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New president placed every person in the federal government working on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) on leave
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The fallout from President Donald Trump’s actions against any diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts within the federal government continues.
The Air Force is removing training courses that included videos of its Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, the female World War II pilots who ferried warplanes for the military. This comes as agencies and departments scramble to comply with Trump’s crackdown on DEI efforts.
The Air Force said in a statement that it “will fully execute and implement all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by the President, ensuring that they are carried out with utmost professionalism, efficiency and in alignment with national security objectives.”
This comes as Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said in an interview broadcast Sunday that there will be mass deportation every day for Trump’s term and that the numbers will grow each week.
“I want to go back to those military flights going south,” ABC’s Martha Raddatz said. “We have never seen that before. Is that going to be a constant commitment from the US military every single day to take deportees out?”
Homan had a simple response: “Yes.”
Comedian Bill Maher slammed Democrats for allowing President Donald Trump’s popularity to rise following his first week in office.
“Here’s how bad the Democrats f***** up: Trump is cool now,” Maher said on Real Time with Bill Maher. “He’s not just the most powerful guy in the world and just made himself like the richest, he’s actually kind of [cool] at 78!”
Maher pointed to rappers and athletes sharing their liking of the new president. Nelly, Rick Ross, and Snoop Dogg all performed at inaugural events, in addition to the Village People.
“I mean, rappers like him, the athletes are doing…” Maher added as he gestured Trump’s well-known rally dance.
Read more:
‘I mean, the Village People are gay for Trump now!’ Maher says
President Donald Trump has threatened Colombia with “decisive retaliatory measures” after two “repatriation flights” were not allowed to land in the country, the commander-in-chief wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.
“I was just informed that two repatriation flights from the United States, with a large number of Illegal Criminals, were not allowed to land in Colombia,” Trump wrote on the social media platform. “This order was given by Colombia’s Socialist President Gustavo Petro, who is already very unpopular amongst his people.”
He added: “Petro’s denial of these flights has jeopardized the National Security and Public Safety of the United States, so I have directed my Administration to immediately take … urgent and decisive retaliatory measures.”
Trump went on to say that the U.S. government would impose 25 percent tariffs on Colombia on “all goods” going to the U.S. In a week, those tariffs would be raised to 50 percent, the president claimed.
Read more:
President Donald Trump has threatened Colombia with “decisive retaliatory measures” after two “repatriation flights” were not allowed to land in the country, the commander-in-chief wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.
Batool’s 9-year-old sister no longer draws pictures of a united family.
That’s because her older sisters are in the U.S. while she remains in Afghanistan, hiding with her parents and two brothers.
It’s been nearly a decade since the family has been together.
Batool, who lives in the U.S., and her little sister thousands of miles away are just some of the several thousand people impacted by President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending the admission of refugees into the U.S.
On Monday, Trump signed the order titled “Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program,” effectively shutting down refugee resettlement immediately.
Read more:
’Hearing news like this makes it heartbreaking for a family that has been waiting this long’
North America’s tallest peak is a focal point of Jeff King’s life.
The four-time winner of the 1,000-mile (1,609-kilometer) Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race operates his kennel and mushing tourism business just 8 miles (12.87 kilometers) from Denali National Park and Preserve’s entrance, and the 20,310-foot (6,190-meter) mountain looms large as he trains his dogs on nearby trails.
King and many others who live in the mountain’s shadow say most Alaskans will never stop calling the peak Denali, its Alaska Native name, despite President Donald Trump’s executive order that the name revert to Mount McKinley — an identifier inspired by President William McKinley, who was from Ohio and never set foot in Alaska.
Read more:
President Donald Trump has changed the name of Alaska’s Denali back to Mount McKinley
Elon Musk made a surprise appearance during an Alternative for Germany election campaign event, rallying the party’s far-right supporters at the end of a week when he has been embroiled in controversy.
The world’s richest person tuned in live via video link to a hall of 4,500 people in Halle in eastern Germany on Saturday, speaking publicly in support of the far-right party for the second time in as many weeks.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO urged Germans to move “past guilt” in a week when he caused uproar after he made a gesture that drew online comparisons to a Nazi salute during US president Donald Trump’s inauguration festivities. Mr Musk has strongly denied that he did so.
