Demonstrators from Jewish Voice for Peace filled the Trump Tower lobby to denounce the immigration arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist who led Columbia University protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
They carried banners, wore red shirts reading “Jews say stop arming Israel” and chanted “Bring Mahmoud home now!”
The NYPD said 98 of them were arrested on charges including trespassing, obstruction and resisting arrest.
The protesters included actor Debra Winger. She accused the Trump administration of having “no interest in Jewish safety” and “co-opting antisemitism.”
“I’m just standing up for my rights, and I’m standing up for Mahmoud Khalil, who has been abducted illegally and taken to an undisclosed location,” Winger told The Associated Press. “Does that sound like America to you?”
▶ Read more on the Trump Tower protests
The team is tasked with working with the White House and the Department of Government Efficiency “to identify savings and cost cutting measures” in the law enforcement agency, according to an email sent to Justice Department employees this week.
It will be led by officials including Assistant Attorney General for Administration Jolene Ann Lauria, according to the email reviewed by The Associated Press.
“The JUST-DOGE team will lead directed reviews and identify cost savings and other potential efficiencies in DOJ’s budget,” the email said. “We have much work to do in this area and we sincerely appreciate your cooperation in advance of this critical Administration priority.”
Trump says “Denmark’s very far away” from Greenland, despite being part of that country’s kingdom.
“A boat landed there 200 years ago or something. They say they have rights to it,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t think it is, actually.”
He noted that the U.S. already has a military presence in Greenland and, “Maybe you’ll see more and more soldiers going there.”
Trump also suggested that Greenland’s election was very good “for us” and “the person who did the best is a very good person as far as we’re concerned.”
▶ Read more on Greenland’s election
The president said to reporters: “We inherited that problem: eggs.”
Wholesale egg prices have dropped this month as demand has dropped, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, after surging 28% from January to February, according to the Labor Department’s Producer Price Index.
But it’s not clear yet if consumers will benefit. Egg prices remain higher than they were at the start of 2025, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data.
“If there’s a shutdown, it’s only because of the Democrats,” Trump said.
The Republican-controlled House passed legislation this week to keep the government funded through the end of the budget year in September.
The Republican-controlled Senate needs to act on the measure by midnight Friday to keep the government operating.
The Social Security Administration has announced plans to lay off at least 7,000 workers, and has cut entire departments and temporarily shut off information sharing with Maine.
The agency is run by Leland Dudek, a department worker who is friendly to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Former Acting Commissioner Michelle King stepped down after voicing concerns about DOGE access to Social Security systems.
“When combined with SSA providing inexperienced individuals unfettered access to the agency’s sensitive systems, there is a profound risk of causing irreparable harm to the agency’s systems and Americans’ financial security,” the Senators wrote to committee chair Mike Crapo.
Social Security is the largest source of income for retirees. Musk recently told the Fox Business Network that “most of the federal spending is entitlements.”
“That’s the big one to eliminate,” he said.
A threatened 200% tariff would deal “a hammer blow” to the multibillion dollar French alcohol export industry and impact hundreds of thousands of people in France, according to the president of France’s Federation of Exporters of Wines and Spirits.
“Not a single bottle will continue to be expedited if 200% tariffs are applied to our products. All exports to the United States will come to a total, total, halt,” Gabriel Picard says.
Picard concedes Europe had no choice but to respond to Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports but that the EU shouldn’t have threatened to retaliate against U.S.-produced whisky and wines.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday that he’s not going to change his mind on the tariffs he’s imposing on Canada.
“We’ve been ripped off for years,” Trump said. “We’re not going to bend.”
Acknowledging the economic impact, he said, “There’ll be a little disruption. But it won’t be long.”
Government watchdogs are asking the new leaders of the U.S. Agency for International Development to explain what they’re doing to safeguard stranded USAID offices and other assets overseas as they gut the agency.
The flag of the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, flies in front of the USAID office in Washington, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
“Assets still in-country without active U.S. control are at risk of looting, terrorism or being seized,” Gabriele Tonsil, the acting inspector general for USAID, said in a memo notifying deputy USAID administrator Pete Marocco that her office was launching an audit of the matter.
Tonsil became acting inspector general when the White House fired her predecessor, Paul Martin, one day after his office warned that the Trump administration’s sudden shutdown of USAID programs and mass idling of USAID workers was risking oversight of billions of dollars in U.S. foreign assistance.
The president spoke during a White House meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte as his envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian officials, shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he agrees in principle with a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine if certain conditions are met.
Putin’s statement stressed that certain conditions must be met. Trump reiterated that he stands ready to speak with Putin, but underscored that it is time to end the war.
