The Trump administration issued a memo on Tuesday directing all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) employees to be put on paid leave. 
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- The Trump administration issued a memo on Tuesday directing all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) employees to be put on paid leave.
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The attorneys general from 22 states filed lawsuits against President Donald Trump’s executive order denying citizenship to children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants and non-citizens.
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Border czar Tom Homan said that U.S. immigration officials have already started carrying out deportations, targeting illegal immigrants who are deemed a threat to public safety.
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The Chinese communist regime has signaled it will communicate with Secretary of State Marco Rubio despite its sanctions against him.
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Authorities in Panama announced on Jan. 20 that they have launched an audit of the Hong Kong-based port operator that controls ports near the Panama Canal, shortly after Trump repeated his intention to bring the waterway back under U.S. control.
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The Trump administration issued a memo on Tuesday directing all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) employees to be put on paid leave as agencies work to dismantle DEI initiatives.
The memo, sent by the Office of Personnel Management, directs agencies to place DEI employees on paid leave by 5 p.m. on Jan. 22 and to remove all websites and social media accounts associated with DEI initiatives by the same time.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order shortly after his inauguration aimed at eliminating DEI-focused policies and programs within the federal government. According to the memo, federal agencies are required to cancel all DEI-related training programs and terminate any contractors involved in the initiatives. The memo also directs agencies to compile a list of federal DEI offices and staff working in those offices as of Nov. 5, 2024, and to submit a plan for executing a “reduction-in-force action” against those workers to the Office of Personnel Management by Jan. 31.
The agencies are also required to provide a list by the end of the month of any contract or position descriptions that were changed after the Nov. 5 election “to obscure their connection” to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs. (More)
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President Donald Trump appears at a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington on Jan. 21, 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) |
A coalition of 22 state attorneys general and two cities have filed lawsuits seeking to block President Donald Trump’s executive order denying citizenship to children born in the United States to illegal immigrants and other non-citizens. All but two of the 22 plaintiff states are led by Democrat governors.
One of the complaints, filed on Jan. 21 at the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, alleges that Trump’s Jan. 20 order to end birthright citizenship violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Section 1401 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
“President Trump’s attempt to unilaterally end birthright citizenship is a flagrant violation of our Constitution,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Matthew Platkin. “For more than 150 years, our country has followed the same basic rule: babies who are born in this country are American citizens.”
In addition to New Jersey, the other states in the suit are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, plus the District of Columbia and the City and County of San Francisco.
Arizona, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington filed a separate complaint in a Seattle court, making essentially the same claim. Trump’s order, issued shortly after he assumed office on Jan. 20, claims that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause does not universally grant citizenship to everyone born in the United States. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. However, after reporters asked Trump on Monday about potential legal challenges to his order, the president said: “We think we have good ground, but you could be right. You'll find out.”
The states’ legal challenge follows a similar lawsuit filed on Jan. 20 by a coalition of groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), State Democracy Defenders Fund, and Legal Defense Fund. (More) More Politics |
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TikTok remained unavailable on Tuesday for U.S. users of Google Play and Apple’s app store after Trump signed an executive order to delay a ban on the video app.
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Trump announced a $500 billion private-sector investment to build artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States. OpenAI, Softbank, and Oracle will invest in the infrastructure through their joint venture, Stargate.
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The Department of Homeland Security is removing all members of its various advisory committees.
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Trump on Monday rescinded more than 70 executive actions enacted by his predecessor. Here are the most significant rescissions.
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Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Jan. 21 as Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She criticized the multilateral organization over its stances against Israel.
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Preemptive pardons, like those former President Joe Biden issued to his family, are somewhat rare, but not without precedent.
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Trump named an acting director for the FBI, while his nominee, Kash Patel, undergoes confirmation hearings.
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The U.S. Coast Guard’s commandant, Adm. Linda Fagan, has been removed from her duties and position by the acting head of the Department of Homeland Security.
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Concerns about U.S. security are intensifying, experts say, in the wake of changes recently enacted by the world’s predominant drone company—based in China. For more than a decade, Da-Jiang Innovations, better known as DJI, had employed “geofencing” that automatically blocked operators from entering restricted airspace or “no-fly zones,” as declared by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Those zones, which include high-profile locations such as the White House, can also temporarily encompass scenes of natural disasters or large public gatherings.
But DJI, which holds a 90-percent share of the global drone market, eliminated the geofencing feature from most of its drones being used in the United States. The company took that action on Jan. 13, a week before President Donald Trump’s inauguration and shortly after mysterious drone sightings in several states. DJI’s announcement triggered concerns from citizens and experts alike.
“The fact that these drones will now be allowed to be flown freely—without any sort of built-in restrictions—in the national airspace is absolutely a cause of concern,” Gabriel Garcia, technical director for SPS Aerial Remote Sensing, a Texas company specializing in counter-drone technology, told The Epoch Times.
