A federal judge in Northern California has blocked the Trump administration from stripping the union protections of two-thirds of federal workers, more than a million in all, but a recent Supreme Court ruling could spell trouble for the injunction.
Judge James Donato ruled in favor of the American Federation of Government Workers (AFGE)'s April lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's March 27 executive order.
Donato's main reasoning for the ruling was that he thought Trump's order was in retaliation for lawsuits and statements against him since taking office in January.
It's an argument AFGE has put forward, but it isn't easy to prove someone's intentions behind an action like this.
“President Trump revoked our members’ union rights in retaliation for our advocacy on behalf of federal workers and the American people, and we are grateful that Judge Donato saw through his disingenuous ‘national security’ justification and has ordered the immediate restoration of their rights,” said AFGE National President Everett Kelley.
“Federal employees have had the right to join a union and bargain collectively for decades, including during President Trump’s first term, and at no time have employees’ union rights caused concern for our nation’s national security,” he added. “Revoking these rights was clearly a retaliatory attempt to bust federal unions and wreak havoc on our nation’s workforce and the services they provide to the American people.”
Not only might this kind of shaky argument collapse on appeal, but there's also the matter of the recent Supreme Court ruling barring nationwide injunctions at the local level.
This case is specific enough--referring specifically to the six unions that filed the suit and the 950,000 federal employees covered by it--that the new ruling might not apply, but it's worth a try.
Trump is attempting to cut costs in the federal government through a reduction in force, and union protections are getting in his way as he tries to do so.
The executive order said to continue the RIF and to ignore union regulations to do so.
Not sure he will get away with that, but there's got to be a way to cut out the useless and redundant staff so government can function better.
Unions were useful once upon a time when workers didn't have even the most basic rights, but now they just perpetuate mediocrity and encourage workers not to work hard.
Trump continues to balance competing priorities to cut bloated government spending and to boost employment.
His actions along with DOGE to cut unneeded government employees were largely responsible for a .1% increase in unemployment in April, which remained unchanged at 4.2% in May.
Former Vice President and failed Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris may think the governorship in California is the logical next step in her political career, but donors who tried mightily to push her across the finish line in 2024 are not so sure.
A new Politico report published Friday includes biting interviews with Democrat donors who are unsure whether they want to give Word Salad-Woman any more of their cash after her string of failures.
One major issue the donors had with Harris is that her losing campaign cost them a billion dollars and still ended up in debt with lingering questions about where some of the money went.
The other problem Harris faces is her presumed cover-up of former President Joe Biden's cognitive decline, the culpability for which she shares with most of the media and many other prominent Democrats.
One six-figure donor told Politico, “Kamala just reminds you we are in this complete shit storm. With Biden, we got bamboozled … I think she did the best she could in that situation, but obviously she knew about the cognitive decline too.”
He added, “I’ve written so many checks because I knew the Trump administration would be horrible, but we’re living in a nightmare because of the Democrats. I’m furious at them, truly.”
“There was more enthusiasm at first,” San Francisco-based Harris fundraiser Mather Martin said. “I think it waned a bit."
Politico reported that Harris has been quietly meeting with loyalists, some of whom have funded her campaigns since she first ran for district attorney in California 20 years ago.
She is reportedly exploring several different paths forward, including a philanthropic venture besides the governor's mansion.
While it is indeed hard to be more inept than current Governor Gavin Newsom, who came painfully close to being recalled, Harris could probably pull off that feat with one of her two remaining brain cells tied behind her back.
She really hasn't addressed Biden's cognitive decline and her part in hiding it, and now Democrat Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (also running for governor) is blasting her and Biden Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra as co-conspirators in keeping it a secret from voters until the disastrous debate against Trump last July.
Another unnamed fundraiser worried that Harris's candidacy would just bring up a specter of the Democrats' failure to win the presidency and remind voters how unsuccessful she has been.
Donors “realize it’s just going to bring up the whole pathetic last presidential, which no one wants to hear about again,” he said. “And then it’s the whole ‘Did you know Joe Biden?’ thing. She still would probably lead, but honestly, no one is incredibly pumped.”
Republican candidates in the race are already planning to use her failures against her if she runs, and possibly against other candidates who represent the Democrat party as well. Bottom line: California has a lot of problems, and donors already suspect Harris is not the one who can solve them.
