As the government shutdown has dragged on for 20 days, President Donald Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought have fine-tuned a regimen of pain designed to break the parts of the federal government they see as aligned with Democratic priorities. In particular, they have attempted to implement draconian public health cuts, some of which have been stayed by the…
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Court documents released Monday show that the Trump administration is exploiting the ongoing government shutdown to pursue mass firings at the US Fish and Wildlife Service amid the nation’s worsening extinction crisis. The new filings came as part of a legal fight between the administration and federal worker unions, which took emergency action earlier this month to stop the latest wave of…
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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) finally seems receptive to swearing in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Arizona), who won a special election last month, but says he won’t do so until Democrats agree to end the government shutdown. There is no legal reason why Grijalva can’t be sworn in during the stalemate over funding the government — in fact, doing so would allow her vote…
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April Perez was 22 years old when she had her first daughter. Enrolling in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, commonly known as WIC, was a lifesaver. “With her being my first child,” she said, “I was still finding my way through motherhood.” The program helped her access healthy foods for her family, get formula when she wasn’t able to produce enough…
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Two months after Education Secretary Linda McMahon was confirmed, she and a small team from the department met with leadership from the National Center for Learning Disabilities, an advocacy group that works on behalf of millions of students with dyslexia and other disorders. Jacqueline Rodriguez, NCLD’s chief executive officer, recalled pressing McMahon on a question raised during her…
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