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Elon Musk called Thursday to “delete entire agencies” from the United States' federal government as part of his push under President Donald Trump to radically cut spending and restructure its priorities. Musk offered a wide-ranging survey via a videocall to the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, of what he described as the priorities of the Trump administration interspersed with multiple references to “thermonuclear warfare” and the possible dangers of artificial intelligence. “We really have here rule of the bureaucracy as opposed to rule of the people — democracy,” Musk said, wearing a black T-shirt that read: “Tech Support.” He also joked that he was the “White House’s tech support,” borrowing from his profile on the social platform X, which he owns. “I think we do need to delete entire agencies as opposed to leave a lot of them behind,” Musk said. “If we don’t remove the roots of the weed, then it’s easy for the weed to grow back.” While Musk has spoken to the summit in the past, his appearance Thursday comes as he has consolidated control over large swaths of the government with Trump ’s blessing since assuming leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency. That’s included sidelining career officials, gaining access to sensitive databases and inviting a constitutional clash over the limits of presidential authority. Trump wants Jordan and Egypt to take in Palestinians from Gaza. Here's why the idea is rejected Musk's new role imbued his comments with more weight beyond being the world’s wealthiest person through his investments in SpaceX and electric carmaker Tesla. His remarks also offered a more-isolationist view of American power in the Middle East, where the U.S. has fought wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. “A lot of attention has been on USAID for example,” Musk said, referring to Trump's dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. “There's like the National Endowment for Democracy. But I’m like, ‘Okay, well, how much democracy have they achieved lately?’” He added that the U.S. under Trump is “less interested in interfering with the affairs of other countries.” There are “times the United States has been kind of pushy in international affairs, which may resonate with some members of the audience,” Musk said, speaking to the crowd in the UAE, an autocratically ruled nation of seven sheikhdoms. He also noted the Trump administration's focus on eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion work, at one point linking it to AI. Apple changes Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America on maps “If hypothetically, AI is designed for DEI, you know, diversity at all costs, it could decide that there’s too many men in power and execute them,” Musk said. On AI, Musk said he believed X's newly updated AI chatbot, Grok 3, would be ready in about two weeks, calling it at one point “kind of scary.” He criticized Sam Altman's management of OpenAI, which Musk just led a $97.4 billion takeover bid for, describing it as akin to a nonprofit aimed at saving the Amazon rainforest becoming a "lumber company that chops down the trees.” Musk also announced plans for a “Dubai Loop” project in line with his work in the Boring Company — which is digging tunnels in Las Vegas to speed transit. However, he and the Emirati government official speaking with him offered no immediate details of the plan. “It’s going to be like a wormhole," Musk promised. "You just wormhole from one part of the city — boom — and you're out in another part of the city.”

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that President Donald Trump's calls for lower interest rates won't lead the central bank to change its rate decisions. “People can be confident that we’ll continue to keep our heads down, do our work, and make our decisions based on what’s happening in the economy,” Powell said, under questioning from members of the House Financial Services Committee. Powell spoke on the second day of his semiannual testimony to Congress. Earlier Wednesday, Trump said on social media that “Interest Rates should be lowered, something which would go hand in hand with upcoming Tariffs!!!” Yet Powell indicated during a press conference last month that the Fed, after cutting its key rate three times late last year, would hold off on further cuts as it waited for evidence that inflation is moving closer to its 2% target. Government watchdogs fired by Trump sue his administration And many Fed officials want to wait and see how Trump's policies, including the tariffs he has proposed and those he has put in place, affect the economy. Most economists worry that tariffs will at least temporarily push up inflation. On Wednesday, the government reported that inflation picked up last month, with consumer prices rising 3% in January from a year earlier, up from a 3 1/2 year low of 2.4% in September. The uptick makes it even less likely the Fed will cut its key rate anytime soon. The Fed's rate influences borrowing costs throughout the economy, including mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards. The Fed cut its key rate three times last year, to about 4.3% from 5.3%, but said in January that it would keep its rate unchanged until inflation declined further. Fed officials in December had forecast that they would implement two cuts this year, but some economists now think the Fed may be on hold all year.