“He put out a very promising statement but it wasn’t complete,” Trump said. “Now we’re going to see whether or not Russia’s there. And if they’re not, it’ll be a very disappointing moment for the world.”
Government watchdogs want the new leaders of the U.S. Agency for International Development to explain how they’re safeguarding stranded USAID assets overseas as they gut the agency.
“Assets still in-country without active U.S. control are at risk of looting, terrorism or being seized,” Gabriele Tonsil, the acting inspector general for USAID, said in a memo notifying deputy USAID administrator Pete Marocco that her office was launching an audit.
Tonsil became acting inspector general when the White House fired her predecessor, Paul Martin, the day after his office warned that Trump’s sudden shutdown of USAID programs and workers risks oversight of billions of dollars in U.S. foreign assistance.
Trump says Rutte is doing a “fantastic job” as head of the 32-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization and that “I got to know him very well” when Rutte was prime minister of the Netherlands.
“We had a great relationship,” Trump says.
But Thursday’s meeting comes at a pivotal moment for Europe and NATO.
The Trump administration is moving forward with talks with Russia on a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Trump has been ratcheting up his anti-NATO rhetoric, expressing an unwillingness to defend members who don’t meet defense spending targets.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup found the firings didn’t follow federal law.
He required that immediate offers of reinstatement be sent by agencies including the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, the Interior and Treasury.
The order from the San Francisco-based judge came in a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions and other organizations as the administration moves to dramatically downsize the federal workforce.
▶ Read more on the probationary workers challenge
The White House hasn’t provided any details about why the president is visiting the department that charged him with illegally retaining classified documents and trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
The DOJ, which is now led by his former defense attorneys and allies, abandoned the cases against Trump, citing longstanding Justice Department policy that sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution.
Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X that she is “looking forward to welcoming” Trump to the department. It will be his first agency visit since his return to the White House.
They wrote to the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics slamming Trump’s apparent violation of federal ethics laws. They asked for an immediate investigation and possible disciplinary action.
Ethics laws against misusing government positions exist to make sure “finite taxpayer resources” address public concerns instead of “helping the world’s richest man get richer,” said the letter signed by Senators Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Richard Blumenthal and Adam Schiff.
Shares in Tesla have taken a beating as Elon Musk leads Trump’s campaign to slash federal spending. Trump had five Tesla automobiles parked at the White House and bought one to show his support.
President Donald Trump selected a shiny red Tesla on the White House driveway as he showed support for Elon Musk’s electric automaker.
“We agree with the proposals to halt the fighting, but we proceed from the assumption that the ceasefire should lead to lasting peace and remove the root causes of the crisis,” Putin said.
Putin’s statement noted that Ukrainian troops are encircled in their last foothold in Russia’s Kursk region, and it’s necessary to determine before a ceasefire whether they will surrender.
He also noted that it’s necessary to develop a mechanism of control over possible breaches of the truce.
And he questioned whether Ukraine could use the 30-day ceasefire to mobilize and rearm.
▶ Read more on US-Russia-Ukraine ceasefire efforts
The Capitol is seen framed through a window in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Senate Democrats are mounting a last-ditch protest to a Republican-led government funding bill that already passed the House without slapping any limits on the Trump-Musk DOGE efforts to gut federal operations.
The Democrats are pushing a stopgap 30-day funding bill as an alternative, but its prospects are dim in the Republican-controlled chamber.
And it’s unlikely the Democrats would allow the government to shut down at midnight Friday, worried about the further chaos they say Trump and Musk could cause.
“We will not take a lecture on decorum from a party that incited an insurrection,” said Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person to serve in Congress.
McBride’s speaking out at the Democratic strategy meeting is a departure — she has often declined to push back on her Republican colleagues’ taunts and bathroom use restrictions.
“I wish that they would spend even a fraction of the time that they spent thinking about me thinking about how to lower the costs for American families,” said McBride. “The Republican Party is obsessed with culture war issues. It is weird and it is bizarre.”
Leading Democrats are huddling at the Democratic Issues Conference, where the party navigates its identity and messaging strategy.
And they’re not holding back when asked whether Democrats should dialogue with Republicans over decorum.
“Their focus on our decorum or our behavior while they are burning down things for people at home, just makes me livid,” said Rep. Katherine Clarke, the Democratic Whip, during a press conference for freshmen Democratic women.
The revenue service demoted William Paul because he disagreed with the Department of Government Efficiency’s alleged push to share tax information with multiple agencies, according to two people familiar with the plans, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Paul will be replaced by Andrew De Mello, an attorney in the chief counsel’s office who is deemed supportive of Elon Musk and DOGE, they said.
