Month: February 2025

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with congressional leaders on Capitol Hill, coming shortly after his meeting with President Trump in which it was announced at a joint press conference that the United States plans to “take over” the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu met Thursday with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and a bipartisan group of senators. “We had a good discussion about Israel security and about the imperative of the return of the rest of the hostages,” said Thune who also told reporters that the president “wants to bring a more peaceful and secure Middle East, and he’s putting some ideas out there. ” Appearing alongside the group of senators before the meeting,  Netanyahu simply replied “no” when asked whether U.S. troops are needed in Gaza,

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who also met with Netanyahu at the Capitol on Thursday, has defended Trump’s Gaza proposal, stating that the announcement “was greeted by surprise by many, but cheer by I think people all around the world. He’s taking bold decisive action to try to ensure the peace of that region, ” adding that “we’ve got to stand unequivocally” with Israel.

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A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s offer of buyouts to federal workers, after labor unions challenged it. US District Judge George O’Toole said in the brief hearing that the pause will allow both sides to submit arguments. Thursday, February 6 was the deadline for employees to accept the controversial packages; workers will now have until Monday, February 10 to accept the deal, giving more time to weigh the offer.

Per NBC NEWS, the pause stems from a lawsuit that the American Federation of Government Employees and several other unions filed in US District Court in Massachusetts on Tuesday seeking a temporary restraining order to halt the February 6 deadline. The unions also want to “require the government to articulate a policy that is lawful, rather than an arbitrary, unlawful, short-fused ultimatum which workers may not be able to enforce.”

The buyouts promises employees eight months of pay and benefits in exchange for leaving the federal workforce; but numerous provisions in the contract for the offer undercut those claims, saying employees could still have to work and may be barred from outside employment. More than 60,000 federal workers have already accepted the package, an administration official told CNN on Thursday.

American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) president Everett Kelley said in a statement: “We are pleased the court temporarily paused this deadline while arguments are heard about the legality of the deferred resignation program. We continue to believe this program violates the law, and we will continue to aggressively defend our members’ rights.”

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Authorities confirmed that the suspect in the shooting at an Ohio warehouse that killed one person and wounded five was arrested Wednesday morning.  The suspect, Bruce Reginald Foster III, was arrested at a home in nearby Columbus on Wednesday morning. Foster was turned over to police in New Albany (about 15 miles northeast of downtown Columbus) where the shooting took place Tuesday night around 10:30 p.m. at the KDC/One cosmetics facility, where authorities say the suspect worked. (per CNN).

Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Dan Deville said:  “Normally what we prefer to do is have people come out and surrender to us. He refused to come out. Our guys did have to make entry.”

New Albany Police Chief Greg Jones said during a Wednesday morning press conference the motive for the mass shooting was unknown, and there were no reports of any kind of confrontation or dispute that would have prompted the shooting.  Foster had been at work “for some time” before the shooting, which happened about 10:30 p.m., Jones said.

Police added that those injured had been taken to a local hospital, and family members of those involved were still being notified.  Jones said 150 workers were evacuated from the warehouse after the shooting, many of whom did not know what had happened until authorities ushered them into a neighboring, secure building.

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President Trump signed an executive order to ban transgender girls and women from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity. The measure, according to White House officials, is called the “No Men in Women’s Sports Executive Order.” Trump said from a podium at the White House, with dozens of women and girls standing behind him: “With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over.”  

Wednesday’s order — titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” — coincides with National Girls and Women in Sports Day, and will involve how his administration will interpret Title IX, the law best known for its role in pursuing gender equity in athletics and preventing sexual harassment on campuses.  The order mandates that Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in schools, be interpreted as prohibiting the participation of transgender girls and women in female sports. Those not in compliance jeopardize any federal funding they receive and could face legal action, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt adding at Wednesday’s press briefing: “The policy of this administration is that there are only two sexes — male and female. Pretty simple.”

The White House official said transgender female athletes can compete on co-ed or male teams, and have argued that transgender girls and women athletes have biological advantages that are unfair and unsafe for other girls and women: “This is about preserving women’s sports for women, and that if you are not a woman, you should absolutely have opportunities in sports, but the burden should not always be on women to accommodate that.”

The executive order follows a Republican measure that passed the House last month, known as the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” which would amend Title IX to recognize a person’s “sex” as “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” Schools that allow “a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls” risk losing federal funding.

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China struck back at the United States on Tuesday by announcing tariffs on select American goods, as they rolled out a series of retaliatory measures to counteract the 10% U.S. tariffs on all Chinese goods that went into effect on Tuesday.

The move came as the deadline passed for Trump’s 10% tariffs on Chinese goods imported into the United States. In the days since Trump’s announcement, China had said the tariffs on their exports amounted to a serious violation of World Trade Organization rules, with officials adding that the tariffs were “of a bad nature.” The Beijing’s commerce officials said Tuesday that The U.S. tariffs were “typical unilateralism and trade protectionism. The U.S. practice seriously undermines the rules-based multilateral trading system, undermines the foundation of economic and trade cooperation between China and the United States and disrupts the stability of the global industrial chain and supply chain.”

China announced a series of measures including its own levies of 10% to 15% on some U.S. products, with some U.S. goods imported into China subject to tariffs of up to 15%. Chinese officials said they would on Feb. 10 impose a 15% tariff on U.S. coal and liquefied natural gas, along with a 10% tariff on other products, including crude oil, agricultural machinery and pickup trucks. The Chinese announcement came minutes after the U.S. tariff took effect at 12:01 a.m. ET.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier in the week that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to talk in “the next couple days,” though it was unclear whether that discussion would happen prior to the Chinese tariffs going into effect next week.

Trump on Feb. 1 announced tariffs against the United States’ three largest trading partners — China, Mexico, and Canada — saying he would put in place 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, along with 10% tariffs on those from China. Trump and the leaders of Canada and Mexico announced on Monday that Trump’s administration had paused plans for both North American trading partners for a month.

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