Eight government watchdogs have sued over their mass firing that removed oversight of President Donald Trump's new administration. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Washington asks a judge to declare the firings unlawful and restore the inspectors general to their positions at the agencies. They said in the filing that they play a critical, nonpartisan role overseeing trillions of dollars in federal spending and the conduct of millions of federal employees. Congress was not given the legally required 30-day notices about the removals, something that even a top Republican decried. Trump has said he would put new “good people” in the jobs. The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the lawsuit. Apple changes Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America on maps The administration dismissed more than a dozen inspectors general in a Friday-night sweep on the fourth full day of Trump's second term. Though inspectors general are presidential appointees, some serve presidents of both parties. All are expected to be nonpartisan. At the time of the firings in late January, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said there may have been good reasons for the terminations but that Congress needed to know. The role of the modern-day inspector general dates to post-Watergate Washington, when Congress installed offices inside agencies as an independent check against mismanagement and abuse of power. Democrats and watchdog groups said the firings raise alarms that Trump is making it easier to take advantage of the government. Trump, said at the time the firings were “a very common thing to do.” The inspector generals’ lawsuit says that isn’t true.

Apple renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on its maps Tuesday after an order by President Donald Trump was made official by the U.S. Geographic Names Information System. The move follows Google, which announced last month that it would make the change once the official listing was updated and wrote in a blog post Sunday that it had begun rolling out the change. In Google's case, the company said people in the U.S. will see Gulf of America and people in Mexico will see Gulf of Mexico. Everyone else will see both names. After taking office, Trump ordered that the water bordered by the Southern United States, Mexico and Cuba be renamed. The U.S. Geographic Names Information System officially updated the name late Sunday. Microsoft has also made the name change on its Bing maps. The Associated Press, which provides news around the world to multiple audiences, will refer to the Gulf of Mexico by its original name, which it has carried for 400 years, while acknowledging the name Gulf of America.

The Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development is stiffing American businesses on hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid bills for work that has already been done, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday. The administration’s abrupt freeze on foreign aid also is forcing mass layoffs by U.S. suppliers and contractors for USAID, including 750 furloughs at one company, Washington-based Chemonics International, the lawsuit says. “One cannot overstate the impact of that unlawful course of conduct: on businesses large and small forced to shut down their programs and let employees go; on hungry children across the globe who will go without; on populations around the world facing deadly disease; and on our constitutional order,” the U.S. businesses and organizations said. An organization representing 170 small U.S. businesses, major suppliers, an American Jewish group aiding displaced people abroad, the American Bar Association and others joined the court challenge. It was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington against President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, acting USAID Deputy Administrator Peter Marocco, a Trump appointee who has been a central figure in hollowing out the agency, and Russell Vought, Trump’s head of the Office of Management and Budget. It is at least the third lawsuit over the administration's rapid unraveling of the U.S. aid and development agency and its programs worldwide. Trump and ally Elon Musk have targeted USAID in particular, saying its work is out of line with Trump’s agenda. 25% steel, aluminum tariffs to be announced Monday: Trump Marocco, Musk and Rubio have overseen an across-the-board freeze on foreign assistance and agency shutdown under a Jan. 20 executive order by Trump. A lawsuit brought by federal employees associations has temporarily blocked the administration from pulling thousands of USAID staffers off the job. The funding freeze and other measures have persisted, including the agency losing the lease on its Washington headquarters. The new administration terminated contracts without the required 30-day notice and without back payments for work that was already done, according to a U.S. official, a businessperson with a USAID contract and an email seen by The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal by the Trump administration. For Chemonics, one of the larger of the USAID partners, that has meant $103 million in unpaid invoices and almost $500 million in USAID-ordered medication, food and other goods now stalled in the supply chain or ports, the lawsuit says. For the health commodities alone, not delivering them “on time could potentially lead to as many as 566,000 deaths from HIV/AIDS, malaria, and unmet reproductive health needs, including 215,000 pediatric deaths,” the lawsuit says. The filing asserts that the administration has no authority to block programs and funding mandated by Congress without approval. Marocco defended the funding cutoff and push to put all but a fraction of USAID staff on leave in an affidavit filed late Monday in the lawsuit brought by the workers’ groups. “Insubordination” and “noncompliance” by USAID staffers made it necessary to stop funding and operations by the agency to allow the administration to carry out a program-by-program review to decide what U.S. aid programs could resume overseas, Marocco wrote.