Read more:
Tesla and SpaceX CEO rallies party’s far-right supporters at end of week where he has been embroiled in controversy
As Donald Trump took the oath of office on 20 January to become the 47th president of the United States, watching from the second row where politicians and long-serving government officials once sat was a collection of tech billionaires instead.
Elon Musk looked like he’d purchased his seat with the same casual largesse he applies to buying social media platforms. Sundar Pichai of Google appeared calculated, a corporate chess piece positioning himself for the next move. Jeff Bezos was busy smizing, barely concealing his ambition to secure government contracts for his space company, Blue Origin.
And then there was Mark Zuckerberg – nerdy, harmless ol’ Zuck, like a graduate student who’d wandered into the wrong room, but whose embracing of Trump seems, somehow, the most egregious. Perhaps we thought better of him?
Read more:
In the court of ‘king’ Trump, a new ‘broligarchy’ of tech titans has emerged, posing dangers to ordinary citizens who will bear the brunt of their unchecked mega-wealth and influence on daily life, says Alex Hannaford
Saturday Night Live has taken a swift aim at Elon Musk, following the Tesla CEO’s controversial salute towards Donald Trump on inauguration day that many have deemed fascist.
Musk, 53, was heavily criticised, including pushback from his own family, after he touched his chest and raised his right arm towards the sky as a gesture of thanks to Trump. He then repeated the salute just seconds later.
During the 26 January episode of SNL, Weekend Update host Michael Che mocked Musk for the salute, once again drawing comparisons to the Nazis and Musk’s own Tesla brand.
Read more:
The billionaire was accused of making a fascist salute during an inauguration celebration for Donald Trump
Trump “border czar” Tom Homan said there will be mass deportations every day during Trump’s term and that the numbers will grow each week.
The face of Trump’s deportation efforts was on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, where he detailed the administration’s efforts.
“I want to go back to those military flights going south,” ABC’s Martha Raddatz said. “We have never seen that before. Is that going to be a constant commitment from the U.S. military every single day to take deportees out?”
Homan had a simple response: “Yes.”
Read more:
‘We’re going to try to be efficient, but with more money we have, the more we can accomplish,’ Tom Homan says
The Air Force has removed training courses with videos of its storied Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs — the female World War II pilots who were vital in ferrying warplanes for the military — to comply with the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The videos were shown to Air Force troops as part of DEI courses they took during basic military training.
In a statement, the Air Force confirmed the courses with those videos had been removed and said it “will fully execute and implement all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by the President, ensuring that they are carried out with utmost professionalism, efficiency and in alignment with national security objectives.”
The problem may not be with the historical videos themselves, but that they were used in Air Force basic military training DEI coursework. However, the lack of clearer guidance has sent the Air Force and other agencies scrambling to take the broadest approach to what content is removed to make sure they are in compliance.
The Tuskegee Airmen, known as the “Red Tails” were the nation’s first Black military pilots who served in a segregated WWII unit and their all-Black 332nd Fighter Group had one of the lowest loss records of all the bomber escorts in the war.
They flew P-47 Thunderbolt, P-51 Mustang and other fighter aircraft to escort American bombers on dangerous missions over Germany. Before the fighter escorts began accompanying the slow and heavy U.S. bombers, losses were catastrophic due to getting dive-bombed and strafed by German aircraft.
In a statement late Saturday, Tuskegee Airmen Inc. the nonprofit foundation created to preserve the legacy of those pilots, said it was “strongly opposed” to the removal of the videos to comply with Trump’s order.
The stories of the Tuskegee Airmen and the WASPs “are an essential part of American history and carried significant weight in the World War II veteran community. We believe the content of these courses does not promote one category of service member or citizen over another. They are simply a part of American military history that all service members should be made aware of,” the group said.
Some Republicans are concerned about President Donald Trump’s late-night firing Friday of more than a dozen inspectors general without giving the proper notification to Congress.
The new Trump administration fired about 17 inspectors general on Friday from a number of departments and agencies, including State, Defense and Transportation. The inspectors general are there to work against fraud, corruption and abuses of power.
Congressional Democrats were quick to slam the firings, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying that the action came in the “dark of night” and that it was a “chilling” indication of what the next four years would look like.
Read more:
‘The summary dismissal of everybody, I think, has raised concerns,’ Alaska Republican senator says
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