In Kansas City, DOGE federal worker layoffs hit close to home
CNN
Steep government layoffs driven by DOGE are hitting hard far beyond Washington, especially in cities like Kansas City with thousands of federal workers.
Baseball’s opening day is usually one of jubilation for Kansas City, whose Royals are two-time World Series champions. But for Jason Buck, this year’s home opener against the Cleveland Guardians served as a reminder of the uncertainty he faces. Buck took on a part-time job bartending at the team’s Kauffman Stadium after being terminated – and then placed on administrative leave after the position was restored – from the General Services Administration. He took a pay cut from a prior job to join the federal government a year ago, managing fleets of government vehicles for the Pentagon, Veterans Affairs department and the Secret Service, hoping it meant longer-term job security. “It was a risk worth taking for me,” Buck told CNN. “I knew the value of working for the government.” Steep federal layoffs driven by the Department of Government Efficiency have caused shockwaves in the nation’s capital, but the ripple effects extend far beyond Washington. In the Kansas City region, where the federal government is the largest employer, big regional hubs for federal agencies are bracing for new waves of cuts in the coming weeks. Employees across a variety of agencies including the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration say they expect to know their fate in mid-April. Under plans proposed by the Trump administration, some government agencies could shrink by up to half; the moves are expected to leave thousands of Kansas City’s 30,000 federal workers looking for a new job.
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.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.
Authorities in Colombia are dealing with increasingly sophisticated criminals, who use advanced tech to produce and conceal the drugs they hope to export around the world. But police and the military are fighting back, using AI to flag suspicious passengers, cargo and mail - alongside more conventional air and sea patrols. CNN’s Isa Soares gets an inside look at Bogotá’s war on drugs.
Young Americans are “a generation under profound strain” with little confidence in institutions and widespread economic concerns, according to a Harvard Institute of Politics survey of adults younger than 30 released Thursday.
As lawmakers demand answers over reports that the US military carried out a follow-up strike that killed survivors during an attacked on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, a career Navy SEAL who has spent most of his 30 years of military experience in special operations will be responsible for providing them.
The murder trial of Brian Walshe, who is accused of killing and dismembering his wife in 2023 continues. Follow for live updates.
The FBI arrested a person Thursday who investigators believe planted pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters the night before the 2021 US Capitol riot.
Lawyers for the New York attorney general’s office are expected to appear in federal court in Albany on Thursday to try to disqualify a US attorney from investigating the state’s civil case against President Donald Trump.