President Donald Trump said Monday that a precarious ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas should be canceled if Hamas doesn’t release all the remaining hostages it is holding in Gaza by midday on Saturday — though he also said that such a decision would be up to Israel. Trump was responding to Hamas saying it will delay the further release of hostages in the Gaza Strip after accusing Israel of violating the three-week-old ceasefire. The U.S. president said that after the freeing of three visibly emaciated hostages on Saturday it was time for Israel to demand the release of all hostages by noon on Saturday, or restart the war. “If they’re not here, all hell is going to break out," Trump said. He added of the ceasefire, “Cancel it, and all bets are off.” Trump said the final decision would be up to Israel, saying, “I’m speaking for myself. Israel can override it.” But asked if the U.S. would join in a response to Hamas if hostages weren't freed, Trump added, "Hamas will find out what I mean.” Those comments came after Trump said in an interview with Fox News Channel that Palestinians in Gaza would not have a right to return under his plan for U.S. “ownership” of the war-torn territory — contradicting other officials in his administration who have sought to argue Trump was only calling for the temporary relocation of its population. Less than a week after he floated his plan for the U.S. to take control of Gaza and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” Trump, in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier airing Monday, said “No, they wouldn’t” when asked if Palestinians in Gaza would have a right to return to the territory. It comes as he has ramped up pressure on Arab states, especially U.S. allies Jordan and Egypt, to take in Palestinians from Gaza, who claim the territory as part of a future homeland. “We’ll build safe communities, a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is,” Trump said. “In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent.” Arab nations have sharply criticized the Trump proposal, and Trump is set to host Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House on Tuesday. In addition to concerns about jeopardizing the long-held goals of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Egypt and Jordan have privately raised security concerns about welcoming large numbers of additional refugees into their countries even temporarily. When asked how he'd convince Abdullah to take in Palestinians, Trump told reporters, “I do think he’ll take, and I think other countries will take also. They have good hearts.” But he also threatened to potentially withhold billions of dollars of U.S. assistance to Jordan and Egypt if they don't go along with his plan. “Yeah, maybe, sure why not," Trump said. "If they don’t, I would conceivably withhold aid, yes.” Trump’s comments risked jeopardizing the already tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza after 15 months of war, with the existing framework for negotiations calling for the massive humanitarian and reconstruction assistance for civilians in Gaza. After Trump’s initial comments last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Secretary of State Marco Rubio respectfully insisted that Trump only wanted Palestinians relocated from Gaza “temporarily” and for an “interim” period to allow for debris removal, the disposal of unexploded ordnance and reconstruction. Speaking of the condition of the remaining hostages, Trump told reporters Monday that he feared Hamas had released the hostages in the best condition and that many scheduled for release are gravely ill or already dead. “Based on what I saw over the past two days, they’re not going to be alive for long," he said. In a video message released Saturday after Hamas freed the latest hostages on Saturday, Rachel and Jon Goldberg-Polin, the parents of slain American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, called on Trump and his negotiating team to “think bigger and faster” and press for the release of all the remaining hostages this week. “All 76 hostages out this week,” they said. “End of war. Who benefits from dragging it out for so long? Not the people of this region. Let’s get it done right now.” Trump last week didn't rule out deploying U.S. troops to help secure Gaza but at the same time insisted no U.S. funds would go to pay for the reconstruction of the territory, raising fundamental questions about the nature of his plan. Egypt on Monday reiterated its rejection to the transfer of Palestinians from their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, warning that such proposals threaten “the foundations of people” in the Middle East. In a statement, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem its capital is the base for “comprehensive and just peace” in the region. The statement said Egypt rejects any violations to the Palestinians’ “right of self-determination … and independence,” and “upholds the right of return for Palestinian refugees who were forced to leave their homeland,” in a reference to hundreds of thousands who were forced to flee their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war. A senior Hamas official blasted Trump’s latest remarks about the U.S. ownership of Gaza as “absurd.” Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas' politico bureau, said these comments “reflect a deep ignorance of Palestine and the region.” In comments released by Hamas early Monday, he said Trump’s approach toward the Palestinian cause will fail. “Dealing with the Palestinian cause with the mentality of a real estate dealer is a recipe for failure,” he said. “Our Palestinian people will thwart all transfer and deportation plans.”