DJI may have been funneling “U.S. critical infrastructure and law enforcement data to the Chinese government,” a 2017 U.S. Intelligence Bulletin said. Since then, Congress has taken several steps to counter the perceived threat, including prohibiting the Department of Defense (DOD) from using Chinese-made drones or drone parts.
The company has denied the allegations. DJI says that “critics have propagated a multi-year political campaign alleging security issues with DJI drones,” but independent audits and user testimonials left those claims unsupported. (More) More U.S. News |
- Homeland Security Investigations formed a task force with local law enforcement to investigate and prosecute crimes that exploit the vulnerabilities created by the region’s wildfires.
- A brush fire broke out in the city of San Diego on the afternoon of Jan. 21, and three wildfires erupted overnight in northern San Diego County, as strong Santa Ana winds blew through Southern California.
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Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo are offering clients affected by the fires a 90-day forbearance on mortgage payments with no late fees.
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The developer of the online game Genshin Impact agreed to pay $20 million to settle allegations of violating data privacy of children and duping players into spending money on in-game loot boxes.
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The Chinese communist regime has signaled it will communicate with the new U.S. secretary of state despite the regime’s sanctions against the Trump appointee, former Sen. Marco Rubio.
In 2020, the Florida senator, who is a vocal critic of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) human rights record, was targeted twice by Beijing’s retaliatory sanctions, after the U.S. Treasury Department imposed human rights sanctions on officials in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
Following his confirmation on Jan. 20, Rubio is now the first sitting U.S. secretary of state sanctioned by the Chinese regime. Beijing also sanctioned former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Jan. 21, 2021—one day after Pompeo and the first Trump administration left office.
Speaking from Beijing on Jan. 20, Guo Jiakun, spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, did not answer a question on whether Beijing would drop its sanctions against Rubio. “In the meantime, it’s necessary for high-level Chinese and American officials to maintain contact in an appropriate way,” Jiakun said.
In the official Chinese-language transcript of the press conference, the regime quietly replaced one Chinese character used for Rubio’s name with a homophone. Chinese netizens speculated that the regime was trying to minimize its embarrassment by pretending there are two different people. (More)
More World News: |
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Rubio spent his first day on the job engaging with his peers from Australia, India, and Japan—a grouping of four that share concerns about the growing challenges from communist China.
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Government officials told Canada’s Foreign Interference Commission that China’s disinformation efforts are targeting young people on TikTok as part of a long-term strategy to shape future Western leaders.
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South Korean intelligence agencies detected a structure allegedly built by China in waters where the exclusive economic zones of both countries overlap in the West Sea, according to a local report.
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🎤 Interview: America has disease care, not health care, says Dr. Jingduan Yang. (Watch)
🍿 Documentary: Mully retells the story of a homeless orphan in Kenya who became wealthy only to give it all up and open an orphanage that today serves over 2,000 Kenyan children. (Watch free on Gan Jing World)
✍️ Opinion: This Transition Is Already a Huge Historical Marker by Jeffrey A. Tucker
🍵 Health: Mindfulness can help disconnect our sense of self from our feelings of pain.
🎵 Music: Smetana: Dance of the Comedians from The Bartered Bride (Listen)
📷 Photo of the Day: A bus drives on a bridge over the Chao Phraya River amid high air pollution levels in Bangkok on Jan. 21, 2025. 👇
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Chanakarn Laosarakham/AFP via Getty Images |
Discover children’s books that celebrate winter. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock) |
Winter is a great time to introduce (or reintroduce) children to the joy of reading. What better subject matter than the enchanting season of winter? As the world puts on draperies of mist and snow, find a quiet corner with your little one to read some books together. Here are some recommended children’s books—from board books to picture books—that celebrate winter in some way. ‘Annie and the Wild Animals’ by Jan Brett—This picture book tells of little Annie’s attempts to find a new pet after her cat runs away. Jan Brett’s inimitable illustration style lovingly renders the majesty of the northern woods and northern animals in winter with careful attention to detail. ‘The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’ by C. S. Lewis—This modern classic takes place almost entirely in the winter wonderland of Narnia, a place of perpetual ice and snow because of a spell cast over the land by the White Witch.
The setting adds to the power and mystery of Lewis’s tale; the siblings travel through alien, frozen landscapes filled with marvelous creatures. ‘Friendly Gables’ by Hilda van Stockum—“Friendly Gables” is the third volume in a series of chapter books by Hilda van Stockum called “The Mitchells.”
This book doesn’t technically take place in winter, but the first line of the book—“It was the twenty-first of March, the birthday of spring, but in Canada winter still reigned”—explains why it’s on this list.
Click here to read the full story by our colleague Walker Larson.
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