Ivanka Trump, the daughter of President Donald Trump, and her husband attended the glamorous wedding of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in Venice, Italy, on Saturday.
Ivanka Trump, who has been a friend of Bezos and his new wife, Lauren Sánchez, for some time, attended Saturday night's final wedding bash wearing a black Carolina Herrera dress and reinforcing the Trump family's connections with the world's elite.
Accompanying Trump was her husband, Jared Kushner, who has also been another important figure in maintaining the Trump family's connection with the rich and powerful despite the political tensions that exist between the Trumps and many of the world's rich and famous.
By all accounts, Ivanka Trump's looks turned heads at the star-studded event that featured names like Tom Brady, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bill Gates, and Kim Kardashian.
The wedding of Bezos was an opportunity for the billionaire CEO to flex his power and wealth in a wedding weekend that began on Thursday, ending with Saturday night's bash.
The wedding was held at the Arsenale, a former medieval shipyard responsible for much of Venice's historical naval power. The event was moved there over security concerns caused by protestors who targeted Bezos' wedding over the extravagant wealth on display.
Those protestors gathered at the city’s train station for a march protesting Bezos saying “Bezos, f**k off,” and “Out of our lagoon!"
Another protester yelled into a loudspeaker saying, "Bezos goes hand-in-hand with (US President Donald) Trump, who’s fueling more money in war. We are for peace.” These few hundred protestors prompted enough of a security concern to get the wedding venue moved.
Other protestors were upset with the decadence of Bezos's wedding, considering the conditions that many Amazon workers endure to make Bezos one of the world's most powerful men.
However, the city of Venice has benefited greatly from Bezos' wedding as Venice’s Ministry of Tourism says the three-day wedding, which cost in the region of $55 million, will boost the city’s annual tourism turnover by a smashing 68%.
But that likely won't matter to many normal Italians who witnessed another star-studded gathering of the rich and famous at a time when wealth and glamour are resented in a world experiencing economic downturn and falling quality of life.
While Ivanka Trump turned heads and stood out among the world's wealthy, many are wondering what her future will be like, considering her father is the President of the United States.
Ivanka Trump served in an advisory role in her father's first term in the White House but has seemingly rejected working at the White House again because of the vicious and backhanded nature of working in American politics.
However, it is highly likely that Ivanka Trump is using her non-affiliation with the White House to her advantage in maintaining connections and drumming up support for the administration.
If nothing else, her continued visibility is a thorn in the side of the powerful who bear irrational hatred for the Trump family.
Newly released documents have confirmed that the Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden let Hunter Biden off the hook by not forcing him to register as a foreign agent.
The Oversight Project, a government watchdog, obtained the release of the files under a Freedom of Information Act request that the Trump administration was likely eager to comply with.
The Oversight Project president, Mike Howell, sat down for an exclusive interview with The Daily Mail, where he accused the DOJ of "refusing to look at the obvious, that Hunter was a foreign agent" due to his ties to a Ukrainian energy company.
Hunter Biden has been under scrutiny for years due to his position on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, despite his lack of qualifications. The former First Son has wiggled his way into multiple foreign companies, sparking suspicion that he was leveraging his family name.
These suspicions have since been confirmed as the entire Biden family made a profession out of selling access to the White House. However, we now know that the Biden DOJ was complicit in protecting the Biden family business.
The Oversight Project discovered that the Biden DOJ did not require Hunter Biden to register as a foreign agent even as they required other individuals undertaking similar ventures to register as foreign agents.
Documents show that in 2022, the DOJ determined that Burisma's former US lawyer, John Buretta of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, should have registered as a foreign agent when lobbying for Burisma in meetings with government officials in 2016.
Buretta should have registered as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which is designed to keep government officials and the American public informed about individuals acting on behalf of foreign governments or organizations.
All of this led to Howell stating, "Special Counsel David Weiss tried to basically pardon Hunter by a plea deal, refusing to look at the obvious, that Hunter was a foreign agent. The government, to include the intelligence community, federal law enforcement, prosecutors and the White House, twisted itself into pretzels over a long period of time to avoid the obvious with the Biden family."
It was obvious that Joe Biden, his brothers, and Hunter Biden were all selling access to the White House beginning when Joe Biden was former President Barack Obama's Vice President.
President Donald Trump pointed all of this out during the 2020 presidential election, but thanks to censorship by social media platforms in collusion with the intelligence community, it took years for the truth to become settled.
