The Trump administration has announced a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that will cut its Washington-area workforce by more than half.
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| “Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.” |
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The Trump administration has announced a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that will cut its Washington-area workforce by more than half and shift thousands of positions to regional hubs, part of President Donald Trump’s broader push to shrink the federal government and move agencies closer to the communities they serve.
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President Donald Trump signed a bill on July 24 to claw back $9 billion in federal spending. It rescinds $7.9 billion in spending under the now-defunct U.S. Agency for International Development, whose responsibilities have been folded into the State Department. It also eliminates $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), both of which have been accused by conservative critics and the Trump administration of liberal bias.
- Bipartisan momentum is building in Congress to push the Securities and Exchange Commission toward delisting Chinese firms with ties to the Chinese Communist Party and human rights abuses.
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The U.S. State Department on July 24 condemned Russian authorities’ escalating repression against Falun Gong after a Moscow court sentenced a practitioner of the faith group to four years in prison.
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🍵 Health: Americans spend trillions on health care but remain unwell. Here’s why.
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| Ivan Pentchoukov
National Editor |
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The Trump administration has announced a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that will cut its Washington-area workforce by more than half and shift thousands of positions to regional hubs, part of President Donald Trump’s broader push to shrink the federal government and move agencies closer to the communities they serve. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the reorganization plan in a July 24 memo, which lays out plans to cut the department’s D.C.-area staff from about 4,600 to fewer than 2,000 employees.
“American agriculture feeds, clothes, and fuels this nation and the world, and it is long past time the Department better serve the great and patriotic farmers, ranchers, and producers we are mandated to support,” Rollins said in a statement.
“President Trump was elected to make real change in Washington, and we are doing just that by moving our key services outside the beltway and into great American cities across the country.”
The move will consolidate headquarters operations, vacate multiple federal buildings in the capital, and relocate much of the agency’s work to five hub cities: Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis, Indiana; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City, Utah.
The reorganization plan rests on four “pillars,” according to the USDA: reducing the workforce so it’s better aligned with available funding and policy priorities, relocating resources closer to farmers and ranchers, eliminating management layers and bureaucracy, and consolidating redundant support functions.
Much of the workforce reduction will come through voluntary retirements and the Deferred Retirement Program, which offers incentives for employees to resign at a future date. USDA said 15,364 workers have opted into that program so far. Targeted layoffs may follow if voluntary measures fall short. (More) More Politics: |
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President Donald Trump said that he does not want to revoke tech billionaire Elon Musk’s contracts with the U.S. government, a day after the White House signaled that it may no longer be doing business with Musk’s artificial intelligence company.
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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell disagreed with President Donald Trump about the overall cost of the renovations of the central bank’s headquarters in a tense moment during the president’s tour of the construction site.
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Investment firm Azoria Capital has filed a lawsuit against Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and other monetary policymakers to block next week’s closed-door meeting.
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The U.S. government has commenced a civil lawsuit against the city of New York and its mayor, Eric Adams, calling for the overturning of city bylaws that make the jurisdiction a “sanctuary” for foreign nationals against immigration enforcement.
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Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said Democrats remain split over how seriously to treat President Donald Trump's second term and must adopt a tougher posture on Capitol Hill to counter it.
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The Federal Communications Commission has approved the $8 billion merger between Paramount Global and Skydance.
“The FCC has approved Skydance’s purchase of CBS after the company made significant new commitments on ... addressing bias and restoring fact-based reporting, ending discriminatory [diversity, equity, and inclusion practices], [and] investing in trusted local news,” Carr wrote in a post on X.
The FCC chairman said the changes would “represent an important step towards earning back Americans’ trust” in the media conglomerate, and warned Paramount’s new owner that his agency “Will be watching.” In an extended statement attached to his X post, Carr wrote that “Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly.” “That is why I welcome Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network,” Carr said. “Skydance has made written commitments to ensure that the new company’s programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum.”
