Tim Walz accuses Trump of withholding $259m in Medicaid funds ‘to punish blue states’ – as it happened

Trump administration is withholding $259m in Medicaid funding from Minnesota, Vance and Oz say

JD Vance, who has been tasked with leading a Trump administration effort to draw attention to claimed benefit fraud in states led by Democratic governors, said on Wednesday that the federal government will pause reimbursements to the state of Minnesota for certain Medicaid payments.

“We’re announcing today that we have decided to temporarily halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that are going to the state of Minnesota, in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the American people’s tax money,” the vice-president said at an event in the Eisenhower executive office building.

The providers have already been paid by the state of Minnesota for their services, Vance said, but federal funds that are supposed to reimburse the state will be withheld.

Investigations into benefits fraud in Minnesota were already under way before the Trump administration, and rightwing social media influencers who support it, began highlighting the issue, and falsely claiming that the state’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, who was the Democratic nominee for vice-president in 2024, was not responding to the scandal.

Vance then introduced Dr Mehmet Oz, now serving as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who said that $259m in funding for Medicaid programs that serve pregnant women, children and disabled seniors in Minnesota would be withheld.

This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:

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n
The FBI fired at least 10 people this week who worked on the special counsel’s investigation of Donald Trump for illegally taking classified documents after he lost the presidency and left office in 2021.

n
A federal judge in Boston ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s third-country removal policy, deporting immigrants to countries to which they have no ties, is unlawful.

n
Dr Jerome Adams, who served as the US surgeon general during Donald Trump’s first term, denounced the president’s nomination of Dr Casey Means, a wellness influencer without a medical license

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Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, said to the Trump administration’s decision to withhold $259m in federal Medicaid funds from his state “has nothing to do with fraud”, but is instead about Trump “weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states”.

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The FBI fired at least 10 people this week who worked on the special counsel’s investigation of Donald Trump for illegally taking classified documents after he lost the presidency and left office in 2021, multiple news outlets report.

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The firings became public after the FBI director, Kash Patel, told Reuters that the bureau had subpoenaed his phone records and those of Susie Wiles, Trump’s 2024 campaign manager who is now the White House chief of staff, over their involvement in the classified documents case.

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As the investigative reporter Carol Leonnig explained on MSNOW, Patel had claimed during the investigation into Trump’s illegal retention of classified documents that he had witnessed him declassify them at the end of his first term.

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Federal prosecutors reportedly identified Wiles as the Trump campaign aide he showed a classified map to in August or September of 2021.

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Patel’s claim that the documents were declassified by Trump before he took them at the end of his term in January 2021 was undermined by an audio recording of Trump telling a ghostwriter for his previous chief of staff, Mark Meadows, that he “could have declassified” a war plan he showed him while out of office, “but this is still a secret.”

n The FBI Agents Association condemned the firings in a statement to the Associated Press as unlawful and endangering national security.

n “These actions weaken the Bureau by stripping away critical expertise and destabilizing the workforce, undermining trust in leadership and jeopardizing the Bureau’s ability to meet its recruitment goals — ultimately putting the nation at greater risk,” the association said.

n Patel was subpoenaed by federal prosecutors in 2022 to testify before a grand jury in Washington in the Mar-a-Lago investigation, and appeared after being given immunity. Wiles was reportedly interviewed by prosecutors multiple times.

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“It is outrageous and deeply alarming that the previous FBI leadership secretly subpoenaed my own phone records – along with those of now White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles – using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight,” Patel told Reuters.

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A federal judge in Boston ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s third-country removal policy, deporting immigrants to countries to which they have no ties, is unlawful.

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US district judge Brian Murphy agreed to suspend his decision for 15 days, to give the government time to appeal his latest ruling in the case, which has previously been considered by the US supreme court.

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In his opinion, Murphy took note of the fact that the supreme court had ruled in the administration’s favor last year, pausing his previous decision and clearing the way for a flight carrying several migrants to complete its trip to war-torn South Sudan, a country to which none of them had ties.

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Murphy said migrants challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s policy have the right to “meaningful notice” and an opportunity to object before they are removed to a third country. The policy “extinguishes valid challenges to third-country removal by effecting removal before those challenges can be raised”, the judge concluded.

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In his 81-page ruling, the judge described a series of incidents where the government had “repeatedly violated, or attempted to violate” his previous order that detainees be given due process before being sent to third countries in “flagrant” and “willful” ways.

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“This case is about whether the Government may, without notice, deport a person to the wrong country, or a country where he is likely to be persecuted, or tortured, thereby depriving that person of the opportunity to seek protections to which he would be undisputedly entitled,” Murphy wrote at the start of his his ruling. “The Department of Homeland Security has adopted a policy whereby it may take people and drop them off in parts unknown—in so-called ‘third countries’—and, ‘as long as the Department doesn’t already know that there’s someone standing there waiting to shoot… that’s fine.’ It is not fine, nor is it legal.”

