5 things to know for March 26: Signal chat fallout, Gaza protests, Election order, Florida jobs, Alaska plane crash
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More than 10,000 firefighters, police and civil servants have been deployed to battle dozens of wildfires raging in South Korea. Fueled by dry air and strong winds, the blazes have killed at least 24 people, burned nearly 43,000 acres and destroyed a 1,300-year-old Buddhist temple. Here’s what else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day. Top national security officials faced questions from outraged Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday about a group chat on the messaging app Signal that revealed plans for a military strike in Yemen to a journalist. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe repeatedly denied that the chat contained classified information and then appeared to shift responsibility to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for determining such classification. Yet it was Hegseth’s texts that reportedly provided “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing.” Current and former defense officials said that such discussions would always be classified due to the potential risk to US service members. Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in northern Gaza on Tuesday to denounce Hamas and call for an end to the war with Israel. It appeared to be the largest protest against the militant group since its attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023. The demonstrations took place just two days after the death toll from the conflict hit 50,000 in Gaza, according to the enclave’s health ministry. Overnight, Israeli airstrikes in northern Gaza killed eight more people, including five children, the Palestine Red Crescent said. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that directs the Election Assistance Commission to demand proof of citizenship for voter registration — and withhold funding from states that don’t enforce the requirement for voters who register with the federal form. Republicans have long sought these changes to election practices, but critics say demanding proof of citizenship could disenfranchise poor and older voters and suppress votes. The order also instructed the Department of Homeland Security to give Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency access to state voter rolls so its team can search the data for foreign nationals. Florida’s efforts to crack down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants have presented a problem for businesses: not enough workers willing to fill low-wage and often undesirable jobs. To fix the problem, the state’s legislature has advanced a bill that would loosen child labor laws. If passed, businesses would be able to hire children as young as 14 years old to work overnight shifts, even on school days. The bill would also eliminate working time restrictions on 14 and 15 year olds if they are home-schooled and end guaranteed meal breaks for 16 and 17 year olds.
Former election clerk Tina Peters’ prison sentence has long been a rallying cry for President Donald Trump and other 2020 election deniers. Now, her lawyers are heading back to court to appeal her conviction as Colorado’s Democratic governor has signaled a new openness to letting her out of prison early.
The Trump administration’s sweeping legal effort to obtain Americans’ sensitive data from states’ voter rolls is now almost entirely reliant upon a Jim Crow-era civil rights law passed to protect Black voters from disenfranchisement – a notable shift in how the administration is pressing its demands.
Venezuelan officials, including acting President Delcy Rodriguez, returned to X late Tuesday in an apparent reversal of Nicolas Maduro’s 2024 decision to block the site in the country.
The woman killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis last week served on the board of her son’s school, which linked to documents encouraging parents to monitor ICE and directing them to training.
During a marathon Supreme Court session Tuesday over whether states may ban transgender women from participating in women and girls’ sports, some justices were already focused on what may lie around the corner
President Donald Trump appeared to flip someone off as he toured a Michigan Ford plant in an incident caught on video Tuesday, and the White House defended the action as an “appropriate” response to someone screaming at the commander-in-chief.
White House officials are heaping blame on DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro over her office’s criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell, faulting her for blindsiding them with an inquiry that has forced the administration into a dayslong damage control campaign, four people familiar with the matter told CNN.
The interim Venezuelan government has freed at least four Americans who were imprisoned in Venezuela, a source familiar with the matter told CNN on Tuesday.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is now providing free internet access via its Starlink satellite service to users in Iran as the country’s regime continues its bloody crackdown on anti-government protests, according to a tech expert in touch with Iranian Starlink users.
The aircraft used in the US military’s first strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, a strike which has drawn intense scrutiny and resulted in numerous Congressional briefings, was painted as a civilian aircraft and was part of a closely guarded classified program, sources familiar with the program told CNN. Its use “immediately drew scrutiny and real concerns” from lawmakers, one of the sources familiar said, and legislators began asking questions about the aircraft during briefings in September.
DOJ pleads with lawyers to get through ‘grind’ of Epstein files as criticism of redactions continues
“It is a grind,” the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division said in an email. “While we certainly encourage aggressive overachievers, we need reviewers to hit the 1,000-page mark each day.”
A new classified legal opinion produced by the Justice Department argues that President Donald Trump was not limited by domestic law when approving the US operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro because of his constitutional authority as commander-in-chief and that he is not constrained by international law when it comes to carrying out law enforcement operations overseas, according to sources who have read the memo.
President Donald Trump is working to tighten his grip on his party this week as he faces an unusual threat from Congress: an embarrassing rebuke of his military actions overseas.