Trump order will bar student loan forgiveness for public servants engaged in ‘ improper activities’
Donald Trump plans to today sign an executive order barring government and non-profit employees from a student loan forgiveness program if they engage in “improper activities”.
The order affects the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, under which employees of those organizations can have their federal student debt forgiven if they meet certain criteria. White House staff secretary Will Scharf said that the order will target employees of non-governmental organizations “that engage in illegal, or what we would consider to be improper activities, supporting, for example, illegal immigration or foreign terrorist organizations or otherwise law-breaking activities”.
The order will direct the treasury and education departments to ensure that people involved in those activities are not eligible for the forgiveness.
The US State Department is conducting a review of all visa programs, a department spokesperson told CNN, following reports of a potential new travel ban. A US official told the news outlet that Afghanistan might be among the countries affected.
The ban could take effect as early as next week, though the final decisions regarding the included countries and the timing remain uncertain, according to the official.
On 20 January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing cabinet members, including the Secretary of State, to identify countries where vetting and screening processes are inadequate enough to justify a partial or full suspension of admissions.
A former campaign fundraiser for ex-US Representative George Santos was sentenced Friday to one year and one day in prison for impersonating a high-ranking congressional aide while raising cash for the disgraced New York Republican.
Sam Miele, speaking briefly in federal court on Long Island, apologized to everyone he had “let down,” including family and friends, The Associated Press reports.
“What I did was wrong. Plain and simple,” he said, vowing he would never be involved with the criminal justice system again.
Protesters demanding an in-person town hall from their western Michigan GOP congressman chanted loudly Friday as honking drivers signaled support, the Associated Press reports.
Hours later, Representative Bill Huizenga held a town hall — by phone. The vocal disruption seen outside his Holland office earlier in the day was absent, as the more controlled setting allowed for questions from people who wrote and called in.
“I know this may not be satisfactory to some who would like to just create a scene and be, you know, be disruptive,” Huizenga said on the call. “But we know that this is extremely effective for reaching people.”
Some Republicans have opted to hold telephone town halls after GOP leaders in recent days have advised lawmakers to skip town halls that have been filled with protesters decrying President Donald Trump administration’s slashing of federal government.
The US Department of Labor has reinstated about 120 employees who had been facing termination as part of the Trump administration’s mass firings of recently hired workers, a union said on Friday.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, told Reuters that the probationary employees had been reinstated immediately and that the department was issuing letters telling them to report back to duty on Monday.
The New York representative Elise Stefanik praised Donald Trump’s decision to cancel $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University because of what the administration alleges is the college’s repeated failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment. In a statement, Stefanik said:
President Trump is delivering on his promise to hold universities like Columbia accountable by defunding them for failing to protect their Jewish communities,” said Stefanik in a statement sent over email. “I’m proud of my efforts on the Education Committee which led to the FORMER Columbia University President’s resignation and I applaud President Trump for ensuring that hardworking taxpayer dollars do not fund these cesspools of antisemitism.
Here’s more context on the grant cancellations:
DoJ official in charge of pardon requests fired by Trump
The Trump administration fired the head of the US Justice Department office that handles presidential pardon requests, the official said in a social media post.
Liz Oyer, who was appointed by Biden in 2022, posted on LinkedIn:
I’m sad to share that I was fired today from the job I have poured my heart and soul into for the last three years. I am so proud of the team we built in the Office of the Pardon Attorney, who will carry on our important work. I’m very grateful for the many extraordinary people I’ve had the opportunity to connect with on this journey. Thank you for your partnership, your support, and your belief in second chances.
A pardon attorney runs the process by which people apply for and receive clemency.
Oyer’s termination comes two weeks after Donald Trump appointed Alice Marie Johnson as “pardon czar”, a role in which she will recommend people for presidential commutations.
DHS announces end of collective bargaining agreement with TSA workers
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Friday that it is ending the collective bargaining agreement covering tens of thousands of airport transportation security officers.
The agency, led by secretary Kristi Noem, also said it will stop deducting union dues from employees’ paychecks, a major setback for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA screeners and relies on $15m in annual payments.