Major refugee aid groups sued the Trump administration on Monday over the president's executive order suspending the federal refugee resettlement program and funding for resettlement agencies. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle asks the court to declare Trump’s executive order illegal, stop the order’s implementation and restore refugee-related funding. “President Trump cannot override the will of Congress with the stroke of a pen,” Melissa Keaney, an attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said in a news release. “The United States has a moral and legal obligation to protect refugees, and the longer this illegal suspension continues, the more dire the consequences will be.” President Donald Trump’s recent order said the refugee program — a form of legal migration to the U.S. — would be suspended because cities and communities had been taxed by “record levels of migration” and didn’t have the ability to “absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees.” The Trump administration didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed by the International Refugee Assistance Project on behalf of Church World Service, the Jewish refugee resettlement agency HIAS, Lutheran Community Services Northwest and individuals including refugees. Ukrainian and Western leaders laud US aid package while the Kremlin warns of 'further ruin' The organizations say their ability to provide critical services to refugees in the U.S. and abroad has been severely inhibited by Trump's order. It already has impacted refugees who had been approved to come to the U.S. by having their travel canceled on short notice and kept families hoping to reunite apart, the lawsuit says. It argues that the refugee suspension is unlawful and violates Congress’ authority to make immigration laws. The federal refugee program has been in place for decades and helps people who have escaped war, natural disaster or persecution. Despite longstanding support for accepting refugees, the program has become politicized in recent years. Refugees undergo an extensive vetting process that can take years. They are usually referred to the U.S. State Department by the United Nations. Ukrainian and Western leaders laud US aid package while the Kremlin warns of 'further ruin' While the resettlement program has historically enjoyed bipartisan support, the first Trump administration also temporarily halted it and then dramatically lowered the number of refugees who could enter the U.S. each year. Religious organizations do the majority of the refugee resettlement work in the United States. Seven of the 10 federally funded national agencies that resettle refugees are faith-based. The lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to Trump immigration policies, including his order to end automatic citizenship for children born to people in the country illegally, and his order to shut down asylum access at the southern border.  

President Donald Trump said he'll announce Monday that the United States will impose 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports, including from Canada and Mexico, as well as other import duties later in the week. Meanwhile, Trump said he's serious about wanting Canada to become the 51st state in an interview that aired Sunday during the Super Bowl preshow. “Yeah it is,” Trump told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier when asked whether his talk of annexing Canada is “a real thing” — as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently warned.

U.S. employers added just 143,000 jobs last month, but the unemployment rate fell to 4% to start 2025. The first monthly jobs report of Donald Trump’s second presidency suggested he's inherited a solid but unspectacular U.S. labor market. January job creation was down from the 261,000 added in November, and the 307,000 created in December. Economists had expected about 170,000 new jobs in January. Most Americans still enjoy unusual job security. But for those looking for work, the job hunt has been getting harder as the labor market cools from the red-hot hiring days of 2021-2023. Average hourly wages rose by 0.5% from December and 4.1% from January 2024, coming in a bit hotter than forecasters had expected – news that might be disappointing to the inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve. Still, some of the inflationary pressure from wage gains is being offset by healthy U.S. productivity growth, which allows companies to pay more and earn fatter profits without raising prices. “Employers are really maintaining their workforce, but they are not hiring significantly, nor are they laying off,’’ said Gregory Daco, chief economist at the tax and consulting firm EY Parthenon. Daco expects average job growth to slow to between 100,000 and 150,000 a month this year (down slightly from the 2024 average of 166,000 new jobs a month). “Any hiring decision is going to be judicious,’’ he said, “because the cost of talent is still elevated.’’ The Labor Department also revised payrolls for November and December up by a combined 100,000. Citing the strong upward revisions from late 2024, Carl Weinberg and Mary Chen of High Frequency Economics wrote that "There is no cause for concern about the strength of the economy in today’s employment report.'' But they added that the decent hiring over the past three months suggested the Fed will be in no hurry to cut interest rates again after cutting three times in 2024. Healthcare companies added 44,000 jobs, down from a 2024 average of 57,000. Retailers hired 34,000 workers. And government at all levels added 32,000 jobs. Mining companies shed 8,000 jobs. The Labor Department said the Los Angeles wildfires and a cold snap in the Northeast and Midwest had “no discernable″ impact on the January jobs numbers. The future is cloudier. A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's plan to push out federal workers by offering them financial incentives, yet a federal hiring freeze that Trump imposed Jan. 20 is a “negative for employment growth,’’ Bradley Saunders, an economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a commentary last week. The freeze came after the Labor Department collected the January jobs numbers, so any impact would be revealed in upcoming employment data. Economists are also worried about Trump’s threat to wage a trade war against other countries. He’s already imposed a 10% tax on imports from China. Canada and Mexico – America’s two largest trading partners -- remain in his crosshairs though he gave them a 30-day reprieve from the 25% tariffs he was planning to sock them with on Tuesday, allowing time for negotiations. Trump says that America’s two neighbors and allies haven’t done enough to stem the flow of undocumented immigrants and fentanyl into the United States. Trump is also itching to slap tariffs on the European Union; pointing to America’s deficit in the trade of goods with the EU, which came to $236 billion last year, he says that Europe treats U.S. exporters unfairly. The tariffs, which are paid by U.S. importers who generally try to pass along the cost to customers, could rekindle inflation – which has fallen from the four-decade high it reached in mid-2022 but is still stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. If the tariffs push prices higher, the Fed may cancel or postpone the two interest-rate cuts it had forecast for this year. And that would be bad for economic growth and job creation. The job market has already lost momentum. American payrolls increased by 2 million last year, down from 2.6 million in 2023, 4.6 million in 2022 and a record 7.2 million in 2021 as the economy roared back from COVID-19 lockdowns. The Labor Department also reports that employers are posting fewer jobs. Monthly job openings have tumbled from a record 12.2 million in March 2022, to 7.6 million in December – still a decent number by historical standards. As the labor market cools, American workers are losing confidence in their ability to find better pay or working conditions by changing jobs. The number of people quitting has fallen from a record 4.5 million near the height of the hiring boom in April 2022, to December’s 3.2 million, which is below pre-pandemic levels. In regular annual revisions, the Labor Department reported Friday that job creation from April 2023 through March 2024 wasn’t as good as originally reported: 589,000 fewer jobs were created over those 12 months. Preliminary estimates, released in August, had suggested the downward revisions would be bigger — 818,000 jobs. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt used the jobs report revisions to say the economy during Joe Biden’s presidency “was far worse than anyone thought.” But Trump is inheriting a healthy unemployment rate and stable economy, just not one that would necessarily make him happy. Trump is banking on tax cuts and regulatory curbs bolstering the economy. But his freezes on federal funding could halt construction projects on infrastructure and manufacturing, while his tariffs could hurt the retail sector and his spending cuts could limit hiring in the health care and government sectors.  

