5 things to know for Feb. 5: Gaza, US Postal Service, Midair collision, Guantanamo Bay, Sweden shooting
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The CIA is now the first major national security agency to offer buyouts to its entire workforce, a step in the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal government. Thousands of other federal workers face sweeping layoffs this week unless they accept offers to resign. Here’s what else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day. President Donald Trump said that the US “will take over” Gaza — potentially with the help of US troops — while the Palestinians who live there should leave. His comments on Tuesday raised a host of questions and concerns about the forcible displacement of about two million Palestinians from their land. Trump added that “we’ll own it,” dismantle unexploded bombs and clear debris to build the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Some Arab nations are pushing back on the brazen proposal and rejecting the notion of accepting additional Palestinian refugees. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sitting alongside his US counterpart in the Oval Office, smiled at the remarks and said he believed Trump would help Israel achieve all of its war goals. After announcing Tuesday it would not accept incoming parcels from China and Hong Kong until further notice, the US Postal Service abruptly changed course this morning and said it will continue accepting “all international inbound mail and packages from China and Hong Kong Posts.” “The USPS and Customs and Border Protection are working closely together to implement an efficient collection mechanism for the new China tariffs to ensure the least disruption to package delivery,” the service said in an updated statement. The announcement comes just days after President Trump ended an exemption that allowed anyone to ship packages worth less than $800 to the US without paying duties or undergoing inspections. Inspecting incoming parcels to collect the new import taxes could prove extremely difficult. Crews working at the site of last week’s deadly midair collision in Washington, DC, have recovered the remains of all 67 victims. The American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter on a training mission ran into each other over the Potomac River in an accident that remains unexplained. More parts of the plane — which will also form pieces of the puzzle investigators are trying to solve — were pulled from the river Tuesday. However, inclement weather will bear down on Washington today, with snow, sleet and freezing rain expected to worsen already tough conditions for recovery personnel. The Trump administration has started to send migrants to Guantanamo Bay despite questions about the plan’s legality. The prison in Cuba opened in 2002 as a holding center for suspects taken off battlefields in South Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere who were treated outside the legal system and often held for years without trial. On Tuesday, a military flight carrying around 10 migrants with criminal records landed in Guantanamo, US officials said. The move stems from President Trump’s memorandum directing the federal government to prepare the prison site at the US Naval base to house tens of thousands of migrants.
As Chad Curry busily ferries his teenage children through the streets of their Chicago neighborhood of West Ridge, he eyes passing vehicles with a skepticism he didn’t have just a few months ago.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a political survivor, weathering crisis after crisis since his unlikely ascent two years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?
The Army gynecologist described in a recent lawsuit as a “predator in uniform” is now being held in the Bell County Jail in Texas, “after apparently violating conditions of liberty imposed by his commander,” according to an Army spokesperson.
Brian Walshe on Thursday came face-to-face for the first time with the man who had been having an affair with his wife before her death, as he took the stand to testify in Walshe’s murder trial.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Texas to use a congressional map that will boost President Donald Trump’s effort to keep Republicans in control of Congress, blocking a lower court decision that found the new boundaries were likely unconstitutional because they were drawn based on race.
The US military carried out a strike Thursday on a suspected drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to a social media post from US Southern Command.
A grand jury voted against indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James after being asked to look at the mortgage fraud case against her a second time, according to multiple people familiar with the development Thursday.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge’s ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city’s streets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.