Paul is not the first government official to be demoted after voicing concern about access to sensitive systems and taxpayer data.
“The series of IRS officials who have put the law above their personal job security join a line of public servants, stretching back to Treasury and IRS leaders during the Nixon era, who have resisted unlawful attempts by elected officials to weaponize taxpayer data and systems,” Chye-Ching Huang, the executive director of New York University’s Tax Law Center, said in a statement.
Shelley C. Lowe, the first Native American to lead the NEH, was appointed by President Joe Biden in 2021 and confirmed by voice vote in the Senate the following year.
Her ouster is Trump’s latest move to assert more control over the country’s cultural institutions.
An NEH spokesperson said Thursday that Lowe had departed “at the direction of President Trump,” and that Michael McDonald, who had been the NEH’s general counsel, will serve as acting chair.
The National Endowment for the Arts, also is operating under interim leadership: NEA chair Maria Rosario Jackson resigned shortly before Trump took office in January.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Democrats will be to blame if there is a government shutdown. He pivoted Thursday, shrugging off a reporter’s question about tariffs and the effect they are having on the nation’s economy
Then-Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida was Trump’s first choice to be attorney general, but withdrew when scrutiny over a federal sex trafficking investigation cast doubt on his ability to win Senate confirmation. Trump then turned to ally and former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi, who was confirmed.
In this Feb. 22, 2018 file photo, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, speaks to reporters outside the West Wing in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Chad Chronister withdrew quickly as Trump’s first pick to run the Drug Enforcement Administration, saying he decided to back away after the “gravity of this very important responsibility set in.” Trump said he was the one who pulled that plug, and tapped Terry Cole, Virginia’s public safety and homeland security secretary, to fill the post.
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister speaks during a press conference on Thursday, Aug 4, 2022, in Tampa, Fla. (Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times via AP)
A coalition including 20 states and the District of Columbia says the Trump administration’s sweeping Education Department layoffs are illegally dismantling an agency created by Congress.
The Trump administration cut the department’s workforce in half, and the president has said he wants it shut down.
The federal lawsuit filed Thursday in Massachusetts says the layoffs make it impossible for the department to comply with its statutory requirements, will result in lost or delayed federal funding for public schools and leave the agency unable to administer college financial aid or enforce civil rights laws.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President Donald Trump’s choice to be Director of the National Institutes of Health, appears before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee for his confirmation hearing, at Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya once famously clashed with officials at the National Institutes of Health. Now he’s up for a full Senate vote with the approval of the Senate’s health committee.
Bhattacharya, who holds a medical degree but is not a practicing physician, was an outspoken critic of COVID-19 shutdowns and vaccine policies.
He sidestepped committee questions about drastic funding cuts and mass firings, and vowed to focus attention on chronic diseases and encourage scientific dissent at the $48 billion agency, the world’s largest funder of biomedical research.
Dr. Marty Makary is on track to become the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
The Republican-controlled Senate health panel voted 14-9 to advance his nomination to the Senate floor. Democrats Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and John Hickenlooper of Colorado joined Republicans in favor.
Makary — a surgeon, author and researcher — is known for his contrarian views and is closely aligned with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on many issues. Both are highly critical of food additives, ultraprocessed foods and the overprescribing of drugs.
Makary refused to be pinned down on specific actions he might take as commissioner, including on the abortion pill mifepristone.
Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, center, right, speaks during the G7 foreign ministers meeting in La Malbaie, Quebec, Thursday, March 13, 2025. (Saul Loeb/Pool via AP)
Top diplomats from the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan are gathering as the bloc’s once-solid unity is thrown into disarray by Trump’s trade and foreign policies.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will likely hear a litany of complaints. The meeting began just minutes after Trump threatened 200% tariffs on European alcohol if the EU retaliates against his steel and aluminum tariffs with a levy on American whiskey.
Relations between the U.S. and its closest allies are already strained by Trump’s apparent pivot toward Russia. “Peace and stability is at the top of our agenda, and I look forward discussing how we continue to support Ukraine in the face of Russia’s illegal aggression,” Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said.
▶ Read more on the G7 meetings in Canada
China called U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “unilateral and protectionist acts under the name of national security.”
Chinese commerce ministry spokeswoman He Yongqian confirmed Thursday that ministry officials had reached out to Walmart following reports that the giant U.S. retailer was seeking price cuts from its Chinese suppliers to offset the cost of Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods.
Walmart said in a statement that its conversations with suppliers were aimed at saving money for its customers and that it would work closely with the suppliers to “find the best way forward during these uncertain times.”