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Dr Jerome Adams, who served as the US surgeon general during Donald Trump’s first term, denounced the president’s nomination of Dr Casey Means, a wellness influencer without a medical license who did not complete her residency, in a statement posted on social media after her confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

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“As a former U.S. Surgeon General who held an active medical license and practiced medicine while in the role (at Walter Reed and aboard the USS Comfort) it is incomprehensible that the Senate is even considering a nominee for this role who lacks any active license and has never practiced unsupervised,” Adams wrote.

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The US justice department said on Wednesday it is “currently reviewing files” from the federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender who was friends with Donald Trump, in response to reporting that more than 50 pages of FBI notes and interviews with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse when she was a minor are missing from the public database of documents.

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The fact that documents on the woman’s accusation are referred to on the available records, but missing from the files made public was first reported by Roger Sollenberger, an investigative journalist, and then confirmed by NPR.

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“Should any document be found to have been improperly tagged in the review process and is responsive to the Act, the Department will of course publish it, consistent with the law,” the justice department said in a statement posted on its combative, openly partisan “rapid response” social media account.

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House Democrats on the oversight committee said on Tuesday that they could “confirm that the DoJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes”.

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“Under the oversight committee’s subpoena and the Epstein Files Transparency Act, these records must immediately be shared with Congress and the American public,” Robert Garcia, the California congressman who is the senior Democrat on the committee said. “Covering up direct evidence of a potential assault by the president of the United States is the most serious possible crime in this White House cover-up.”

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Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, responded to the Trump administration’s decision to withhold $259m in federal Medicaid funds from his state by accusing the Republican administration of using fraud accusations as a cover for a politically motivated attack on the state’s Democratic leadership.

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Walz, who was his party’s nominee for vice-president in 2024, replied on social media to the announcement that federal funds would be withheld from his state by writing:

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n

This has nothing to do with fraud. The agents Trump allegedly sent to investigate fraud are shooting protesters and arresting children. His DOJ is gutting the US Attorney’s Office and crippling their ability to prosecute fraud. And every week Trump pardons another fraudster.

n

This is a campaign of retribution. Trump is weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota. These cuts will be devastating for veterans, families with young kids, folks with disabilities, and working people across our state.

n

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Walz connected the recent immigration crackdown, in which two Minnesota protesters were shot and killed by federal agents, to an earlier raft of fraud allegations from the Trump administration which focused on members of the state’s Somali American community.

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After the announcement that the Trump administration is withholding $259m in federal Medicaid funding from the state of Minnesota, a reporter asked JD Vance, the vice-president, what he would say to the people of the state, who are already dealing with a violent federal immigration enforcement surge.

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“Our message to the people of Minnesota is that we love them,” Vance replied. “They’re our fellow citizens, we’re trying to do right by them and … the main reason that we’re doing this is that we want to make sure that the people of Minnesota have access to the services that they’re entitled to.”

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Vance went on to argue that benefit fraud keeps the needy from receiving the help they need, although he did not explain how depriving the state government of federal reimbursement for services already received by poor children, pregnant mothers and disabled senior citizens would help to “stop the fraud”.

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Vance also connected the withheld Medicare funding to immigration enforcement, saying “we haven’t gotten the cooperation” of state and local elected leaders in Minnesota.

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The Republican vice-president, who likely hopes to run for president in two years, also made it clear that he hopes residents of the state will blame the state’s Democratic leaders for the withheld funding.

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“What I would say to the people of Minnesota is: we want to do right by you; we think you deserve better public services; we think you deserve to have the benefits that you’re actually entitled to,” Vance said. “And we encourage everybody in Minnesota, whatever their political affiliation to work on the state government a little bit, because if we had some better cooperation we could have commonsense immigration enforcement, we could also have less money going to fraudsters.”

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The vice-president did not mention that the administration’s deadly immigration crackdown had prompted a wave of resignations from the federal prosecutors in Minnesota who had led the fraud investigations.

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Dozens of people were charged with fraud in 2022, during the Biden administration, by a team of federal prosecutors in Minnesota led by Joseph Thompson and Harry Jacobs.

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Thompson and Jacobs were among the federal prosecutors who resigned in January after senior justice department officials pressed them to open a criminal investigation into the actions of the widow of Renee Good, the Minneapolis woman shot and killed by an ICE officer.

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Dr Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, just announced that Trump administration is imposing a six-month national moratorium on federal funding for people who need durable medical equipment, including prosthesis and orthotics.

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According to Oz, who spoke alongside the vice-president, JD Vance, new enrollments for federal Medicare funds for such devices would be halted due to concerns about benefit fraud.

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Oz then tried to illustrate what he called the scope of the potential fraud with an awkward bit of dialogue with the vice-president.

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Oz first turned to Vance and asked if if he ever goes to McDonalds. Vance said “Yeah… too much,” which led Oz to note that they “didn’t rehearse this”. Oz then said that there are twice as many durable medical equipment suppliers in south Florida as there are McDonalds. “Wow,” Vance said. “And that’s not because secretary Kennedy is closing down McDonalds,” Oz added, to laughter from Vance and no one else.

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“That’s because the amount of fraud is so massive,” Oz continued, without citing any evidence for the claim, or noting that south Florida has a very large population of retired Americans.

