President Trump has ordered the U.S. government to take a major step toward mining vast tracts of the ocean floor, a move that is opposed by nearly all other nations, which consider international waters off limits to this kind of industrial activity. The executive order, signed Thursday, would circumvent a decades-old treaty that every major … Read more
Almost immediately after taking office, President Trump began shutting down refugee resettlement programs, slashing billions of dollars in funding and making it all but impossible for people from scores of countries to seek haven in the United States. With one exception. The Trump administration has thrown open the doors to white Afrikaners from South Africa, … Read more
President Trump instructed a broad swath of government agencies on Thursday to end collective bargaining with federal unions, a major escalation in his effort to assert more control over the federal work force. Mr. Trump framed the order as critical to protect national security. But it targets agencies across the government, including the Departments of … Read more
President Trump pushed on Tuesday to hand the executive branch unprecedented influence over how federal elections are run, signing a far-reaching and legally dubious order to change U.S. voting rules. The executive order, which seeks to require proof of citizenship to register to vote as well as the return of all mail ballots by Election … Read more
President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that will require proof of U.S. citizenship on election forms, in an aggressive push to catch and combat voter fraud, which is exceedingly rare but constantly cited by Mr. Trump as a reason he lost the 2020 election. The order calls for the Election Assistance Commission to … Read more
President Trump is using tariffs to rewire the global economic order in a flurry of on-again, off-again maneuvers, arguing they will boost U.S. factories and generate revenue. But his strategy has already triggered retaliation from major trading partners, rattled markets and upended diplomatic ties. On Wednesday, the European Union announced up to $28 billion in … Read more
The billionaire Elon Musk said in an extraordinary Oval Office appearance on Tuesday that he was providing maximum transparency in his government cost-cutting initiative, but offered no evidence for his sweeping claims that the federal bureaucracy had been corrupted by cheats and officials who had approved money for “fraudsters.” Answering questions from the media for … Read more
The Trump administration said on Tuesday that it had fired four employees from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, including the agency’s chief financial officer, over their roles in disbursing federal funds to house migrants in New York City hotels. The firings capped a startling chain of events that began on Monday with an early-morning social … Read more
President Trump’s sweeping executive order to halt foreign aid threatens to freeze a U.S. program supporting security forces inside a notorious camp in the Syrian desert that holds tens of thousands of Islamic State members and their families, Syrian and U.S. officials said. The order has also wreaked havoc on another U.S. organization in Syria … Read more
President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday taking steps to end gender-affirming medical treatments for children and teenagers under 19, directing agencies to take a variety of steps to curtail surgeries, hormone therapy and other regimens. The order continued to chip away at social protections for transgender and intersex people, coming one day after … Read more