders, including his suspension of trillions of dollars in federal grants, loans and financial backing.


'We remain in a dark space,' US judge states on rising risks


Threats against U.S. judges are rising and lawyers should do more to push back versus heated rhetoric, four federal judges said in a panel discussion on Thursday. Speaking at an American Bar Association meeting on clerical criminal offense in Miami, U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware of Las Vegas federal court said risks against the judiciary had actually gone up "tremendously."


Trump's FDA candidate tepidly backs role for vaccine advisors in safeguarded Senate appearance


Martin Makary, President Donald Trump's candidate to run the U.S. FDA, informed legislators on Thursday he would assemble a committee of vaccine advisors however said he would review which clinical issues need their input. It was one of a number of issues on which Makary, a Johns Hopkins physician, kept his cards close to his chest while dealing with the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee for 2 hours.


Trump tells cabinet secretaries they, not Musk, are in charge of personnel cuts


U.S. President Donald Trump told his cabinet members on Thursday that they, not Elon Musk, have the last word on staffing and policy at their companies, according to a source familiar with the matter. The billionaire Tesla CEO and his Department of Government Efficiency will play an advisory function only, Trump stated, according to the source. Musk remained in the space and informed the cabinet he was great with strategy, the source said.


Promote permanent US daylight conserving time frozen as Trump says Americans are divided


A three-year congressional effort to make daytime saving time long-term in the United States appears to have stopped, with President Donald Trump saying on Thursday that Americans are evenly divided over the problem. Daylight conserving time - putting the clocks forward one hour throughout the summertime half of the year to maximize the longer evenings - has been in place in almost all of the United States since the 1960s, however advocates have pushed to make it year-round.


Sean 'Diddy' Combs deals with new indictment, is implicated of 'forced labor'


U.S. district attorneys on Thursday unveiled a brand-new indictment against Sean "Diddy" Combs, accusing the hip-hop mogul of forcing employees to work long hours and threatening to penalize those who did not help in his two-decade sex trafficking scheme. Combs, 55, still faces a scheduled May 5 trial in Manhattan on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transport to engage in prostitution. He has actually pleaded innocent.


US federal workers hit back at Trump mass shootings with class action complaints


U.S. federal government staff members who have actually been fired in the Trump administration's purge of just recently worked with employees are reacting with class action-style grievances claiming that the mass firings are unlawful and 10s of thousands of people must get their jobs back. Lawyers at two firms stated on Thursday that they had actually filed six appeals with the federal Merit Systems Protection Board given that recently and, along with other law practice, strategy to bring about 15 more on an agency-by-agency basis on behalf of large groups of workers who were fired in recent weeks.


Trump administration need to make some foreign help payments by Monday, judge guidelines


The Trump administration need to make some payments to foreign aid contractors and grant recipients by 6 p.m. (1100 GMT) on Monday, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed the administration's request to avoid a due date for the payments. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali came at the end of a hearing in a suit by contractors and non-profit grant recipients challenging President Donald Trump's comprehensive freeze of U.S. foreign help, a day after the groups got an increase from the Supreme Court. It orders the government to pay billings submitted by the plaintiffs in the event before February 13.