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The providers have already been paid by the state of Minnesota for their services, Vance said, but federal funds that are supposed to reimburse the state will be withheld.

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Troy Nehls, a Republican congressman from Texas, told reporters on Wednesday that the resignation of his embattled colleague, Tony Gonzales, “would be the stupidest thing he could ever do”, because it could imperil the Republican majority in the House.

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Gonzales, a fellow Texas Republican, has rejected calls from other members of his party to step down over allegations that he had an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide.

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“He’s not been indicted for anything,” Nehls said of Gonzales on the steps of the Capitol. “Does it look good? No. I don’t like the appearance of it. He’s got a problem here, don’t get me wrong. The optics are horrible.”

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Gonzales has been accused of sending sexually explicit text messages in which he appeared to pressure the senior staffer to share images of herself and, eventually, coerced her into a sexual relationship.

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Nehls, a former sheriff, seems unusually focused on optics. The congressman created a viral moment on Tuesday night, when he asked Donald Trump to sign his tie, which featured several images of the president, as he left the House chamber after his State of the Union address.

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Nehls made that request just a few steps away from where he was pictured on 6 January 2021, when he stood alongside Capitol police officers at the barricaded door of the House chamber and scolded Trump supporters who were trying to break in to stop the certification of Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

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The congressman was outspoken in his denunciation of the rioters that day, but more recently pivoted to blaming the Capitol police for the riot.

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Nehls, who is not running for re-election in November, could be replaced next year by his identical twin brother, Trever, who is a candidate in the upcoming Republican primary.

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The Cuban Interior Ministry has said that border guards killed four gunmen and wounded six more on a speedboat bearing a Florida registration off the coast of Cuba’s Villa Clara province.

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The rare clash off Cuba’s coast, which took place today, comes at a moment of heightened tensions between the United States and Cuba during an oil embargo that has led to an energy and humanitarian crisis on the island.

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One border guard was injured in an exchange of gunfire, according to the ministry.

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The Cuban embassy in the US said in a post on social media: “In the face of current challenges, Cuba reaffirms its determination to protect its territorial waters, based on the principle that national defense is a fundamental pillar of the Cuban State in safeguarding its sovereignty and ensuring stability in the region.”

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More on this story here:

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JD Vance said that Donald Trump still prefers a diplomatic solution with Iran but still has “other tools at his disposal” that he is willing to use – and that he hoped the Iranians took that seriously in their negotiations tomorrow. It has been reported that Trump’s decision to order airstrikes against Iran will hinge in part on the judgment of his special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, about whether Tehran is stalling over a deal to relinquish its capacity to produce nuclear weapons. The envoys will attend a last-ditch round of negotiations to discuss a detailed proposal for a nuclear deal drafted by Iran is expected to take place in Geneva tomorrow.

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Meanwhile, the president was busy today weighing in on Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib yelling during his SOTU speech last night. Trump called the two Democratic representatives “Low IQ” and said the had the “bulging, bloodshot eyes of crazy people, LUNATICS, mentally deranged and sick who, frankly, look like they should be institutionalized”.

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Trump also threatened to “send them back from where they came from – as fast as possible”. Both women are US citizens. Omar came to the US as a child refugee and has been a US citizen for more than two decades. Tlaib was born in the US.

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Omar, of Minnesota, told CNN that she didn’t regret her actions at the address, saying Trump posed the question of protecting Americans without acknowledging that “his administration was responsible for killing two American citizens” in her district. “It was really important to my constituents to hear that I was reminding the president that Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed under this administration,” she said.

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And Tlaib, of Michigan, responded to Trump’s post about her: “Can’t take two Muslimas talking back and correcting him so now he is crashing out. #PresidentMajnoon”.

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Omar also said today that her State of the Union guest, Aliya Rahman, was charged with unlawful conduct for standing up silently during Trump’s speech last night. “The heavy-handed response to a peaceful guest sends a chilling message about the state of our democracy. I am calling for a full explanation of why this arrest occurred,” Omar said.

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In an interview with Democracy Now, Rahman said she stood up because Trump was saying “racist things” and trashing Minnesota while glorifying federal agents, and she wanted to see if there were any “grownups” among the lawmakers below who were standing against his comments. Republicans around her were also standing up and applauding, though none of them were removed or arrested.

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The House speaker, Mike Johnson, called the allegations against Tony Gonzales “detestable” and said that he would meet with the Texas congressman “hopefully today”. Johnson added that he would let the “due process here to play out as always”. The speaker has resisted growing calls from within the GOP to pressure Gonzales to resign over allegations that he had an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide.

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Casey Means, the wellness influencer who is Trump’s controversial nominee for US surgeon general, appeared before lawmakers on the Senate committee for health, labor and pensions. She was grilled on everything from her stances on vaccines and autism to her inactive medical license.

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House Democrats have demanded a briefing from the justice department on the removal of Gail Slater, who was forced to resign as head of the antitrust division this month under a cloud of controversy and fraught tensions with her bosses inside the Trump administration.