“Thanks to Secretary Noem’s action, Transportation Security Officers will no longer lose their hard-earned dollars to a union that does not represent them,” reads a statement by a DHS spokesperson. “The Trump Administration is committed [to] returning to merit-based hiring and firing policies.”
USDA eliminates two committees on food safety
The US Department of Agriculture has eliminated two committees that advise it on food safety, the agency said on Friday.
The USDA eliminated the national advisory committee on microbiological criteria for foods and the national advisory committee on meat and poultry inspection, a spokesperson told Reuters.
These cuts raise concerns about government oversight of the food supply as the Trump administration seeks to downsize the federal bureaucracy and slash costs.
The committees provided scientific advice to the USDA and other federal agencies on public health issues related to food safety, said the non-profit consumer advocacy group Consumer Reports.
The Department of Veterans Affairs will allow crisis hotline responders to work remotely instead of in offices because of the lack of privacy, CNN reports.
The VA granted a full exemption for the Veterans Crisis Line from Donald Trump’s executive order requiring federal employees to return to the office.
The hotline staff no longer have their own office space because the buildings that housed the call center’s three national hubs – in Georgia, Kansas and New York – were all closed during the Covid pandemic.
A court-appointed lawyer advised a judge to end New York City mayor Eric Adams’s criminal case.
Paul D Clement, the lawyer tasked with reviewing the federal case, said the case should be dismissed with prejudice based on the legal arguments brought by the Department of Justice.
“A dismissal without prejudice creates a palpable sense that the prosecution outlined in the indictment and approved by a grand jury could be renewed, a prospect that hangs like the proverbial sword of Damocles over the accused,” Clement wrote in his filing.
NBC News reports that two federal prosecutors in the southern district of New York who worked on the Adams case had been placed on leave on Friday and escorted out of the building by federal law enforcement officials.
Adams was indicted in September on charges alleging he accepted more than $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and travel perks from a Turkish official and others seeking to buy influence while he was the Brooklyn borough president.
Robert Tait
The Guardian’s Robert Tait reports on the latest guidance by the EPA, directing all spending of $50,000 or more to gain approval from Doge first:
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued new guidance directing that spending items greater than $50,000 now require approval from Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), even as Donald Trump begins putting some distance between Musk’s reach and the power of government department heads – at least over job cuts.
“Any assistance agreement, contract or interagency agreement transaction [valued at] $50,000 or greater must receive approval from an EPA DOGE team member,” the EPA guidance says, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press. The EPA did not respond to a request from the news agency on Friday for comment.
The senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate environment and public works committee, called the new directive “troubling”, adding that it means agency actions, including routine contracts and grant awards, “now face unnecessary bureaucratic delays”.
Whitehouse added that the involvement of Musk’s “unvetted, inexperienced team raises serious concerns about improper external influence on specialized agency decision-making”.
The latest development came after Donald Trump on Thursday gave a clear sign of admitting that drastic government cuts spearheaded by his ally Musk had gone too far. The US president’s views after an explosive, closed-door cabinet confrontation involving Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, exposed simmering anger over the billionaire entrepreneur’s key role; Musk had attended the meetingeven though he is not a cabinet member.
After weeks of turmoil in the federal bureaucracy wreaked by the Doge team, Trump issued a call for a “scalpel” rather than a “hatchet” to be applied to the task of reducing the federal bureaucracy.
The president’s comment in a social media post followed a volatile encounter that saw Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla owner who has assumed a central role in Trump’s fledgling administration, face off against Rubio, whom he accused of “firing nobody”, according to the New York Times. Rubio, who had been furious over Musk’s role in shutting down the main US foreign assistance body, USAid – over which the secretary of state supposedly has control – hit back vigorously, according to the report.
Read the full story here:
About 4,000 defense department personnel receive pink slips
About 4,000 defense department personnel received termination notices this week from their employers, a US official told ABC News.
Last week, the department said that up to 5,400 employees could be affected in an initial round of job cuts.
These cuts may affect 5% to 8% of its 878,000 civilian workers. The agency did not provide an explanation for the difference in numbers.
The US official told the news outlet that 31,000 civilian employees submitted a resignation request per the Office of Personnel Management email.
US comptroller office says banks don’t need approval for some cryptocurrency services
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said in a statement on Friday that it is removing a previous requirement that banks had to get special approval before engaging in a range of cryptocurrency services.