Former Congressman Dr. David Weldon speaks in The Villages, Fla., on May 31, 2012. (AP Photo/Brendan Farrington, File)
The Senate health committee announced cancelation of a hearing on former Florida congressman David Weldon’s nomination to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the White House pulled the nomination because it became clear Weldon did not have the votes for confirmation.
Weldon has been closely aligned with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now Trump’s health secretary, one of the nation’s leading anti-vaccine activists. Weldon also has been a prominent critic of vaccines and the CDC, which promotes vaccines and monitors their safety.
▶ Read more on developments involving Trump and the CDC
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, accompanied by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, speaks with reporters at the White House, Thursday, March 6, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Steve Witkoff is in Moscow, just the latest high-profile assignment for a real estate magnate turned White House foreign policy fixer.
The longtime Trump pal is also a key player in the Republican administration’s efforts to end the war in Gaza.
Now he’s expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a U.S. official who also confirmed Witkoff’s arrival in Russia for the sensitive engagement. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of the anonymity.
Ukraine agreed Tuesday to a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire. Trump said he hopes Russia will quickly agree.
▶ Read more about Witkoff’s rise in Trump’s foreign policy apparatus
Shelves display bottles of Kentucky bourbon for sale at a fine wine and spirits store, Jan. 22, 2022, in Harmony, Pa. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File)
“The US-EU spirits sector is the model for fair and reciprocal trade, having zero-for-zero tariffs since 1997,” says the statement by Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council.
“The U.S. spirits sector supports more than $200 billion in economic activity, 1.7 million jobs across production, distribution, hospitality and retail, and the purchase of 2.8 billion pounds of grains from American farmers,” it says.
“We urge President Trump to secure a spirits agreement with the EU to get us back to zero-for-zero tariffs, which will create U.S. jobs and increase manufacturing and exports for the American hospitality sector. We want toasts not tariffs.”
The Labor Department reported that its producer price index — which tracks inflation before it reaches consumers — was unchanged from January to February, and core wholesale prices that exclude volatile food and energy costs dropped 0.1%, the first drop since July.
Thursday’s numbers hit as President Donald Trump ramps up his trade war, threatening to send inflation higher.
Gasoline prices fell 4.7% last month, while food prices rose 1.7% from January to February, led by a 28% surge in the price of eggs.
▶ Read more on producer prices and inflation
Trump issued his threat on social media, saying he’d impose a 200% tariff on European wine, champagne and spirits if the European goes forward with a planned tariff on American whiskey on April 1.
Trump called the longtime U.S. ally “one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States.”
He said the 200% tax on U.S. consumption of the European products “will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.”
▶ Read more on Trump’s trade wars
A hiring sign is displayed at a restaurant in Northbrook, Ill., Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
It’s not clear when job cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency will show up in the weekly layoffs report, though some analysts expect them to surface in data in the coming weeks.
Those layoffs are part of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce through billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Senior U.S. officials set the government downsizing in motion weeks ago via a memo dramatically expanding President Donald Trump’s efforts to scale back the workforce. Thousands of probationary employees have already been fired, and now the Republican administration is turning its attention to career officials with civil service protection.
▶ Read more about U.S. unemployment numbers
Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs, and have remained mostly in a range between 200,000 and 250,000 for the past few years.
U.S. jobless claims filings fell by 2,000 to 220,000 for the week ending March 8, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s fewer than the 226,000 new applications analysts forecast.
The four-week average, which evens out some of the week-to-week swings, ticked up by 1,500 to 226,000.
The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of March 1 fell by 27,000 to 1.87 million.
The U.N. humanitarian chief says more than 300 million people across the globe need humanitarian support and many will die because funding from the United States and others is drying up.
Tom Fletcher told a U.N. news conference that the cuts have caused “a seismic shock.”
The Trump administration has dismantled the U.S. aid agency, USAID, and terminated 83% of its programs.
Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, talks during a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)
Across the humanitarian community, he said, programs have been stopped and staff have been laid off including about 10% in February from nongovernmental organizations doing humanitarian work.
Fletcher said that in December global experts estimated that 300 million people needed help in 2025, and the U.N. prioritized 190 million it was aiming to reach, which would cost $47 billion.
That number increased to 307 million in recent days, he said, but with the funding cuts, he can’t say with confidence that the U.N. will get anywhere near $47 billion. Now, U.N. colleagues in Geneva are trying to identify how to prioritize saving 100 million lives and how much that would cost.