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The US will provide on-site consular services in two Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank for the first time, breaking with previous policy in a move that has been criticised by Palestinian officials as “a clear violation of international law”.

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Marco Rubio held talks in the Caribbean today with regional leaders calling for “de-escalation and dialogue” to deal with the impact of recent US policies and a growing humanitarian crisis in Cuba that could destabilize their region.

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Donald Trump has weighed in on Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib yelling during his speech last night.

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In a post on Truth Social, he called the two Democratic representatives “Low IQ” and said the had the “bulging, bloodshot eyes of crazy people, LUNATICS, mentally deranged and sick who, frankly, look like they should be institutionalized”.

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He also threatened to “send them back from where they came from – as fast as possible”. Both women are US citizens. Omar came to the US as a child refugee and has been a US citizen for more than two decades. Tlaib was born in the US.

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“They can only damage the United States of America, they can do nothing to help it. They should actually get on a boat with Trump Deranged Robert De Niro, another sick and demented person with, I believe, an extremely Low IQ, who has absolutely no idea what he is doing or saying – some of which is seriously CRIMINAL!”

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He called the actor “Trump Deranged” and said he “may be even sicker than Crazy Rosie O’Donnell”, another frequent target of Trump’s attacks, saying that O’Donnell “is probably somewhat smarter than [De Niro], which isn’t saying much”.

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“The good news is that America is now Bigger, Better, Richer, and Stronger than ever before, and it’s driving them absolutely crazy!” he concluded before signing his name in capital letters.

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Democratic representative Ilhan Omar has said that her State of the Union guest was charged with unlawful conduct for standing up silently during Donald Trump’s speech last night.

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Omar said that Aliya Rahman was “forcibly removed” because she stood up in the gallery for a “short period of time, part of which other guests were also standing”, during the president’s speech.

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Reports indicate that Rahman was “aggressively handled” and was taken to George Washington University hospital for treatment, Omar said, and she was “later booked at the United States Capitol police headquarters”.

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“The heavy-handed response to a peaceful guest sends a chilling message about the state of our democracy. I am calling for a full explanation of why this arrest occurred,” Omar said.

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CNN has a statement from the Capitol police last night which said that Rahman was arrested after “demonstrating” during the speech. It said:

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All State of the Union tickets clearly explain that demonstrating is prohibited. At approximately 10:07 p.m., a person in the House Gallery started demonstrating during tonight’s State of the Union Address. The guest was told to sit down, but refused to obey our lawful orders. It is illegal to disrupt the Congress and demonstrate in the Congressional Buildings, so 43-year-old Aliya M. Rahman of Minneapolis, MN, was arrested for D.C. Code §10-503.16 – Unlawful Conduct, Disruption of Congress.”

n

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International security correspondent

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The US will provide on-site consular services in two Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank for the first time, breaking with previous policy in a move that has been criticised by Palestinian officials as “a clear violation of international law”.

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In a post on X, the US embassy in Jerusalem said that as part of an initiative to mark the 250th anniversary of US independence, it would provide Americans with routine passport services in the West Bank settlement of Efrat on Friday, “for one day only”.

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Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, are illegal under international law. Efrat is home to about 12,000 Israelis and is located 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) south of Jerusalem.

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The Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said in a statement that the initiative “constitutes a clear violation of international law and a blatant favouring of the occupation authorities”, referring to Israel.

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Mu’ayyad Shaa’ban, the head of the commission, said the step “entrenches a settlement reality that undermines the possibility of establishing an independent and sovereign Palestinian state”.

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view of the settlement of Efrat”,”caption”:”Efrat is home to about 12,000 Israelis and many American immigrants on occupied Palestinian land.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Hugh Lovatt, senior policy fellow with the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the intent and context of the new policy were important.

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n

The background is very clear. Mike Huckabee [the US ambassador to Israel] is an avowed proponent of the Greater Israel vision and supports the realisation of that vision between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

n

This is a signal that the US will not treat the Israeli settlements [in the West Bank] in any different way from towns within Israel.

n

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Last week, Israel’s cabinet approved measures to tighten the country’s control over the West Bank and make it easier for settlers to buy land, a move Palestinians called a “de facto annexation”.

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Donald Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, has said he opposes Israeli annexation of the West Bank in line with longstanding US policy but his administration has not taken any measures to halt settlement activity, which has risen since he took office last year.

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House Democrats have demanded a briefing from the justice department on the removal of Gail Slater, who was forced to resign as head of the antitrust division this month under a cloud of controversy and fraught tensions with her bosses inside the Trump administration.

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The request from Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, and Jerry Nadler, a Democratic New York congressman, marked the first step in what is almost certain to become a much larger investigation should Democrats reclaim the House majority in the midterm elections and gain subpoena power.

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In a letter to the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, Raskin sought a briefing on the role of Trump-connected lobbyists in Slater’s removal, after she tried to block a $14bn merger between Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks, a cloud-computing and software company.

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“With the departure of AAG Slater, it appears there are no longer any principled antitrust experts left to guard the antitrust division from this cascade of corruption,” the letter said. “The leadership vacuum is occurring just as the antitrust division is handling historic cases.”

