The Latest: Trump administration sets the stage for large-scale federal worker layoffs

Federal agencies must develop plans to eliminate employee positions, according to a memo distributed by President Donald Trump ’s administration.

Thousands of probationary employees have already been fired, and now his administration is turning its attention to career officials with civil service protection. Agencies are directed to submit by March 13 their plans for what's known as a reduction in force, which would not only lay off employees but eliminate the position altogether. The result could be extensive changes in how government functions.

Here's the latest:

Trump plans tariffs on Mexico and Canada for March 4, while doubling existing 10% tariffs on China

Posting on Truth Social, Trump says illicit drugs such as fentanyl are being smuggled into the United States at “unacceptable levels” and import taxes would force other countries to crackdown on the trafficking.

“We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA, and therefore, until it stops, or is seriously limited, the proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled,” Trump wrote. “China will likewise be charged an additional 10% Tariff on that date.”

The prospect of escalating tariffs has already thrown the global economy into turmoil — with consumers expressing fears about inflation worsening and the auto sector possibly suffering if America’s two largest trading partners in Canada and Mexico are slapped with taxes. The prospect of higher prices and slower growth could create political blowback for Trump.

▶ Read more about Trump’s tariffs

As Trump’s deadline to eliminate DEI nears, few schools openly rush to make changes

Schools and colleges across the U.S. face a Friday deadline to end diversity programs or risk having their federal money pulled by the Trump administration, yet few are openly rushing to make changes. Many believe they’re on solid legal ground, and they know it would be all but unprecedented — and extremely time-consuming — for the government to cut off funding.

State officials in Washington and California urged schools not to make changes, saying it doesn’t change federal law and doesn’t require any action. New York City schools have taken the same approach and said district policies and curriculum haven’t changed.

Leaders of some colleges shrugged the memo off entirely. Antioch University ’s chief said “most of higher education” won’t comply with the memo unless federal law is changed. Western Michigan University’s president told his campus to “please proceed as usual.”

▶ Read more about the Trump administration’s effect on education

EU pushes back hard against Trump tariff threats and his caustic comments that bloc is out to get US

And the European Union warned it would vigorously fight any wholesale tariff of 25% on all EU products.

The tit-for-tat dispute following the vitriolic comments of Trump aimed at an age-old ally and its main postwar economic partner further deepened the trans-Atlantic rift that was already widened by Trump’s warnings that Washington would drop security guarantees for its European allies.

Thursday’s EU pushback came after Trump told reporters “the European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That’s the purpose of it, and they’ve done a good job of it,” adding that it would stop immediately under his presidency.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, went on a counteroffensive.

“The EU wasn’t formed to screw anyone,” Tusk said in an X post. “Quite the opposite. It was formed to maintain peace, to build respect among our nations, to create free and fair trade, and to strengthen our transatlantic friendship. As simple as that.”

▶ Read more about Trump and the European Union

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rises to the highest level in 3 months

Applications for U.S. jobless benefits rose to a three-month high last week but remained within the same healthy range of the past three years.

The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits rose by 22,000 to 242,000 for the week ending Feb. 22, the Labor Department said Thursday. Analysts projected that 220,000 new applications would be filed.

Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs.

▶ Read more about the latest unemployment numbers

Proposed legislation takes aim at Trump’s meme coin

California Democrat Rep. Sam Liccardo, a freshman congressman who represents Silicon Valley, said he’s surprised the first piece of legislation he’s sponsoring takes aim at President Donal Trump’s meme coin.

“That wasn’t my plan when I ran for office, I can assure you,” said Liccardo, the former mayor of San Jose.

But the president’s launch of a meme coin just before taking office last month needed some kind of response, said Liccardo. Those who bought the meme coin right after launch made out, but the price quickly dropped leaving others with big losses. Even Trump-supporting crypto enthusiasts found the launch distasteful.

“That behavior is so self-evidently unethical that it raises the question why isn’t there a clear enough prohibition,” he said, adding that Trump’s meme coin raises concerns about transparency, insider trading and improper foreign influence.

▶ Read more about Liccardo’s proposed legislation

A Project 2025 author carries out his vision for mass federal layoffs

The Trump administration’s demand that federal agencies plan to radically downsize is driven by a key figure in the conservative movement who has long planned this move: Russell Vought.

In Trump’s first term, Vought was a largely behind-the-scenes player who eventually became director of the influential but underappreciated Office of Management and Budget. He is back in that job in Trump’s second term after being the principal author of Project 2025, the conservative governing blueprint that Trump insisted during the 2024 campaign was not part of his agenda.

The memo Vought co-signed Wednesday is the clearest assertion of his power and the latest seminal writing for a man who argues the federal bureaucracy is an existential threat to the country itself and that it should dramatically downsize.

▶ Read more about Russell Vought’s vision for federal government

Pentagon orders new purge of social media sites to dump diversity, inclusion mentions by March 5

Building lethality in the military may be the buzzword for the new Trump administration, but busywork and paperwork have become the reality at the Pentagon, as service members and civilian workers are facing a broad mandate to purge all of the department’s social media sites and untangle confusing personnel reduction moves.

On Wednesday, the department’s top public affairs official signed and sent out a new memo requiring all the military services to spend countless hours poring over years of website postings, photos, news articles and videos to remove any mentions that “promote diversity, equity and inclusion.”

If they can’t do that by March 5, they have been ordered to “temporarily remove from public display” all content published during the Biden administration’s four years in office, according to a copy of the memo obtained by The Associated Press.

▶ Read more about the Pentagon’s DEI purge

VA pauses billions in cuts as lawmakers and veterans decry loss of critical care

The Department of Veterans Affairs has temporarily suspended billions of dollars in planned contract cuts following concerns that the move would hurt critical veterans’ health services, lawmakers and veterans service organizations said Wednesday.

The pause affects hundreds of VA contracts that Secretary Doug Collins a day earlier described as simply consulting deals, whose cancellation would save $2 billion as the Trump administration works to slash costs across the federal government.

▶ Read more about the VA cuts

Supreme Court blocks order for Trump administration to release billions in US foreign aid

The Trump administration said it is eliminating more than 90% of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall U.S. assistance around the world, putting numbers on its plans to eliminate the majority of U.S. development and humanitarian help abroad.

The cuts detailed by the administration would leave few surviving USAID projects for advocates to try to save in what are ongoing court battles with the administration.

The Trump administration outlined its plans in both an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press and filings in one of those federal lawsuits Wednesday.

The Supreme Court intervened in that case late Wednesday and temporarily blocked a court order requiring the administration to release billions of dollars in foreign aid by midnight.

▶ Read more about the U.S. foriegn aid cuts

Outside the USAID headquarters: Supporters, flowers and a somber mood

The early scene at the USAID headquarters in Washington D.C. was quiet and somber. Few people were there for the first scheduled shift to retrieve their personal belongings.

A small group of supporters stood outside under heavily overcast skies to thank workers for their service but declined to give their names for fear of retribution. There was a small bucket of flowers for the memorial inside to USAID employees who have died in service to the country.