The corruption of the Biden family has gone unpunished despite the fact that the Bidens enriched themselves to the tune of millions by selling out the U.S. to foreign interests, most notably China.
While Hunter Biden's activities in Ukraine received the most scrutiny, there is also extensive documentation on the Biden family's ties to Chinese companies that are owned by the Chinese Communist Party.
The Trump administration is looking into the Biden family's activities, but the preemptive pardon given to Hunter Biden by Joe Biden in the last month of his term has complicated that investigation.
Food giant Nestle said it would remove all food, drug and cosmetic (FD&C) colors from its foods by mid-2026, handing a victory to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who has called for the dyes to be phased out or banned.
Nestle said in a June 25 press release that most of its foods are already free of these dyes, but they signaled their commitment to remove them completely.
“This effort is part of the company’s ongoing commitment to provide consumers with a range of high-quality, nutritious foods and beverages that reflect the diversity and choices that they want,” the press release read.
“Consumers enjoy a wide variety of foods and beverages as part of their daily diet. They want choice and value shaped by a dynamic – and highly personal – combination of nutrition, quality, price and convenience,” Nestlé USA CEO Marty Thompson said in a statement.
The move to eliminate the dyes, which some studies have indicated are harmful to the health of children and others, shows that companies are beginning to fall in line with the MAHA, or Make America Healthy Again, initiative.
In addition to Kennedy, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary is also calling for the dyes' removal. Makary and Kennedy said in April that they will be working together to get the food industry to remove them.
For now, they are eliciting cooperation from food companies rather than trying to impose mandates.
The focus is on “petroleum-based food dyes,” which include FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red No. 40, FD&C Yellow No. 5, FD&C Yellow No. 6, FD&C Blue No. 1, and FD&C Blue No. 2.
They would like to see these dyes removed from the American food supply by the end of 2026.
“For too long, some food producers have been feeding Americans petroleum-based chemicals without their knowledge or consent,” Kennedy said in a corresponding statement.
“These poisonous compounds offer no nutritional benefit and pose real, measurable dangers to our children’s health and development. That era is coming to an end. We’re restoring gold-standard science, applying common sense, and beginning to earn back the public’s trust. And we’re doing it by working with industry to get these toxic dyes out of the foods our families eat every day,” he added.
Kraft Heinz, Conagra Brands Inc., and General Mills are also taking steps to end the production of foods using the dyes in their foods, although it doesn't seem like they will all meet the hoped-for 2026 deadline.
The end of 2027 seems like a more realistic deadline for some of them, but they all plan to make significant progress during 2026.
These food dyes, while not explicitly banned in Europe and other parts of the world, are more heavily regulated and often require warning labels when they are used in food products.
Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright said on Thursday that the Trump administration is working to support a power grid that is reaching its limit.
Fox News reported that Wright cautioned that, currently, the Trump administration is working to prevent a disaster for the country:
"In my department, we've issued four emergency orders just in the last few weeks to stop the closure of reliable plants, so we can keep the lights on and stop pushing up electricity prices," Wright said on "Mornings with Maria."
"We were on a course that was a train wreck," he added. "We're doing everything possible now to sweep out the nonsense."
Earlier in the week, the DOE issued an emergency order to address the Southeast heatwave that is putting the power grid's capabilities under intense pressure.
According to the department, the stress puts sections of. The country is at risk of blackouts, and certain areas are at maximum utilization of the electric generating units.
"We had to issue an emergency order a few days ago just to let utilities in the Southeast run their plants at full capacity so they could keep the lights on. Under the Biden laws, that's illegal," Wright claimed.
According to the energy chief, it's only because of recent changes by the Trump administration on how energy generation and usage will be prioritized that the amount of power we have has been sufficient.
"Emissions rules would have prevented them from producing all the electricity they could, and they would have had rolling brownouts," Wright said. "That's just total nonsense."
The administration has been making major changes to boost grid capability and give the DOE access to emergency orders, and analyze electricity reserves in the U.S.
In February of this year, Wright signed a secretarial order as part of his plan to “Unleash [the] Golden Era of American Energy Dominance” under Trump's orders.
The order directed the DOE to pursue Trump's plan of American energy dominance, and he outlined nine core actions that would reduce regulatory barriers, expand domestic energy production, and modernize infrastructure.