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Slater, the former US assistant attorney general for the antitrust division, during her confirmation hearing in February 2025.”,”caption”:”Abigail Slater during her confirmation hearing in February 2025.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Abaca Press/Alamy”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Slater was pushed out after her relationship with Bondi and JD Vance – once her most powerful ally until he grew weary of her invoking his name at the justice department – steadily deteriorated off the back of the Hewlett Packard Enterprise case, the Guardian has previously reported.

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Among other things, Slater had told Bondi that the US intelligence community never raised national security concerns about stopping the deal. But her claim was contradicted by John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, who questioned why he had not been consulted.

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An exasperated Bondi later told associates she felt Slater had lied to her to continue with the suit, which the justice department dropped in June 2025 in favor of negotiating a settlement. Slater in turn complained the department had been captured by lobbyists for Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

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A spokesperson for the justice department referred queries about its response to the letter to Bondi’s previous statement thanking Slater for her service.

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More on this story here:

“,”elementId”:”a336dfdf-e42d-494d-9f90-a8b4c1840958″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.RichLinkBlockElement”,”prefix”:”Related: “,”text”:”House Democrats open inquiry into ouster of US antitrust chief Gail Slater”,”elementId”:”ccb2a70c-aa02-4501-a6cc-93d20eae6619″,”role”:”thumbnail”,”url”:”https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/25/house-democrats-antitrust-gail-slater-inquiry”}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1772043270000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”13.14 EST”,”blockLastUpdated”:1772043796000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”13.23 EST”,”blockFirstPublished”:1772043439000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”13.17 EST”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”13.17″,”title”:”House Democrats open inquiry into ouster of US antitrust chief Gail Slater”,”contributors”:[{“name”:”Hugo Lowell”,”imageUrl”:”https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2023/05/25/Hugo_Lowell.jpg?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=84872dbbdd0d129b2e072ae43017e201″,”largeImageUrl”:”https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2023/05/25/Hugo_Lowell.png?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=caefea5e156841f14b7ee37aa2e5f6ab”}],”primaryDateLine”:”Wed 25 Feb 2026 22.04 EST”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Wed 25 Feb 2026 04.56 EST”},{“id”:”699f31d38f08255e3005272f”,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, arrived in the Caribbean today to begin talks with regional leaders who are calling for “de-escalation and dialogue” to deal with the impact of recent US policies and a growing humanitarian crisis in Cuba that could destabilize their region.

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It comes amid continued deadly US military strikes against alleged drug boats and the Trump administration’s oil blockade on Cuba. Trump is ratcheting up the pressure on Cuba in the wake of his dramatic ousting of Venezuelan president and key Cuban ally Nicolás Maduro last month.

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Rubio addressed a closed-door meeting of Caricom, the Caribbean group that comprises 15 member states and five associated members, in Saint Kitts and Nevis, and would hold bilateral meetings with some regional leaders, Reuters reports.

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The meeting’s host, Saint Kitts and Nevis PM Terrance Drew, said that Caricom should be a conduit for dialogue over Cuba’s future. “A destabilized Cuba will destabilize all of us,” he said.

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Yesterday, ahead of Rubio’s arrival, my colleague Natricia Duncan reported that the Jamaican prime minister and the outgoing Caricom chair, Andrew Holness, appealed for a collective response to the crisis in Cuba, saying that he supports “constructive dialogue between Cuba and the US aimed at de-escalation, reform and stability”.

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“We must address the situation in Cuba with clarity and courage,” Holness said. “Cuba is our Caribbean neighbour. Its doctors and teachers have served across our region,” he said.

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Cubans are facing “severe economic hardship, energy shortages and growing humanitarian strain”, which could have consequences across the wider region, he said.

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n

Humanitarian suffering serves no one. Apart from our fraternal care and solidarity with the Cuban people, it must be clear that a prolonged crisis in Cuba will not remain confined to Cuba. It will affect migration, security and economic stability across the Caribbean basin.

n

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The Trump administration has been pressuring countries to stop participating in the Cuban medics program – which is a source of foreign currency for the Cuban government – chill relations with China and consider allowing US military hardware in their countries. Trump has also threatened tariff hikes against any nation sending energy supplies to Cuba and has urged the country’s leaders to reach a deal to avert a worsening humanitarian crisis.

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Rubio attends a Caricom plenary session in Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Nevis.”,”caption”:”Marco Rubio attends a Caricom plenary session in Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Nevis.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters”}}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1772040659000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”12.30 EST”,”blockLastUpdated”:1772042149000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”12.55 EST”,”blockFirstPublished”:1772041804000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”12.50 EST”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”12.50″,”title”:”Rubio begins talks with Caribbean leaders calling for ‘de-escalation and dialogue’ amid US oil embargo on Cuba”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Wed 25 Feb 2026 22.04 EST”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Wed 25 Feb 2026 04.56 EST”},{“id”:”699f2b258f08255e300526b2″,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

The vice-president has said that Donald Trump still prefers a diplomatic solution with Iran but still has “other tools at his disposal” that he is willing to use – and that he hoped the Iranians took that seriously in their negotiations tomorrow.