Vice President JD Vance, right, and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, left, listen as Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin, center, speaks in East Palestine Fire Station on Feb 3, 2025, in East Palestine, Ohio, Feb. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
In what he called the “most consequential day of deregulation in American history,” the head of the Environmental Protection Agency announced a series of actions Wednesday to roll back landmark environmental regulations, including rules on pollution from coal-fired power plants, climate change and electric vehicles.
“We are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion and ushering in America’s Golden Age,’’ EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in an essay in The Wall Street Journal.
If approved after a lengthy process that includes public comment, the Trump administration’s actions will eliminate trillions of dollars in regulatory costs and “hidden taxes,” Zeldin said, lowering the cost of living for American families and reducing prices for such essentials such as buying a car, heating your home and operating a business.
In all, Zeldin said he is rolling back 31 environmental rules, including a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action against climate change.
▶ Read more about the EPA’s policy rollback
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio disembarks from a military airplane upon arrival at Quebec City Jean Lesage International Airport in Quebec, Canada, March 12, 2025, as he travels to a G7 Foreign Ministers meeting. (Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP)
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio may be walking into unusually unfriendly territory this week when he meets his counterparts from the Group of 7 industrialized democracies — strong American allies stunned by President Donald Trump’s actions against them.
Just hours after Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs kicked in — prompting responses from the European Union and Canada and threatening to ignite full-scale trade wars with close U.S. partners — Rubio arrived at the scenic Quebec town of La Malbaie on the St. Lawrence River for two days of talks starting Thursday with the top diplomats of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. All of them have been angered by the new American president’s policies.
Rubio will likely be hearing a litany of complaints about Trump’s decisions from once-friendly, like-minded countries in the G7 — notably host Canada, to which Trump has arguably been most antagonistic with persistent talk of it becoming the 51st U.S. state, additional tariffs and repeated insults against its leadership.
▶ Read more about Rubio’s G7 meeting
FILE – Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte arrives for an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, June 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Olivier Matthys, File)
Mark Rutte, who heads the 32-member transatlantic military alliance, will meet with Trump at a pivotal moment for Europe and NATO.
Administration officials are pressing ahead with talks with Moscow to sign off on a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire that Trump believes could usher in a permanent end to Europe’s biggest land-war since World War II.
Thursday’s talks also come as Trump’s rhetoric on the alliance continues to leave members uneasy.
Trump last week suggested that the U.S. might abandon its commitments to the alliance if member countries don’t meet defense spending targets, a day after his pick for NATO ambassador assured senators that the administration’s commitment to the military alliance was “ironclad.”
The U.S. president also expressed doubt that NATO would come to the United States’ defense if the country were attacked. However, the alliance did just that after Sept. 11 — the only time in its history that the defense guarantee has been invoked.
The Education Department’s civil rights branch is losing nearly half its staff in the Trump administration’s layoffs, effectively gutting an office that already faced a backlog of thousands of complaints from students and families across the nation.
The Education Department’s civil rights branch is losing nearly half its staff in the Trump administration’s layoffs, effectively gutting an office that already faced a backlog of thousands of complaints from students and families across the nation.
Among a total of more than 1,300 layoffs announced Tuesday were roughly 240 in the department’s Office for Civil Rights, according to a list obtained and verified by The Associated Press. Seven of the civil rights agency’s 12 regional offices were entirely laid off, including busy hubs in New York, Chicago and Dallas. Despite assurances that the department’s work will continue unaffected, huge numbers of cases appear to be in limbo.
The Trump administration has not said how it will proceed with thousands of cases being handled by staff it’s eliminating. The cases involve families trying to get school services for students with disabilities, allegations of bias related to race and religion, and complaints over sexual violence at schools and college campuses.
Some staffers who remain said there’s no way to pick up all of their fired colleagues’ cases. Many were already struggling to keep pace with their own caseloads. With fewer than 300 workers, families likely will be waiting on resolution for years, they said.
▶ Read more about how layoffs are impacting the civil rights branch
An hours-long outage Wednesday on StudentAid.gov, the federal website for student loans and financial aid, underscored the risks in rapidly gutting the Department of Education, as Trump aims to dismantle the agency.
Hundreds of users reported FAFSA outages to Downdetector starting midday Wednesday, saying they were having trouble completing the form, which is required for financial aid at colleges nationwide. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, a group of people who handle colleges’ financial aid awards, also received reports of users experiencing technical issues and having trouble completing the FAFSA.
The developers and IT support staff who worked on the FAFSA form were hard hit in the Education Department’s layoffs Tuesday, along with staff buyouts and the termination of probationary employees. In all, the Education Department has reduced its staff by half, to roughly 2,000, since Trump took office.
▶ Read more about the layoffs at the Education Department