The order also made it clear that the abundance of available energy was more important to the administration than net-zero carbon emission goals, saying that national security and economic competitiveness are top administration priorities.
"America is blessed with abundant energy resources – we are the world’s top oil and gas producer and a net energy exporter for the first time in decades," the order states. "Our energy abundance is an asset, not a liability."
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is still untangling the financial webs that were woven by criminals when the federal money was flowing at the height of the pandemic.
Case in point, a former news presenter from Phoenix was found guilty by a federal jury in Texas of conspiring to cheat the government of COVID-19 relief funds following a weeklong trial, as The Daily Mail reported.
Stephanie Hockridge and her husband, Nathan Reis, co-founded Blueacorn, which was a financial technology company that directed businesses in applying for the government Paycheck Protection Program.
Before her 2018 retirement from television, Hockridge spent seven years as a news anchor for Phoenix's ABC15.
“This defendant exploited a national emergency to personally profit from a taxpayer-funded program intended to support vulnerable individuals and small businesses,” said Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
“This conviction demonstrates the Department’s commitment to holding individuals accountable for defrauding the government and wasting taxpayer money.”
She and Reis were said to have falsified paperwork in order to seek loans totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars that they did not qualify for.
They allegedly went on to establish a business called "VIPPP" where they advised clients on how to submit false PPP loan applications in exchange for kickbacks proportional to the amount of the loans, as stated in their indictment.
A jury convicted Hockridge of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud; however, she got off on the other four charges.
A maximum of twenty years behind bars is in her future after she receives sentencing in the next few months.
“During a time of crisis in our country, this defendant abused the generosity of the American people by stealing money dedicated to the survival of small businesses to fraudulently enrich herself,” said Acting U. S. Attorney Nancy E. Larson for the Northern District of Texas. “We are proud of the diligent work of our law enforcement partners to hold her accountable and bring her to justice. Make no mistake, our efforts to bring such fraudsters to justice are ongoing.”
Hockridge said she sought to expose and prevent fraud, claiming she was misled. Her legal team attempted to justify her behavior by saying it was "a sincere effort to support small businesses during a time of unprecedented need" and blamed her husband for keeping her in the dark.
Reis will face a trial in August of this year. The charges against him included four counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
“This verdict is a victory for justice, accountability, and the American public,” said Special Agent in Charge Christopher J. Altemus Jr. of the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Dallas Field Office. “In a time of crisis, the Paycheck Protection Program was created as a lifeline to keep small businesses afloat and families fed."
Founding member of British rock bands Bad Company and Mott the Hoople, Mick Ralphs died Monday at age 81 from complications of a stroke he had in 2016, Bad Company's website said in a statement.
Ralphs was a guitarist, singer and songwriter for the two bands, and achieved success on the Billboard charts with Bad Company in the 1970s.
He is set to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November with Bad Company.
“Our Mick has passed, my heart just hit the ground,” Bad Company singer Paul Rodgers said in a statement.
“He has left us with exceptional songs and memories. He was my friend, my songwriting partner, an amazing and versatile guitarist who had the greatest sense of humour.”
Ralphs and Rodgers came together in 1973 after leaving their previous bands. In a 2015 interview with Gibson Guitars, Ralphs said they didn't intend to form a band, only to write songs together.
Drummer Simon Kirke from Rodgers' former band Free asked if he could sit in on their jam sessions, and the trio realized they only needed a bassist to have a complete new band.
The result was Bad Company, which had such hits as "Can't Get Enough," "Good Lovin' Gone Bad," and "Feel Like Making Love."
The band's first album was recorded in a week and included many live takes.
Ralphs said his recording style was about capturing a moment rather than having a perfect sound.
“We actually did the whole thing in one take live,” Ralphs said in the Gibson interview. “It wasn’t perfect, but we just said, ‘Yeah, that’s great, it’s going to capture the moment.’ That’s what I like to do in recording. It doesn’t have to be perfect as long as it captures the moment. That’s what it’s all about.”
The band's popularity was enduring, and Ralphs continued to put out more albums and perform until the day before his stroke in 2016.
The stroke marked the end of his music career; he had been bedridden ever since.
He will take his place in rock history with his bandmates.
President Donald Trump was in compliance with the War Powers Resolution when he ordered strikes on three nuclear testing sites in Iran, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said on NewsNation on Sunday.