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Vance told Fox News this morning:

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n

We have to get to a position where Iran can’t threaten the world with nuclear terrorism … We can’t let the craziest and worst regime in the world to have nuclear weapons. That is what the president is accomplishing. That’s what the president has set as our goal.

n

He’s going to try to accomplish that diplomatically but … the president has a number of other tools at his disposal to ensure this doesn’t happen. He’s shown a willingness to use them and I hope the Iranians take it seriously in their negotiations tomorrow because that’s certainly what the president prefers.

n

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A last-ditch round of negotiations to discuss a detailed proposal for a nuclear deal drafted by Iran is expected to take place in Geneva tomorrow. As my colleague Hugo Lowell reported earlier this week, Trump’s decision to order airstrikes against Iran will hinge in part on the judgment of his special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, about whether Tehran is stalling over a deal to relinquish its capacity to produce nuclear weapons.

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In his Fox News interview, Vance sidestepped a question on whether any of what he said means that Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has to go. It has been reported that if there is no deal, Trump has told advisers he is considering limited strikes to pressure Iran and, failing that, a far larger attack to force regime change.

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“The president ultimately will make the decision about how to ensure Iran does not have a nuclear weapon,” Vance said. “We’re sitting down having another round of diplomatic talks with the Iranians trying to reach a reasonable settlement.”

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In comments pretty similar to what he said yesterday, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, has said that he would meet with Tony Gonzales “hopefully today” but that he would let the “due process here to play out as always”.

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CNN reported Johnson as saying this morning:

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n

The allegations are alarming and detestable, and I’ve said to him publicly and privately, he’s got to address that directly and head-on with his constituents. There’s a primary there in less than a week, these things will play out. So we’re allowing that to happen.

n

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He had also told CBS Evening News yesterday that the allegations against Gonzales were “detestable”, but “we’re trying to sort it out”, adding that he would let the “due process here to play out as always”.

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n

My understanding is he’s denied a lot of this, and we’re trying to sort it out … Now, it has been reported that the office of congressional conduct is investigating this, and has been for some time. And what we do here is we allow all the facts to play out.

n

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Johnson has faced resisted growing calls from within the GOP to pressure Gonzales, of Texas, to resign over allegations that he had an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide.

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Gonzales has previously denied having the affair and said he is being blackmailed, but has not addressed newly released text messages in which he appeared to ask the former staffer for intimate photos and discuss sex acts. He refused to resign yesterday after several GOP lawmakers publicly called for him to go.

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The speaker had endorsed Gonzales’ bid for re-election “before any of this came up”. Gonzales faces a tough primary contest on 3 March against Brandon Herrera, a gun rights influencer who almost beat him in 2024.

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Casey Means, Donald Trump’s controversial nominee for US surgeon general, is answering questions before lawmakers on the Senate committee for health, labor and pensions today. The surgeon general serves as the nation’s top doctor, responsible for disseminating the latest public health guidance.

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Means, who has a medical degree but is not board-certified, and does not have an active medical license, declined to give a simple yes-or-no answer when the committee chair, Republican senator Bill Cassidy, pressed her on whether, if confirmed, she would encourage parents to vaccinate their children with routine shots such as the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. She said:

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n

I’m supportive of vaccination. I do believe that each patient, mother, parent, needs to have a conversation with their pediatrician about any medication they’re putting in their body and their children’s bodies.

n

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When Cassidy asked whether she would state her position more clearly if confirmed, she replied: “I’m not an individual’s doctor, and every individual needs to talk to their doctor before putting a medication in their body.”

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Her comments come as measles outbreaks continue across the country, with South Carolina experiencing the worst measles outbreak in more than 30 years amid declining childhood immunization rates.

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In response, Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, urged Americans to “take the vaccine, please” earlier this month. In an interview with CNN, Oz issued a rare plea from the Trump administration to insist upon inoculation.

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n

Not all illnesses are equally dangerous and not all people are equally susceptible to those illnesses. But measles is one you should get your vaccine.

n

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While Means insisted that anti-vaccine rhetoric “has never been a part” of her message and said she was “not here to complicate the issue on vaccines”, she repeatedly sidestepped direct questions from lawmakers about whether vaccines cause autism – a theory long discredited by the scientific community and frequently promoted by Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.

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“The reality is that we have an autism crisis that’s increasing, and this is devastating to many families, and we do not know as a medical community what causes autism,” she said, while acknowledging that there is an overwhelming body of evidence refuting claims that vaccines cause the condition. “I also think that science is never settled, and I think that the effort to look at comprehensive, cumulative exposures into what is causing autism is important.”