As part of the deal, Skydance has committed to installing an ombudsman for at least two years who will report to the president of New Paramount and “evaluate complaints of bias.” (More)
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The U.S. State Department on July 24 condemned Russian authorities’ escalating repression against Falun Gong after a Moscow court sentenced a practitioner of the faith group to four years in prison.
“The United States condemns the Russian government’s actions targeting and repressing members of religious minorities, including Falun Gong practitioners,” a State Department spokesperson told The Epoch Times.
“We urge Russia to respect the right of all to exercise the freedom of religion or belief. All religious minorities should be able to enjoy freedom of religion and assembly without interference.”
A Moscow court a day earlier sentenced 47-year-old Natalya Minenkova to four years in prison for her role in a local Falun Gong organization, which had been declared “undesirable” under a controversial 2015 law that critics say has allowed for politically motivated prosecutions targeting international nonprofits. Earlier in the week, Russian authorities in Siberia raided the home of another Falun Gong practitioner and confiscated the person’s phone and laptop. The escalation against the group, which has been severely persecuted in China since 1999, comes as Moscow and Beijing have forged closer ties in recent years.
Minenkova, an assistant manager for a dental equipment supplier, had been detained since her arrest in May 2024, weeks before Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping visited Moscow. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who co-chairs the Congressional–Executive Commission on China, said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Xi have “entered into a marriage of convenience.” “Russia is doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party, as evidenced by the repression directed at a peaceful Falun Gong practitioner,” Smith told The Epoch Times. “Putin has made a bargain with the devil, to the detriment of the people of Russia—and to an innocent Russian, Natalya Minenkova.”
He believes that, in time, “Russia will find this marriage of convenience an unhappy one.” (More) More World News: |
- The United States abandoned peace talks with Hamas after the terrorist group signaled that it didn’t seek to come to an agreement on a cease-fire with Israel.
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Residents across multiple provinces in China have taken to social media to report alarming conditions in their tap water—ranging from foul, sewage-like odors to discoloration and oily textures.
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Conservative commentator Candace Owens was sued for defamation by French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, over Owens’s claim that France’s first lady is a man.
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A man is pushed on a swing at the edge of an observatory deck claimed to be Indonesia's highest, at the Thamrin Nine building in Jakarta, on July 24, 2025. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images) |
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The Good News From the Colbert Cancellation—by Jeffrey A. Tucker (Read)
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🎵 Music: Debussy - Beau Soir, L. 6 (Listen)
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When Mei Lin’s mother collapsed from a stroke, she rushed to the hospital and stayed by her side for days. Doctors acted quickly, performed scans, prescribed medications, and stabilized her condition. It was an incredible feat of modern medicine—swift, technical, and life-saving.
However, once her mother returned home, Mei Lin had a different challenge—keeping her mother from ending up in the hospital again. The shift from crisis management to prevention highlights an important distinction: What happened in the hospital was medical care, and what needed to happen at home was health care. They are not the same thing. Medical care is essential when something serious happens—if you break a bone, have a stroke, or need a tumor removed.In other words, medical care is like calling the fire department when your house is burning.
Essential? Absolutely. But you don’t call firefighters every day to keep your home safe—that’s your job. Modern society has become overly reliant on medical care while neglecting genuine health care.
True health care is everything we do to stay out of the hospital. It’s our daily habits and environments that either protect us from disease or expose us to it. It must be earned through daily choices, consistent discipline, and conscious effort.
The United States spends more on medical care than any other country, with expenditures of $4.9 trillion in 2023—more than 17 percent of the gross domestic product—almost twice the average of other wealthy countries.
Despite this staggering investment, chronic diseases like Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity, depression, and anxiety continue to rise at alarming rates. (More)
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Thanks for reading 🙏 Have a wonderful day! |
—Ivan Pentchoukov, Madalina Hubert, and Kenzi Li. |
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