Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of existing US domestic news briefs.

US to utilize AI to revoke visas of students it sees as Hamas advocates, Axios reports

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

CIA fires an unspecified number of brand-new officers

The Central Intelligence Agency fired a variety of current hires today, three people familiar with the matter said, cuts that present and previous U.S. intelligence officers warned would risk harmful U.S. national security. The firings under U.S. President Donald Trump’s brand-new CIA director, John Ratcliffe, come as Trump commands enormous federal workforce decreases supervised 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 chief law officers blasted U.S. President Donald Trump’s federal cuts, saying the president was neglecting judges who obstructed his executive orders and hurting former service members. They spoke at an often raucous city center on Wednesday night organized by the country’s 23 Democratic chief law officers, who have filed claims to ask judges to obstruct a string of Trump executive orders, including his suspension of trillions of dollars in federal grants, loans and financial backing.

‘We’re in a dark space,’ US judge says on rising threats

Threats against U.S. judges are increasing and legal representatives need to do more to press back against heated rhetoric, 4 federal judges said in a panel discussion on Thursday. Speaking at an American Bar Association meeting on clerical criminal activity in Miami, U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware of Las Vegas federal court stated risks versus the judiciary had increased “significantly.”

Trump’s FDA nominee tepidly backs role for vaccine advisers in protected Senate look

Martin Makary, President Donald Trump’s nominee to run the U.S. FDA, informed lawmakers on Thursday he would assemble a committee of vaccine advisers however stated he would reassess which scientific concerns need their input. It was one of a number of concerns on which Makary, a Johns Hopkins physician, kept his cards near his chest while facing the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee for 2 hours.

Trump tells cabinet secretaries they, not Musk, supervise of staff cuts

U.S. President Donald Trump informed his cabinet members on Thursday that they, not Elon Musk, have the last say on staffing and policy at their firms, according to a source knowledgeable about 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 room and told the cabinet he was great with Trump’s strategy, the source stated.

Promote long-term US daylight conserving time frozen as Trump states Americans are divided

A three-year congressional effort to make daylight conserving time long-term in the United States appears to have stopped, with President Donald Trump saying on Thursday that Americans are uniformly divided over the issue. Daylight conserving time – putting the clocks forward one hour during the summertime half of the year to maximize the longer evenings – has actually remained in place in almost all of the United States since the 1960s, but supporters have pressed to make it year-round.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs faces new indictment, is implicated of ‘forced labor’

U.S. prosecutors on Thursday revealed a new indictment against Sean “Diddy” Combs, implicating the hip-hop mogul of forcing workers to work long hours and threatening to penalize those who did not help in his two-decade sex trafficking plan. Combs, 55, still deals with a scheduled May 5 trial in Manhattan on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to take part in prostitution. He has pleaded not guilty.

US federal workers countered at Trump mass firings with class action problems

U.S. government workers who have been fired in the Trump administration’s purge of recently worked with employees are responding with class action-style complaints claiming that the mass firings are unlawful and 10s of thousands of people must get their jobs back. Lawyers at two companies said on Thursday that they had actually submitted 6 appeals with the federal Merit Systems Protection Board because last week and, together with other law firms, plan to produce 15 more on an agency-by-agency basis on behalf of big groups of workers who were fired in recent weeks.

Trump administration should 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 demand to prevent a deadline for the payments. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali came at the end of a hearing in a suit by specialists and non-profit grant receivers challenging President Donald Trump’s comprehensive freeze of U.S. foreign aid, a day after the groups got a boost from the Supreme Court. It buys the federal government to pay invoices sent by the plaintiffs in the event before February 13.