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Means, Trump’s controversial nomination to be the next US surgeon general, testifies before a Senate committee for health, labor and pensions.”,”caption”:”Casey Means testifies before a Senate committee for health, labor and pensions.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Kylie Cooper/Reuters”}}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1772035537000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”11.05 EST”,”blockLastUpdated”:1772036317000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”11.18 EST”,”blockFirstPublished”:1772036087000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”11.14 EST”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”11.14″,”title”:”Trump’s surgeon general nominee grilled over stances on vaccines and autism”,”contributors”:[{“name”:”Shrai Popat”,”imageUrl”:”https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2025/10/14/Shrai_Popat.jpg?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=9ded2213bf83d9c6b5b34cb5cf41c74a”,”largeImageUrl”:”https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2025/10/14/Shrai_Popat.png?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=89f347972067475031b1b7486d468484″}],”primaryDateLine”:”Wed 25 Feb 2026 22.04 EST”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Wed 25 Feb 2026 04.56 EST”},{“id”:”699f14cd8f08255e300524ae”,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said Democrats were right to remain seated when Trump called on the crowd to stand if they believed in protecting US citizens over undocumented immigrants, a line that Republicans are now using to call out Democrats.

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“Bottom line is very simple, we agree we need to protect Americans. He’s not,” Schumer told CNN this morning. “By his reckless ICE agency in Minnesota, two Americans were killed. Americans are being pulled out of their cars and beaten. Americans’ houses, the doors are being knocked down without a warrant. And no other police department in America, run by Americans, has done what ICE has done.”

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“So, yes, we want to protect Americans. He’s not doing it. And that’s why the American people are against what ICE is doing.”

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We are watching for potential rulings from the US supreme court this morning.

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Some of the remaining cases we’re looking out for today could be:

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n
a potential gutting of the voting rights act

n
whether Trump was legally able to oust a Fed governor or

n
Trump’s firing of Rebecca Slaughter, a federal trade commissioner.

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The House speaker, Mike Johnson, said he came “this close” to ejecting Democratic representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from the chamber during last night’s state of the union over their verbal protests to Trump’s remarks.

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Trump told Democrats during the speech that they should be ashamed for not standing, Omar yelled back that he should be ashamed and repeatedly yelled “You have killed Americans!”

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Johnson told Fox’s Sean Hannity that the retorts were “shameful”.

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“I came this close to stopping them. We could have probably ejected them from the floor. I thought, let their actions speak for themselves,” he said. “If they’d gone a step further, I probably would have ejected them.”

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But, he said, he thought they served as a nice “contrast” to Republicans, who were standing and celebrating and chanting throughout the speech.

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“I think it was good for them to be there,” he said. “I think it’s good for the American people to see the shame that they brought upon their party and upon themselves.”

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A new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists shows more journalists and media workers were killed in 2025 than any previous year since the committee started collecting data more than 30 years ago.

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The committee found 129 members of the press killed in 2025, two-thirds of them by Israel. Of those killed by Israel in 2025, more than 60% were Palestinians reporting from Gaza, the report said.

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“The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has committed more targeted killings of journalists than any other government’s military since CPJ began documentation in 1992,” the report said.

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At least 104 of those counted in the report were killed in conflict, including in Ukraine, where four journalists were killed, and Sudan, where nine were killed.

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The group has categorized 47 of those killings as targeted, the highest number of journalists killed deliberating for their work in the past decade. This rise in journalist deaths globally is “fueled by a persistent culture of impunity for attacks on the press,” citing few transparent investigations into these targeted killings.

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The group said the rise in deaths comes alongside a near-record of journalists being jailed in 2025 as well.

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“Journalists are being killed in record numbers at a time when access to information is more important than ever,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of CPJ. “Attacks on the media are a leading indicator of attacks on other freedoms, and much more needs to be done to prevent these killings and punish the perpetrators. We are all at risk when journalists are killed for reporting the news.”

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A newly revealed diplomatic cable calls on US diplomats to work against attempts by foreign nations to regulate how US tech companies handle their citizens’ data, as “data sovereignty initiatives” gather steam in Europe over security concerns.

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Closing summary

This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:

The FBI fired at least 10 people this week who worked on the special counsel’s investigation of Donald Trump for illegally taking classified documents after he lost the presidency and left office in 2021.
A federal judge in Boston ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s third-country removal policy, deporting immigrants to countries to which they have no ties, is unlawful.
Dr Jerome Adams, who served as the US surgeon general during Donald Trump’s first term, denounced the president’s nomination of Dr Casey Means, a wellness influencer without a medical license
Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, said to the Trump administration’s decision to withhold $259m in federal Medicaid funds from his state “has nothing to do with fraud”, but is instead about Trump “weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states”.

FBI fires at least 10 people over special counsel investigation of classified documents taken by Trump in 2021

Federal prosecutors reportedly identified Wiles as the Trump campaign aide he showed a classified map to in August or September of 2021.

The FBI Agents Association condemned the firings in a statement to the Associated Press as unlawful and endangering national security.

“These actions weaken the Bureau by stripping away critical expertise and destabilizing the workforce, undermining trust in leadership and jeopardizing the Bureau’s ability to meet its recruitment goals — ultimately putting the nation at greater risk,” the association said.

Patel was subpoenaed by federal prosecutors in 2022 to testify before a grand jury in Washington in the Mar-a-Lago investigation, and appeared after being given immunity. Wiles was reportedly interviewed by prosecutors multiple times.