Congress was notified of the strikes "well within" the 48-hour window required, Rounds said in an interview that pushed back on critics who said Trump acted outside his constitutional authority.
“The Constitution clearly gives the President the authority to act on our nation’s behalf,” Rounds said.
“Second of all, the War Powers Act, which is in place, was responded to appropriately. They were supposed to notify congressional leaders within 48 hours. They were well within that range of notifying them of the actions [that] were taken, so the law has been complied with. The Constitution is being complied with,” Rounds continued.
In Rounds' view, the Constitution was being applied just as “the founders wanted it to work.”
”The president is the chief. The commander in chief has the responsibility. Our Founding Fathers were brilliant in the way they wrote the Constitution. They understood that Congress takes a long time to act. They also understood that in times in military conflict or in times of great danger or emergencies that the president needed the authority to be able to respond quickly and effectively and decisively,” he said.
“This president did just exactly that. It is working the way the founders wanted it to work in the first place,” Rounds added.
Congress was notified of the strikes after bomber planes were safely out of Iran's airspace, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said.
It makes total sense that Trump would not want some members of Congress like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) to know about a planned attack in coordination with Israel, given their anti-Semitic comments and positions.
Clearly, he couldn't trust some Democrats to maintain confidentiality with the press or even with our enemies, as treasonous as that would be.
Rounds had a warning for Iran in another interview with The Hill on Sunday.
He said it was "time Iran understands they will never have a nuclear weapon" and that "there will be a price to pay" if they continue to be a "purveyor of terrorism" in the region.
WATCH: @SenatorRounds warns Iran to "give up your nuclear ambitions or there's more to come" during an interview with @ChrisStirewalt on "The Hill Sunday." pic.twitter.com/WT5fIlAqdl
— The Hill (@thehill) June 22, 2025
Some reports about the strikes have said that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) were briefed about the strikes, but Democrats like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said that Trump was wrong for not getting congressional authorization before the strikes and demanded that the full Congress be briefed.
President Donald Trump's plans to strike Iranian nuclear facilities without putting troops on the ground have the backing of the American people.
A new poll from Rasmussen Reports found that a plurality of Americans favor a U.S. air or naval strike on Iran to destroy its nuclear program without putting troops on the ground and engaging in a military operation to force regime change in Tehran.
This poll is particularly relevant after the announcement from the White House on Saturday evening that the U.S. Air Force had conducted airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, including the underground Fordow nuclear site.
Leading up to the strikes, the opinion of the American people has been fairly static, with strong support for military strikes but strong opposition to a ground war reminiscent of the Gulf War or the war in Afghanistan.
Trump appears to recognize this desire and is going to extreme lengths to decapitate the threat that Iran presents while avoiding a costly ground war that would risk American lives.
Israel is doing a majority of the heavy lifting, as they have thoroughly destroyed Iran's air forces and air defense equipment. Furthermore, Israel is using its air superiority to destroy Iran's ballistic missile capabilities.
As a result of Israel's dominance of Iran, American bombers faced little to no danger of being shot down, meaning there was little reason not to take advantage of the situation and destroy Iran's nuclear facilities after decades of sabre-rattling.
The Rasmussen Reports poll found that a plurality of Americans also support Israel's war against Iran, which is a fundamentalist Islamic state that sponsors terrorism in the Middle East.
If Iran had been allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, there was a high chance that Iran would allow their terrorist proxies to use such weapons, most likely against Israel.
The need to destroy Iran's nuclear research has existed for years, but it wasn't until Israel decapitated Iran's air capabilities that striking Iran's facilities became a safe bet.
Trump appears to have accomplished that goal by deploying B-2 bombers carrying advanced weapons designed to penetrate and destroy underground facilities. The next step for Trump will be resisting calls from war hawks and Israel to put boots on the ground and keep Americans happy.
While the U.S. gets to sit back and surgically destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, it remains Israel's war to topple the fundamentalist regime in Tehran. While the Trump administration will support Israel materially, Trump is committed to keeping U.S. troops out of harm's way.
The key priority for Trump is to avoid kicking off a decades-long war in the Middle East where American lives are sacrificed for fruitless nation-building.
Iran has a standing army and is a highly defensible region, meaning that a conventional war was never an option, but none of that will be necessary. All of this is great news and further cements Trump's masterful reputation in foreign policy.