Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of existing US domestic news briefs.

US to use AI to revoke visas of students it sees as Hamas fans, Axios reports

The U.S. State Department will use artificial intelligence to withdraw visas of foreign students who it views as advocates of Palestinian Hamas militants, Axios reported on Thursday, citing senior State Department officials. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January to combat antisemitism and has pledged to deport non-citizen university student and others who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have been continuous for months amid Israel’s military assault on Gaza after Hamas’ October 2023 attack.

CIA fires an unspecified number of new officers

The Central Intelligence Agency fired a slew of current hires this week, 3 people knowledgeable about the matter said, cuts that existing and former U.S. intelligence officers alerted would run the risk of damaging U.S. national security. The firings under U.S. President Donald Trump’s brand-new CIA director, John Ratcliffe, come as Trump administers over enormous federal labor force reductions overseen by billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Veterans, farm groups knock Trump cuts at Democrat-run Arizona town hall

Arizona farm groups and veterans united by Democratic chief law officers blasted U.S. President Donald Trump’s federal cuts, stating the president was neglecting judges who obstructed his executive orders and hurting previous service members. They spoke at an in some cases raucous city center on Wednesday night arranged by the country’s 23 Democratic attorney generals of the United States, 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’re in a dark space,’ US judge states on rising dangers

Threats against U.S. judges are rising and attorneys should do more to press back against heated rhetoric, four federal judges stated in a panel discussion on Thursday. Speaking at an American Bar Association meeting on white collar criminal activity in Miami, U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware of Las Vegas federal court stated risks versus the judiciary had actually increased “exponentially.”

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

Martin Makary, President Donald Trump’s candidate to run the U.S. FDA, informed legislators on Thursday he would assemble a committee of vaccine consultants however said he would reassess which clinical concerns need their input. It was one of numerous issues on which Makary, a Johns Hopkins physician, kept his cards close to his chest while facing the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee for two hours.

Trump informs cabinet secretaries they, not Musk, supervise of personnel cuts

U.S. President Donald Trump told his cabinet members on Thursday that they, not Elon Musk, have the final 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 just, Trump said, according to the source. Musk was in the space and told the cabinet he was excellent with Trump’s plan, the source said.

Push for permanent US daytime saving time frozen as Trump says Americans are divided

A three-year congressional effort to make daytime conserving time permanent in the United States appears to have halted, with President Donald Trump stating on Thursday that Americans are equally divided over the problem. Daylight conserving time – putting the clocks forward one hour throughout the summer season half of the year to make the most of the longer nights – has remained in location in nearly all of the United States given that the 1960s, but proponents have pressed to make it year-round.

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

U.S. district attorneys on Thursday unveiled a new indictment against Sean “Diddy” Combs, implicating the hip-hop magnate of forcing staff members to work long hours and threatening to punish those who did not help in his two-decade sex trafficking plan. Combs, 55, still faces a scheduled May 5 trial in Manhattan on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has actually pleaded not guilty.

US federal workers countered at Trump mass shootings with class action grievances

U.S. civil servant who have actually been fired in the Trump administration’s purge of recently worked with employees are responding with class action-style problems claiming that the mass shootings are unlawful and 10s of thousands of individuals need to get their jobs back. Lawyers at 2 firms said on Thursday that they had filed 6 appeals with the federal Merit Systems Protection Board because recently and, along with other law office, plan 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 rules

The Trump administration need to make some payments to foreign aid professionals and 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 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 lawsuit by professionals and non-profit grant receivers challenging President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging freeze of U.S. foreign aid, a day after the groups got an increase from the Supreme Court. It buys the federal government to pay billings submitted by the complainants in the event before February 13.