The government agency overseeing banks reaffirmed that US banks can legally offer certain cryptocurrency activities, like crypto-asset custody, certain stablecoin activities, and participation in independent node verification networks.
“Today’s action will reduce the burden on banks to engage in crypto-related activities and ensure that these bank activities are treated consistently by the OCC, regardless of the underlying technology,” said acting comptroller of the currency Rodney E Hood. “I will continue to work diligently to ensure regulations are effective and not excessive, while maintaining a strong federal banking system.”
A South Carolina man has been detained after allegedly threatening to kill President Donald Trump.
Travis Keith Lang, 47, pleaded not guilty on Friday during an appearance at the federal courthouse, the South Carolina Daily Gazette reports. He is being detained pending a bond hearing scheduled for14 March. The Secret Service is investigating.
A single-paragraph indictment was filed in federal court on Tuesday. It says Lang threatened to “take the life of, to kidnap, and to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States”.
Lang filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for president as a Republican in 2024. According to FEC filings, his only campaign donation was $6,000 he gave himself.
Scientists and lawmakers are gathering across the US for “Stand Up for Science” rallies. Science educator Bill Nye, former National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins, the senator Chris Van Hollen and the representative Jamie Raskin joined the rally at Washington’s DC’s Lincoln Memorial.
Demonstrators are rallying against firings, budget cuts and reduced grants affecting health, climate, science and other research agencies during the first months of the Trump administration.
Here are some photos coming in from the wires:
Donald Trump is now hosting leaders in the cryptocurrency industry for the first-ever White House Digital Assets Summit.
“Last year, I promised to make America the bitcoin superpower of the world and the crypto capital of the planet, and we’re taking historic action to deliver on that promise, as you know,” the president said as the meeting began.
Here’s more about the president’s embrace of digital assets, which marks a sharp turnaround from Joe Biden’s skeptical approach to the currencies:
The 2026 World Cup will be hosted jointly by the United States, Mexico and Canada – the two neighbors with whom Donald Trump just started a trade war.
Canada and Mexico are very unhappy with Trump for the tariffs he imposed this week (though he later exempted many products). The US president was asked about those feelings in the Oval Office, where he signed an executive order establishing a taskforce to coordinate the World Cup alongside Fifa president Gianni Infantino.
Trump replied:
I think it’s going to make it more exciting. Tension’s a good thing.
Here’s more about how the continental trade rivalry could affect the international soccer tournament:
Trump says ‘no clash’ happened between Rubio and Musk at cabinet meeting
Donald Trump just invited reporters back in to the Oval Office to talk about his preparations for next year’s World Cup. But the press, of course, had other things they wanted to know about, specifically the New York Times’s reporting that Elon Musk and Marco Rubio had argued in front of him yesterday.
“No clash, I was there. You’re just a troublemaker and you’re not supposed to be asking that question, because we’re talking about the World Cup,” Trump told a reporter who inquired about the reported spat. “But Elon gets along great with Marco and they’re both doing a fantastic job. But there is no clash.”
The chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, has warned that Donald Trump’s administration has created so much uncertainty among consumers and businesses that it could affect the economy:
The US economy faces a potential slowdown in consumer spending amid “heightened uncertainty about the economic outlook” among businesses, the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, said on Friday.
The central bank chief said the Fed will be in no rush to cut interest rates while it waits for more clarity on how the policies of the new Trump administration affect the economy.
“The new administration is in the process of implementing significant policy changes in four distinct areas: trade, immigration, fiscal policy and regulation,” Powell said in remarks prepared for a University of Chicago Booth School of Business economic forum in New York City. “Uncertainty around the changes and their likely effects remains high.
“We are focused on separating the signal from the noise as the outlook evolves. We do not need to be in a hurry and are well-positioned to wait for greater clarity.”
Powell spoke at a volatile time, with stock markets and bond yields both declining in the wake of Donald Trump’s whiplash announcements of steep import tariffs on major trading partners Mexico and Canada, followed by delays in implementing them. Trump has also doubled tariffs on imports from China.
Though Powell said the economy “continues to be in a good place”, he added: “It remains to be seen how these developments might affect future spending and investment.”
