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A curated weekday guide to major news and developments over the weekend. Here’s today’s news:
U.S. FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The Trump administration has “50 countries that are burning [up] the phone lines into the White House” to discuss the new U.S. tariffs, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said yesterday, without specifying which countries had reached out. Doug Palmer reports for POLITICO.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday said he is revoking the visas of all South Sudan passport holders over the “failure” of the state’s transitional government to accept citizens deported by the Trump administration “in a timely manner.” Edward Wong and Hamed Aleaziz report for the New York Times.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the White House today to meet with President Donald Trump, according to a White House official. Barak Ravid reports for Axios.
The Trump administration on Friday fired U.S. Agency for International Development workers while they were in Myanmar assessing how the United States could help with earthquake relief efforts, sources say. Edward Wong and Hannah Beech report for the New York Times.
Several powerful Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq are prepared to disarm to avert conflict with the Trump administration, according to senior commanders and Iraqi officials. The move follows repeated warnings issued privately by U.S. officials to the Iraqi government, the sources added. Ahmed Rasheed reports for Reuters.
Iranian-backed militants’ drone attack that killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan last year was most likely preventable, according to a military investigation report obtained by the Washington Post. Alex Horton reports.
U.S. DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS
Hundreds of thousands of protesters on Saturday marched against the Trump administration’s actions in various U.S. locations, according to estimates by the protest’s organisers. Shaila Dewan, Minho Kim, and Katie Benner report for the New York Times.
House Democrats have submitted the names of their appointees to the Office of Congressional Conduct’s (formerly the Office of Congressional Ethics) board, but the office’s operations remain stalled as it awaits Republican appointees, a source says. Nicholas Wu and Hailey Fuchs report for POLITICO.
More than 500 law firms on Friday signed an amicus brief criticising Trump’s executive orders targeting individual law firms, arguing the orders are intended to intimidate other firms into refusing to challenge the Trump administration. The filing was not signed by any of the 20 largest firms in the country as measured by revenue. Mark Berman reports for the Washington Post.
A district court judge on Friday awarded $6.6 million to four whistleblowers fired shortly after they reported Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to the FBI over graft allegations. Paxton called the ruling “ridiculous” and said his office intends to appeal. Simon J. Levien reports for the New York Times.
GLOBAL AFFAIRS
Global markets continued to plunge today amid a continuing stock rout caused by Trump’s tariffs and China’s retaliation, with Asian and European markets falling sharply ahead of the opening of U.S. trading. Juliana Liu and John Liu report for CNN.
Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian-American teenager and wounded two others in the occupied West Bank yesterday, Palestinian officials said. The Israeli military said it fired at three “terrorists who hurled rocks toward the highway.” Abeer Salman, Dana Karni, Hira Humayun, and Irene Nasser report for CNN.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
Israel struck tents outside two major Gaza hospitals overnight into today, killing at least two people, including a local reporter, and wounding another nine, including six reporters, medics said. Wafa Shurafa and Samy Magdy report for AP News.
Hamas yesterday said it fired a barrage of rockets at south Israel’s cities in response to Israeli “massacres” of civilians in Gaza, as the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry said Israeli strikes killed at least 39 people in 24 hours. One person was reportedly injured in Hamas’ attack. Emily Rose and Nidal Al-Mughrabi report for Reuters.
The Israeli military on Saturday backtracked on its account of the circumstances of the killing of 15 Palestinian medics by Israeli forces last month after a video that appeared to contradict it emerged online. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said the footage, which matches the sequence of events described by witnesses, was found in the phone of one of its slain staffers. Edith M. Lederer, Wafaa Shurafa, and Lee Keath report for AP News; Vivian Yee and Bilal Shbair report for the New York Times.
Israel now controls more than 50% of the Gaza Strip, with the largest contiguous area of control located around the Gaza border, according to Israeli troops and rights groups. Israel systematically razed Palestinians’ homes, farmland, and infrastructure in some areas of Gaza to the point of uninhabitability, according to troops’ testimony in an Israeli watchdog group’s report published today. Sam Mednick reports for AP News; Claire Parker reports for the Washington Post.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR — U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
The humanitarian situation in Gaza is deteriorating dangerously one month after Israel cut off access to aid to the territory, with spreading hunger and increasingly restricted access to clean water, the U.N. and several NGOs say. Tim Lister and Ibrahim Dahman report for CNN.
The Trump administration last month moved forward with the sale of 20,000 U.S.-made assault rifles to Israel that the former Biden administration delayed over concerns they could be used by extremist Israeli settlers, according to a document seen by Reuters and a source. Humeyra Pamuk reports.
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
A Russian Friday strike on the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih killed 20 people, including many children, Ukrainian officials said. A U.N. Human Rights Office in Ukraine team that visited the site of the strike on Saturday described it as the deadliest single verified strike harming children since the start of Moscow’s invasion. A separate Russian attack killed one person in Kyiv yesterday, the Kyiv mayor said. AP News reports.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday criticized the United States for its muted response to Moscow’s most recent strike on Kryvyi Rih, saying that the U.S. Embassy’s failure to name Russia in a post about the strike was an “unpleasant surprise.” James Marson reports for the Wall Street Journal.
Russia is running out of time to convince the Trump administration that it is serious about reaching a ceasefire deal with Ukraine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday. Michael Crowley reports for the New York Times.