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) in response to its investigations into Israel, a key U.S. ally. Neither the United States nor Israel recognizes or holds membership in the ICC, which recently issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes related to Israel’s military actions in Gaza following the October 2023 Hamas attack. The Israeli response has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians, including children. Trump’s order, signed on Thursday, accuses the ICC of engaging in “illegitimate and baseless actions” against the United States and Israel, criticizing the court for issuing what it calls “unfounded arrest warrants” for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The document asserts that the ICC has no jurisdiction over either country and warns that its actions set a “dangerous precedent.” The move coincided with Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, where he met with Trump at the White House on Tuesday and later held discussions with U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill. According to the order, the U.S. will impose “tangible and significant consequences” on those responsible for the ICC’s actions. These measures could include freezing assets, blocking property, and restricting entry into the United States for ICC officials, employees, and their relatives. Human rights advocates have strongly criticized the sanctions, warning that such measures could undermine global efforts to hold perpetrators of atrocities accountable. They argue that the move not only restricts access to justice for victims of human rights violations but also contradicts U.S. interests in other international conflict zones where the ICC is active. Trump blames 'obsolete' air traffic control for deadly crash “Victims of human rights abuses worldwide rely on the ICC when they have no other recourse,” said Charlie Hogle, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project. He added that Trump’s executive order makes it more difficult for them to seek justice and poses serious First Amendment concerns by penalizing those assisting the ICC in investigating war crimes. Sarah Yager, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, also criticized the decision, stating, “You can disagree with the court’s approach, but this is beyond acceptable.” The U.S. has historically maintained a complicated relationship with the ICC. While it helped negotiate the Rome Statute that established the court, the U.S. voted against its adoption in 1998. President Bill Clinton signed the statute in 2000 but did not seek Senate ratification. Under President George W. Bush, the U.S. withdrew its signature and pressured other countries to sign agreements preventing them from turning over Americans to the ICC. Trump had previously sanctioned former ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in 2020 for investigating war crimes in Afghanistan involving U.S. forces. President Joe Biden later lifted those sanctions, allowing limited cooperation with the court, particularly after ICC prosecutor Karim Khan charged Russian President Vladimir Putin with war crimes in Ukraine in 2023. UN chief rejects 'any form of ethnic cleansing' in Gaza Senator Lindsey Graham, a longtime ICC critic, had previously facilitated dialogue between Khan and Republican lawmakers. However, he now feels betrayed and has vowed to take action against the court and any country enforcing Netanyahu’s arrest warrant. “This is a rogue court, a kangaroo court,” Graham said, warning that the legal reasoning used against Israel could eventually target the U.S. Biden has also denounced the arrest warrants, and his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, has accused the ICC of antisemitic bias. Some European nations, including the Netherlands, have pushed back against potential U.S. sanctions, advocating for continued support of the court’s mission. Potential U.S. sanctions could severely impact the ICC’s ability to function, making it difficult for investigators to travel and compromising key evidence-handling technologies. The court recently suffered a cyberattack that disrupted access to critical files for weeks, adding to its operational challenges.