Federal judge rules that Trump administration policy of deporting immigrants to countries where they have no ties in unlawful

A federal judge in Boston ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s third-country removal policy, deporting immigrants to countries to which they have no ties, is unlawful.

Trump’s first-term surgeon general denounces his current nominee

Justice department says it is ‘reviewing files’ after reports Epstein files with accusation against Trump are missing

‘This has nothing to do with fraud,’ Walz says, accusing Trump of withholding Medicaid funds ‘to punish blue states like Minnesota’

Walz, who was his party’s nominee for vice-president in 2024, replied on social media to the announcement that federal funds would be withheld from his state by writing:

This has nothing to do with fraud. The agents Trump allegedly sent to investigate fraud are shooting protesters and arresting children. His DOJ is gutting the US Attorney’s Office and crippling their ability to prosecute fraud. And every week Trump pardons another fraudster.

This is a campaign of retribution. Trump is weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota. These cuts will be devastating for veterans, families with young kids, folks with disabilities, and working people across our state.

Vance says Trump administration is withholding Medicaid funds from Minnesota out of ‘love’

Vance also connected the withheld Medicare funding to immigration enforcement, saying “we haven’t gotten the cooperation” of state and local elected leaders in Minnesota.

Dozens of people were charged with fraud in 2022, during the Biden administration, by a team of federal prosecutors in Minnesota led by Joseph Thompson and Harry Jacobs.

Citing fraud concerns, Trump administration imposes six-month national moratorium on federal funds for prosthesis and orthotics

According to Oz, who spoke alongside the vice-president, JD Vance, new enrollments for federal Medicare funds for such devices would be halted due to concerns about benefit fraud.

Oz then tried to illustrate what he called the scope of the potential fraud with an awkward bit of dialogue with the vice-president.

“That’s because the amount of fraud is so massive,” Oz continued, without citing any evidence for the claim, or noting that south Florida has a very large population of retired Americans.

Trump administration is withholding $259m in Medicaid funding from Minnesota, Vance and Oz say

The providers have already been paid by the state of Minnesota for their services, Vance said, but federal funds that are supposed to reimburse the state will be withheld.

Texas Republican congressman says colleague accused of affair with staffer who killed herself should not resign

Gonzales, a fellow Texas Republican, has rejected calls from other members of his party to step down over allegations that he had an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide.

The congressman was outspoken in his denunciation of the rioters that day, but more recently pivoted to blaming the Capitol police for the riot.

Nehls, who is not running for re-election in November, could be replaced next year by his identical twin brother, Trever, who is a candidate in the upcoming Republican primary.

Cuba says border guards killed four gunmen on US-registered speedboat

Andrew Roth

The Cuban Interior Ministry has said that border guards killed four gunmen and wounded six more on a speedboat bearing a Florida registration off the coast of Cuba’s Villa Clara province.

One border guard was injured in an exchange of gunfire, according to the ministry.

More on this story here:

George Chidi

The California senator Alex Padilla is holding a forum with elected officials and voting rights activists to discuss the Trump administration’s apparent movement toward subverting local elections offices and interfering with voting.

Padilla, who delivered the Spanish-language response to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address last night, discussed the potential threats to free elections in light of Trump’s comments calling on Republicans to “take over the voting” in 15 places.

Questioned by the Georgia senator Raphael Warnock, Fulton county commissioner Mo Ivory said she personally saw Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, when FBI agents served a criminal warrant to take more than 600 boxes of documents from the 2020 election.

“I have demanded an explanation from Pam Bondi about this raid,” Warnock said. “So far, I have not heard back from her. She has not offered one, but we will keep demanding answers … They’re already trying to cast doubt on the 2026 elections.”

Catherine Cortez Masto, who once served as Nevada’s secretary of state, raised questions about the rhetoric suggesting that noncitizens are voting in meaningful numbers that require additional measures to prevent, describing the evidence of significant noncitizen voting as “nonexistent”.

“The incidences are so tiny that as a statistical matter, it should be considered zero,” said retired ambassador Norm Eisen, a voting rights activist.

Tim Walz accuses Trump of withholding $259m in Medicaid funds ‘to punish blue states’ – as it happened

Trump administration is withholding $259m in Medicaid funding from Minnesota, Vance and Oz say

Closing summary

FBI fires at least 10 people over special counsel investigation of classified documents taken by Trump in 2021

Federal judge rules that Trump administration policy of deporting immigrants to countries where they have no ties in unlawful

Trump’s first-term surgeon general denounces his current nominee

Justice department says it is ‘reviewing files’ after reports Epstein files with accusation against Trump are missing

‘This has nothing to do with fraud,’ Walz says, accusing Trump of withholding Medicaid funds ‘to punish blue states like Minnesota’

Vance says Trump administration is withholding Medicaid funds from Minnesota out of ‘love’

Citing fraud concerns, Trump administration imposes six-month national moratorium on federal funds for prosthesis and orthotics

Trump administration is withholding $259m in Medicaid funding from Minnesota, Vance and Oz say

Texas Republican congressman says colleague accused of affair with staffer who killed herself should not resign

Cuba says border guards killed four gunmen on US-registered speedboat

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