National

The Trump administration intends to overhaul the Endangered Species Act by changing what it means to harm an endangered or threatened species as part of the larger White House campaign to spur economic growth through deregulation, RealClearPolitics is first to report.

By the time this is published, everything may have changed, and that is to be expected. Throughout his career, well before and since becoming a politician, Trump has explicitly stated that he does not think it is always a good strategy to be predictable. And while markets love predictability, sometimes markets, and the systems propping them up, need disruption. This is such a moment. Nobody should deny that the anxiety is genuine. An older friend of mine, well into his 70s, still working but ready to retire, is wondering how he and his wife will survive if their savings are wiped out. That’s true for all of us, but it begs the question: What if the painful restructuring we may be about to endure, and which may last for many years, is necessary to avoid an even worse fate?

President Donald Trump ordered a probe into new tariffs on “critical minerals” amid a push to reduce America’s reliance on imported goods, particularly those from China. Trump signed an executive order directing Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to investigate the possibility and feasibility of new tariffs on “critical minerals” such as cobalt, lithium, nickel and others crucial to production of advanced goods like computer chips. The national security probe falls under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the same law Trump used to enact a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Wednesday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against the state of Maine after it refused several requests to comply with President Donald Trump’s directive banning males from competing in female sports. In a joint press conference with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, Bondi said the action was a last resort by the administration after months of warning the state and threatening federal funding.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled Wednesday that “probable cause exists” to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt after they violated his orders by continuing deportation flights, according to CNN. The ruling follows the Supreme Court determining that Boasberg's court was in an improper venue for the case altogether.

As the U.S. struggles to attract concessions from adversarial nations, Washington appears ready to use those nations’ people within its borders on a visa as an apparent source of leverage. Under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the U.S. has already begun revoking visas for pro-Palestinian organizers and international students who joined with them, but the administration now appears to be mulling similar actions against other nations.

Congressional GOP leaders are demanding a non-profit organization explain how it has used taxpayer money after an undercover video purportedly showed its employees instructing audience members how to avoid Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest. The Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC), a behemoth non-profit group based in New York City, must hand over documentation and communication relating to its immigration seminars and explain how roughly a million dollars in taxpayer funds were used in the past several years, according to a House Homeland Security Committee letter first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The demands come as the Trump administration has made clear that overtly obstructing ICE operations will not be tolerated.

Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen is expected to be in El Salvador on Wednesday to try to check on a man who was his constituent who was deported to El Salvador.  A Justice Department attorney said in a court filing the deportation was a mistake, but the Trump administration has since disputed that argument.

The Trump administration has revoked more than 1,100 foreign student visas since it launched its mission against alleged terrorist sympathizers and antisemitism, according to a report. A database from Inside Higher Ed indicates a sudden and dramatic rise in orders stripping foreigners of the ability to legally study in the U.S., weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio put the number at around 300. Many of the students lost their visas over their alleged anti-Israel or pro-terrorist advocacy and previous criminal records, the outlet said, citing mostly public news reports and university statements.

Illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garcia was arrested in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 12 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Allegedly a member of MS-13, he was deported to El Salvador and has resided in El Salvador’s Terrorist Confinement Center for more than a month. Abrego Garcia’s case has become a cause célèbre on the Left, where Democrats and their open borders allies have peddled the story that he was “mistakenly deported.”

Ira Dean comes from a musical family. His brother is Billy Dean, but not that Billy Dean. "It's a joke because Billy Dean's royalty checks used to go to my brother," Ira Dean said. But his brother and father were both very much in the business. His father played guitar, sang, and even had his own radio show when he was 13, so the music business is all Dean's ever known. "It was either make it or wear a hairnet and say, 'Do you want fries with that?'" he joked.

Republicans have seen their polling advantage on the economy and inflation disappear in the fallout from President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs, according to a recent survey. While they maintained a narrow advantage on the economy generally, voters broke for the Democrats on inflation in the latest iteration of the Napolitan News Survey. Only 41% favored the GOP on the economy, compared to 40% who backed the Democrats. Only inflation, however, Democrats led with 42% support to the GOP's 38%.

Ohio GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy holds a double-digit lead, according to a poll released Tuesday. The entrepreneur and 2024 GOP presidential candidate has 71% of the primary vote, according to pollster Fabrizio Lee, which was first reported by the news outlet Semafor. 

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from revoking legal status and work permits for over 530,000 illegal aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, ruled Monday that the Trump administration cannot terminate the legal status of the migrants “without case-by-case review.”

While Democrats weaponized invented Russia collusion claims in an attempt to sink President Donald Trump’s first term, in retrospect the party’s leaders have often gone soft on Russia when it wanted to reap financial or political benefits for themselves or allies. From the Obama-era "Russian Reset" and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Skolkovo investment project to Hunter Biden’s business in Moscow and President Joe Biden’s waiving of sanctions against a Russian pipeline, key Democratic figures reaped political and financial benefits from going soft on Moscow.