Here's the latest:
Trump orders review of gun regulations
Trump has signed an executive order calling for a broad review of all of President Joe Biden’s executive actions on guns, along with other federal government rules, plans, reports and lawsuits, to “assess any ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights” of Americans.
The order calls for Attorney General Pam Bondi to conduct the review within 30 days and come up with an action plan for protecting the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment.
Protests against Trump’s immigration crackdown continue in Los Angeles for 6th straight day
Protests and walkouts in Southern California against President Trump's immigration crackdown, led mainly by high school students, continued for the sixth day since they began on Sunday.
Students from high schools in East LA marched downtown on Friday morning, waving Mexican, Guatemalan, and El Salvadorean flags while passing cars that honked in support. Roughly 1,000 students were peacefully gathered in front of City Hall.
The student walkouts began Monday and have involved high schools all over the greater Los Angeles area. They carried signs that read, “We fight for our parents who fought for our futures.”
Thousands of people protesting mass deportations planned by Trump marched in Southern California on Sunday, including in downtown Los Angeles, where demonstrators blocked a major freeway for several hours.
Judge temporarily blocks Trump administration from placing 2,200 USAID workers on paid leave
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from placing 2,200 employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development on paid leave.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, sided with two federal employee associations in agreeing to a pause in plans to put the employees on paid leave as of midnight Friday.
The workers associations argue that Trump lacks the authority to shut down an agency enshrined in congressional legislation.
▶ Read more about the ruling
State Department lays out plans for $7 billion-plus arms sale to Israel
The State Department has formally told Congress that it plans to sell more than $7 billion in weapons to Israel, including thousands of bombs and missiles, just two days after Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.
The massive arms sale comes as a fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas holds, even as Trump continues to tout his widely criticized proposal to move all Palestinians from Gaza and redevelop it as an international travel destination.
Musk says he will bring back DOGE staffer who resigned after report of racist posts
Musk, in a post on his social media network X, said he would bring back a staff member at the Department of Government Efficiency who resigned a day earlier after he was linked to social media posts that espoused racism.
His post came after Vice President JD Vance earlier in the day called for Marko Elez to be rehired, a view that Trump later endorsed.
Elez resigned Thursday after The Wall Street Journal linked the 25-year-old DOGE staffer to a deleted social media account on X that posted last year, "I was racist before it was cool" and "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity," among other posts.
Trump says proposed Alaska pipeline will soon export natural gas to Japan
Trump says Japan will soon begin importing liquefied natural gas from Alaska, but a proposed $44 billion gas pipeline in the state is not yet completed and no contracts have been signed.
Trump said at a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba that, “We’re talking about a joint venture of some type, between Japan and us, having to do with Alaska oil and gas. And that’s very exciting.″
The Biden administration “wouldn’t sell them LNG,” Trump said, referring to a pause on new LNG export terminals imposed by Biden last year. Trump lifted the pause on his first day in office. “Japan wanted to buy LNG and Biden wouldn’t sell it,″ Trump said.
Ishiba said importing more LNG from the U.S. “is something that is really wonderful for us.″ Japan also wants to import bioethanol and other products “at a stable price, a reasonable price, from the United States,″ he said.
Employees groups ask federal judge to pause the dismantling of USAID
Lawyers for two government-employees groups are asking a federal judge in a hearing Friday to force a temporary pause on the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, is holding the hearing on a lawsuit filed Thursday.
Employees’ attorney Karla Gilbride says Trump has no legal authority to keep dismantling the agency without congressional authority.
“This is a full-scale gutting of virtually all the personnel of an entire agency,” Gilbride said.
Department of Justice attorney Brett Shumate, arguing for the government, says the administration has all the legal authority it needs.
“The government does this across the board every day,” Shumate said. “That’s what’s happening here. It’s just a large number.”
Alaska Legislature asks Trump to retain Denali’s name and not change it to Mount McKinley
The Alaska Legislature passed a resolution Friday urging Trump to reverse course and retain the name of North America's tallest peak as Denali rather than change it to Mount McKinley.
Trump, on his first day in office, signed an executive order calling for the name to revert to Mount McKinley, an identifier inspired by President William McKinley, who was from Ohio and never set foot in Alaska.
He said he planned to “restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs. President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent.”
▶ Read more about the Alaska resolution
Trump’s South Africa order follows complaints by Musk
The order also references South Africa’s role in bringing accusations that Israel sponsored genocide to the International Court of Justice.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a law last month allowing expropriations of certain land that isn't being used, or would be in the public interest if redistributed. The Expropriation Act aims to address some of the wrongs of South Africa's racist apartheid era, when Black people had their land taken away and were forced to live in areas designated for non-whites.
Elon Musk, who grew up in South Africa and now runs Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency, has called this law a threat to South Africa's minority white community in recent social media posts.
Trump freezes aid to South Africa, alleging discrimination against the white minority
“The government of South Africa blatantly discriminates against ethnic minority Afrikaners,” the White Houses said in a summary of the executive order Trump signed Friday.
Trump also will move to resettle white South African farmers and their families as refugees, the White House said.
“As long as South Africa continues to support bad actors on the world stage and allows violent attacks on innocent disfavored minority farmers, the United States will stop aid and assistance to the country,” the summary said.
More US troops deploying to the southern border
The Pentagon will deploy roughly 1,500 more active duty soldiers to the southern border to support Trump's expanding crackdown on immigration, a U.S. official said Friday.
That would eventually bring the total to about 3,600 active duty troops at the border, where they're expected to put up concertina wire barriers and provide transportation, intelligence and other support to the Border Patrol.
The order has been approved, the official said, to send a logistics brigade from the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Liberty in North Carolina. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the deployment hasn't yet been publicly announced.
The Pentagon has been scrambling to put in motion Trump's executive orders. The first 1,600 active duty troops already deployed to the border, and nearly 500 more from the 10th Mountain Division will move in the days ahead.
Some of the 500 Marines told to go to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have already arrived there to prepare for an influx of migrants.
▶Read more about military deployments supporting immigration enforcement
— Lolita C. Baldor
Latino evangelicals who voted for Trump now fear going to church
The National Association of Evangelicals, representing 40 denominations that serve millions of parishioners, says attendance has dropped since Trump’s executive order empowering officers to enter churches to enforce immigration laws.
Bishop Ebli De La Rosa, who oversees Church of God of Prophecy congregations in nine southeastern states, said the order has imperiled 32 of the Latino evangelical denomination’s 70 pastors who are here without legal status and serve vulnerable communities.
He’s told each congregation to prepare three laypeople to take over should their pastor be deported, to livestream every service, and to “keep recording even if something happens.”
Agustin Quiles, a spokesperson for the Florida Fellowship of Hispanic Councils and Evangelical Institutions, said many community members who voted for Trump now feel devastated and abandoned. “The messaging appears to be that anyone who is undocumented is a criminal,” he said.
Japan’s prime minister says Trump isn’t as frightening in person as on TV
Shigeru Ishiba said he was excited to meet a television celebrity like Trump.
“On television, he is frightening,” but he was actually “very sincere,” the prime minister said.
Ishiba also said he wasn’t using their White House meeting to “suck up” to the U.S. president.
Ishiba was asked during their joint news conference about Japan potentially imposing tariffs on U.S. goods, since Trump didn’t rule out doing similar to Japan.
The prime minister, grinning, said his official answer was no.
Trump laughed and said he liked that answer.
▶ Read more on the Trump-Ishiba meeting
Trump said the US will have ‘relations’ with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
“I got along with him very well,” Trump said, calling the time he spent with Kim during his first term an “asset” that stopped a war.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, for his part, said Trump’s past meetings with Kim in Singapore and Vietnam were a positive.
Trump says he’ll fire FBI agents ‘surgically’
Trump said he wants to see some FBI agents fired as the Justice Department reviews how the agency handled investigations into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“I’ll fire some of them, because some of them were corrupt,” Trump said. “It will be done quickly, and very surgically.”
Trump’s plans have raised fears about the politicization of federal law enforcement and retaliation against people who investigated his supporters.
▶ Read more about the Justice Department's review of FBI agents
Trump: ‘We have to take some of these things apart’
Trump defended Elon Musk’s work at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which includes accessing sensitive Treasury payment systems.
“We have to take some of these things apart to find the corruption,” Trump said.
Musk has stirred concerns by dispersing staff members throughout Washington to review internal databases, some of which include private financial information on Americans.
Trump praises Japan as a friend of the US
Trump opened his news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday by presenting a picture of the two of them, calling Japan a “great country” and stressing that the United States would continue to be an ally on security.
The U.S. president took a decidedly gracious turn in his prepared remarks, after having antagonized other allies such as Canada, Mexico and the European Union with threats of tariffs and claims that the rest of the world is ripping off America.
Trump says Nippon Steel dropping US Steel bid to make investment instead
President Donald Trump on Friday suggested that Nippon Steel would no longer buy US Steel as planned, and would instead invest in the company.
The U.S. president mistakenly referred to Nippon Steel as “Nissan,” the Japanese automaker.
But it’s Nippon Steel’s bid that both Trump and President Joe Biden vowed to block.
Nippon Steel “is going to be doing something very exciting about US Steel,” Trump said with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba by his side. “They’ll be looking at an investment rather than a purchase.”
The details remain unclear. Trump said he would meet with the head of Nippon Steel next week “to mediate and arbitrate.”
Trump indicates he’ll unveil reciprocal tariffs on other countries next week
“I’ll be announcing that next week, reciprocal trade, so that we’re treated evenly with other countries,” Trump told reporters during an Oval Office meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
The president pledged during his campaign to match tariffs with trading partners who impose tariffs on American exports. He didn't indicate Friday which countries might be next.
Trump also said he wants to work with Japan on reducing the U.S. trade deficit, which stands at about $68 billion.
A Tennessee Republican raised the idea at Duffy’s confirmation
Duffy’s directive also would prohibit governments that get transportation funds from imposing vaccine and mask mandates, and require their cooperation with immigration enforcement efforts.
With hundreds of billions of dollars in transportation money still unspent from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, such changes could be a boon for projects in Republican-majority states, where birthrates, correlating with lower education rates, tend to be higher.
According to CDC numbers on fertility, the 14 states with the highest rates backed Trump in the November election while the bottom 11 plus the District of Columbia supported Democrat Kamala Harris.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn had questioned Duffy about tying transportation funding to population growth.
“People are leaving some of these blue states and coming to places like Tennessee,” she said. “And this means that we need to look at where those federal highway dollars are spent.”
Transportation secretary’s directive tying grants to birth rates favors red states
Sean Duffy circulated a memo shortly after he was confirmed instructing his department to prioritize families by, among other things, giving preference to funding places with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.
Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray called the directive “disturbingly dystopian.”
“Bizarre and a little creepy,” said Kevin DeGood, senior director of infrastructure and housing policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. “States and regions with aging populations tend, on average, to have lower birth rates ... Are they somehow not deserving of transportation investment?”
The Department of Transportation has not responded to questions about the memo.
▶ Read more about Duffy's directive
The Justice Department agrees not to publicly identify FBI agents
The agents said exposure could threaten their lives and families as the Trump administration examines the investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.
After agents sued to block the exposure, the department promised in a court filing Friday not to release the list either "directly or indirectly" before the judge rules.
Many within the FBI fear the list will be used to justify mass firings. Thousands of FBI employees who worked on Jan. 6 cases were asked to complete in-depth questionnaires so Trump administration officials could determine if they should be disciplined.
“The risk to these agents is horrendous,” their attorney Norman Eisen said, noting that other federal employees are being harassed as their identities spread on social media.
Government lawyers responded that the list’s purpose is to conduct an internal review, “not expose dedicated special agents to public insult or ridicule.”
▶ Read more about the Justice Department probe of FBI agents
Democrats want Treasury to investigate DOGE’s access to federal payment systems
Democratic lawmakers are seeking a Treasury Department investigation of the access that Elon Musk’s team was given to the government’s payment system.
They're citing “threats to the economy and national security, and the potential violation of laws protecting Americans’ privacy and tax data.”
The lawmakers, led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden, sent letters Friday to Treasury’s deputy inspector general and the acting inspector general for tax administration, as well as to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The letters laid out their concerns over a lack of transparency and public accountability about the access being granted to the federal government’s financial plumbing.
▶ Read more about the Democrats' request for an investigation
Federal judge schedules hearing on USAID lawsuit
A federal judge scheduled a hearing Friday afternoon as employees sue to block the agency’s shutdown.
Outside its Washington headquarters, meanwhile, crews used duct tape to cover the USAID name on signs.
The American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees asked the court in Washington to compel the reopening of USAID’s buildings, return its staffers to work and restore funding.
Trump administration officials “failed to acknowledge the catastrophic consequences of their actions, both as they pertain to American workers, the lives of millions around the world, and to US national interests,” the lawsuit says.
▶ Read more about the fight over USAID
Federal agencies ordered to provide lists of ‘poor performing’ employees
The Trump administration has ordered all federal departments and agencies to provide lists of every employee who has received less than a “fully successful” performance rating in the past three years.
The memo sent Thursday from the Office of Personnel Management comes as the Trump administration awaits a court ruling on its deferred resignation offers.
The memo, seen by The Associated Press, gives agencies a March 7 deadline. It also directs agencies to note whether any worker has been on a performance plan, and requires agencies to report any obstacles to their “ability to swiftly terminate poor performing employees who cannot or will not improve.”
Trump floats meetings with Zelenskyy and Putin
President Trump said Friday he will "probably" meet with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy next week and may also speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump was asked whether he’d have JD Vance meet with Zelenskyy next week while the vice president travels to France and Germany.
“I will probably be meeting with President Zelenskyy next week and I’ll probably be talking with President Putin,” Trump replied. “I’d like to see that war end.”
Asked where he’d meet with Zelenskyy, Trump said it “could be Washington — well I’m not going there.”
He didn’t offer details on plans to speak with Putin.
Hungary’s PM, praising ‘Trump tornado,’ says democracy and rights groups will be swept away
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced legal action Friday to eliminate non-governmental organizations and media outlets that received U.S. funds. Any recipients of USAID funding should be identified and sanctioned, he said.
The Trump ally praised the agency’s shutdown, saying “now is the moment when these international networks have to be taken down, they have to be swept away.”
Orbán's Sovereignty Protection Office has cracked down on NGOs and independent media. Critics say it seeks to silence any critics, much like Russia's "foreign agent" law does. Violators face prison terms of up to three years.
The European Union has withheld billions in funding to Hungary over its violations of rule-of-law and democracy standards, abuse of minorities and systemic public corruption and political patronage.
▶ Read more on Orban's praise for the USAID shutdown
Trump calls his Gaza proposal a ‘real estate transaction’
Trump says his suggestions that Gaza’s residents could be resettled, and the area redeveloped for tourism potential, has “been very well received” around the globe.
The idea has actually been roundly criticized. But Trump insisted Friday that it was a “real estate transaction,” and that the U.S. is in “no rush to do anything.”
The president has suggested that resettlement of Gaza’s residents could be permanent — something that even top members of his own administration have contradicted him on.
But Trump said at the White House Friday that “We don’t want to see everybody move back and then move out in 10 years” because of continued unrest.
Vance tasked for TikTok deal
Trump has tasked Vice President JD Vance with overseeing the potential sale of TikTok, according to a person familiar the decision who wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
TikTok’s China-based parent-company is seeking to find an approved buyer to avoid being banned in the U.S.
— Michelle Price
Senate Budget Committee would cut billions, spend more on military and border
“Help is on the way” for voters favoring border security and a stronger defense, said Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Republican chairman.
The committee’s blueprint envisions more than $340 billion in new spending over four years to wall off the Mexican border, increase the number of Border Patrol agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, grow the U.S. Navy and build an integrated air and defense missile system.
A committee press release said cuts elsewhere in federal spending would offset the $85.5 billion annual cost.
House Republicans also are working overtime on a big budget package.
Lebanon’s presidency ‘not concerned’ after US envoy sets ‘red lines’ on Hezbollah
Trump's new special envoy for Middle East peace expressed hope Friday that Lebanese authorities are committed to ensuring the Hezbollah militant group isn't a part of the new government in any form.
Morgan Ortagus replaced Amos Hochstein, who helped broker the ceasefire that ended Israel's 14-month war with Hezbollah.
"We have set clear red lines from the United States that (Hezbollah) won't be able to terrorize the Lebanese people and that includes by being a part of the government," she told a news conference after meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.
In response, Lebanon’s presidency said on X that some of what Ortagus said “expresses her point of view, and the Presidency is not concerned with it.”
▶ Read more about the US envoy in Lebanon
Unions ask judge to protect Labor Department info from Musk
A federal judge will consider Friday whether to block Elon Musk 's team from accessing systems at the Labor Department, which has investigated SpaceX and Tesla.
Three unions asked Judge John Bates, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, to keep DOGE workers out of systems that also contain sensitive information about workers who've filed complaints and about Musk’s corporate rivals.
“DOGE is violating multiple laws, from constitutional limits on executive power, to laws protecting civil servants from arbitrary threats and adverse action, to crucial protections for government data collected and stored on hundreds of millions of Americans,” wrote labor union lawyers represented by the advocacy group Democracy Forward.
The Justice Department said the unions are just speculating and haven’t shown that the three DOGE employees detailed to cut the Department’s costs will have such access.
▶ Read more on the Labor Department case
Hegseth’s Pentagon feed cut off before troops could hear him questioned
Defense Secretary Hegseth said at the Pentagon that “deterrence” begins with the southern border. Most troops missed any questions and answers that followed.
Hegseth’s opening remarks were broadcast over the Pentagon’s television and internet channels, but it then cut off.
So the longer Q&A portion he did was only seen by those in the room, and wasn't available for the 2.1 million troops and hundreds of thousands of civilians who serve in other states and nations around the world.
Musk’s team at the Education Department gains access to student loan database
Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has gained access to an Education Department database of personal information on millions of students and parents with federal student loans, according to two people with knowledge of the issue.
The people spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Democrats in Congress are raising concerns about DOGE’s access to student records. In a letter to the acting education secretary, a group of Democrats demanded details about DOGE’s work and vowed to fight any attempt to close the Education Department.
A federal lawsuit filed Friday seeks to block DOGE's access, saying it violates privacy rights of federal student loan borrowers.
▶ Read more about the lawsuit seeking to protect financial aid information
— Collin Binkley and Bianca Vázquez Toness
Trump’s most special employee will file a secret financial report
As a special government employee, Elon Musk will have to file a report on his financial assets — but it won’t be made public.
The plan was described by a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose personnel matters.
Musk is the world’s richest person with vast business interests, including Tesla, SpaceX and X. His financial report, if completed, would likely be among the most extensive ever filed.
The White House official said Musk also received a briefing on ethics rules earlier this week. Trump, who put Musk in charge of overhauling the federal government, has said the billionaire entrepreneur would steer clear of conflicts of interest.
— Chris Megerian
Defense secretary tells Pentagon workers he plans to disrupt the status quo
Pete Hegseth is telling his troops and workforce that he plans to take unconventional approaches and “be disruptive on purpose.”
Speaking to a crowd of military and civilian workers in a Pentagon conference center Friday, Hegseth said he's committed to rebuilding the defense industrial base, increasing deterrence and restoring the military’s laser focus on lethality and readiness while ridding it of diversity initiatives.
“President Trump asked me to not maintain the status quo,” he said. “We’re going to move fast. I’ll think outside the box, be disruptive on purpose, to create a sense of urgency that I want to make sure exists inside this department.”
US importers stockpile Prosecco, fearing Trump tariffs
Wine industry data shows American importers have been stockpiling the Italian bubbly as a hedge against possible tariffs.
U.S. imports of Italian sparkling wine — 90% of that Prosecco — skyrocketed by 41% after Trump’s election, far exceeding consumer demand as importers filled the pipeline for future sales.
Union of Italian Wines trade association president Lamberto Frescobaldi says this made sense given the likelihood that consumers will cut back on luxuries if tariffs make them too pricey.
Italian wines were not hit by tariffs during the first Trump presidency, and no tariffs have been announced to date against European partners. But Italy exports nearly one-quarter of its wine, worth 1.9 billion euros ($1.97 billion), exposing the sector to potential price shocks.
▶ Read more about the Prosecco pipeline
Immigrant advocacy groups want access to Gitmo
Their letter Friday demands “immediate access” to the people being held there, saying the U.S. naval station in Cuba should not be used as a “legal black hole.”
Two military flights have carried people who were in the U.S. illegally to the base so far.
The Trump administration has broadly described them as criminals and gang members but has not given specific information such as their names, whether they’ve been convicted or when they entered the country.
Inflation is looking like a problem for Trump
Americans are thinking inflation is going to get much worse now. It’s a problem for a Republican who won election on the specific promise of lowering prices.
The University of Michigan’s survey of consumers showed Friday that people expect inflation to be 4.3% for the year ahead, up a full percentage point from the prior month. The preliminary finding for February is the highest reading since November 2023, when public exhaustion with inflation was crushing President Joe Biden’s approval ratings.
Another possible warning sign for Trump: Broader consumer sentiment among Republicans slipped to 83.2 from 86 in January.
Trump has almost sparked a broad trade war with Canada and Mexico, threatened tariffs that economists say would increase inflation and placed a 10% tariff on imports from China.
White House press secretary blames unsettled economy on Biden
Karoline Leavitt said the jobs report shows “the necessity of President Trump’s pro-growth policies.”
Her statement Friday cited Trump’s declaration of an energy emergency, his pledges to cut regulations and his plan to “deliver the largest tax cut in history for hardworking Americans.”
“President Trump is delivering on his promise to restore our broken economy, revive small business optimism, create jobs, and ignite a new Golden Age for America,” she said.
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An item has been corrected to show Trump said “a real estate transaction,” not a simple transaction, or a transition.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Credit: AP