Kyiv will send a team to the United States to begin negotiations on a new draft of a deal that would give Washington access to Ukraine’s rare minerals, the Ukrainian economy minister told AP News on Saturday. Hanna Arhirova reports.
SYRIA
Israel last week struck at least three air bases in Syria that Turkey has scoped out to deploy its forces to as part of a planned joint defence pact with Damascus, Syrian and regional sources say. Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Jonathan Spicer report for Reuters.
Turkey does not want a confrontation with Israel in Syria. Ankara’s foreign minister said on Friday, adding that Israeli strikes on Damascus’ military facilities are eroding the new government’s ability to deter threats such as the Islamic State. Samia Nakhoul reports for Reuters.
More than 100 chemical weapons sites are suspected to remain in Syria, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said in the first estimate of the kind, citing outside researchers, nonprofit groups, and intelligence shared by its member countries. Megha Rajagopalan reports for the New York Times.
ISRAEL-HEZBOLLAH CEASEFIRE
The Deputy U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East, Morgan Ortagus, on Saturday urged the Lebanese government to assert control over all national territory, disarm Hezbollah, and prevent arms smuggling along the Syrian border during a meeting in Beirut, a Lebanese official said. Sally Abou Aljoud reports for AP News.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACTIONS
The Justice Department has placed an attorney who admitted in court a Maryland man “should not have been sent” to El Salvador by the government on administrative leave, Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed on Saturday. According to Bondi, the attorney was placed on leave as “every [DOJ] attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States.” Evan Perez, Paula Reid, and Katie Bo Lillis report for CNN.
Some Ukrainians living in the United States under a Biden-era humanitarian parole program received an erroneous Homeland Security Department notice last Thursday telling them to leave the country within seven days, according to communications reviewed by CNN. Jessica Dean and Kaanita Iyer report.
DOGE is expected to take aim at the DHS in the coming days, seeking staffing cuts to agencies including the U.S. Secret Service, sources say. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is expected to be decimated, one of the sources added. Betsy Klein, Jamie Gangel, and Josh Campbell report for CNN.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is looking to push as much as a third of its staff, as well as contract personnel who work on CISA’s operations to identify hacking threats, sources say. Sam Sabin reports for Axios.
DOGE representatives have arrived at the Peace Corps headquarters, the agency said on Saturday, without specifying what work DOGE is undertaking. Tara Prindiville and Nnamdi Egwuonwu report for NBC News.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-based health agency that aims to protect workers, is losing about 85% of its staff members, according to estimates from a union and affected employees. Mike Stobbe reports for AP News.
The Internal Revenue Service is looking to cut up to 25% of its workforce, with cuts beginning with its Office of Civil Rights and Compliance, sources say. Fatima Hussein reports for AP News.
A “steady trickle” of U.S. citizens have been swept up in the Trump administration’s intensifying immigration enforcement actions, with at least seven cases reported recently, legal experts and attorneys representing those detained say. María Luisa Paúl reports for the Washington Post.
Interim U.S. Attorney for D.C. Ed Martin, on Friday told staff he is expanding an investigation into the DOJ’s decision to level felony obstruction charges against Jan. 6 rioters, according to an internal email reviewed by POLITICO. Kyle Cheney reports.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LITIGATION
The Trump administration’s decision to deport a Maryland man to a notorious El Salvador prison appears to be “wholly lawless,” a federal judge wrote yesterday in a legal opinion explaining her Friday order for the government to immediately bring the man back to the United States by the end of today. The DOJ has appealed the order. Kyle Cheney, Hassan Ali Kanu, and Josh Gerstein report for POLITICO; Priscilla Alvarez and Emily R. Condon report for CNN.
The conservative-backed legal nonprofit New Civil Liberties Alliance last week filed a challenge over the legality of Trump’s tariffs launched earlier this year on all Chinese imports on behalf of a Florida-based stationery company, arguing the decision was made without legal authority. Maegan Vazquez reports for the Washington Post.
The Supreme Court on Friday ruled 5-4 to allow Trump to temporarily freeze millions of dollars in teacher shortage grants to states, holding that if states ultimately win their pending challenge to the move, they would be able to recover any wrongfully held funds through further litigation. John Fritze, Tierney Sneed and Devan Cole report for CNN.
A federal judge on Friday permanently barred the Trump administration from limiting National Institutes of Health funding that supports research at universities and academic medical centers. The government asked the court to enter this verdict earlier on Friday so that it can appeal it. Zach Montague reports for the New York Times.
The Trump administration is temporarily blocked from dismantling the Inter-American Foundation, an agency that funds community development groups in Latin American and Caribbean countries, after a federal judge on Friday ruled the government does not have the authority to remove the Foundation’s head. Michael Kunzelman reports for AP News.
A federal judge on Friday ordered the case of a Tufts doctoral student detained by ICE to be moved to Vermont, denying the government’s request to hold the proceedings in Louisiana. Anemona Hartocollis reports for the New York Times.
The Attorneys General of sixteen states on Friday sued the Trump administration over withholding grant funding from public health and medical research institutions. Soumya Karlamangla and Benjamin Mueller report for the New York Times.
A group of federal employee unions on Thursday filed a challenge to the Trump administration’s bid to strip union representation from about a million federal workers. Rebecca Davis O’Brien reports for the New York Times.
Did you miss this? Stay up-to-date with our Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions
