Trump reportedly wants to shrink size and focus of state department; climate agency braces for more cuts – live

Donald Trump is planning to sign an executive order that would for the first time make English the nation’s official language, the Wall Street Journal (paywall) reports citing White House officials.

In its almost 250-year history, the US has never had an official national language at the federal level. Owing to a long history of immigration from all around the world, more than 350 languages are spoken across the country.

The executive order would rescind a Clinton-era federal mandate that agencies and other recipients of federal funding are required to provide language assistance to non-English speakers, the officials told the WSJ. Agencies will still be able to provide documents and services in languages other than English, according to a White House summary of the order viewed by the paper. The summary of the order said the goal of making English the national language is to promote unity, establish efficiency in the government and provide a pathway to civic engagement.

Though the US doesn’t have an official language, applicants must pass a test demonstrating an ability to read, write and speak English to become naturalized citizens. According to the US Census Bureau, most Americans – more than 78% – speak only English at home. But millions of Americans primarily speak other languages, such as Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog and Arabic. Dozens of Native American languages are also spoken in the US.

Vice-president JD Vance introduced the English Language Unity Act when he served as a senator from Ohio. The proposed bill called for the federal government to conduct all official business in English and introduce a language-testing standard for a pathway to citizenship.

An important measure of inflation in the United States has eased slightly, my colleague Graeme Wearden reports.

The PCE price index, which tracks the costs of a range of goods and services, slowed to a 2.5% rise in the year to January, down from 2.6% in December.

Core PCE, which excludes the price of food and energy, eased to 2.6% per year – down from 2.9% in the 12 months to December.

PCE is the preferred inflation measure of the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, so this may reassure policymakers that inflationary pressures are easing….

For all things business, you can follow Graeme’s reporting over on the business live blog.

Ben Makuch

With Kash Patel officially appointed as the new FBI director and Dan Bongino as his number two, experts are warning the fate of federal law enforcement investigations into the far right face a grim future.

Patel taking the reins of the FBI also coincides with a resurgence of the Base, an accelerationist neo-Nazi group with terrorism designations around the world, along with other emboldened extremists connected to the January 6 attacks on the Capitol.

But after peddling QAnon conspiracies and writing a children’s book portraying president Donald Trump as a king, Patel has already signalled he is not interested in pursuing insurrectionists or other extremists.

Instead, he has put Black Lives Matter, antifascist activists, the media and his own FBI agents daring to go against his agenda, on watch.

For his part, Bongino, a superstar among conservative podcasters, regularly feeds election denialism, January 6 screeds and bigotries about “illegals” to his millions of listeners. A former NYPD cop and Secret Service agent on both the presidential details of Barack Obama and George W Bush, Bongino often calls Democrats “communists” and his enemy.

“I think it makes it very unlikely that the far right will continue to be seen as the threat it actually is in terms of hate crimes and domestic terrorism,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, about the new FBI leadership. She added:

Patel’s past QAnon links and Bongino’s bigotry likely make taking this threat seriously, regardless of the fact, impossible for these two men.

Both of them, seen by some as Trump’s “henchmen”, have all but sworn public omerta to the president. Patel is even refusing to count out dispatching the bureau and its agents to target Trump’s political enemies. In one of his first acts as director, Patel relocated up to 1,500 agents from its central headquarters at the J Edgar Hoover building in Washington DC – the heart of what he calls the “deep state” and where several counterterrorism and national security investigators are working.

“All of this marks a huge departure from the first Trump administration, when the FBI for the first time declared white supremacy the country’s greatest domestic terrorist threat,” Beirich said, adding:

Facts about violence and its perpetrators probably won’t matter this time around.

Read more here:

Donald Trump wants to radically shrink the state department – leaving it with fewer diplomats, a smaller number of embassies and a narrower remit that critics argue could hand China wins across the world, Politico reports.

The administration appears “determined to focus state on areas such as transactional government agreements, safeguarding US security and promoting foreign investment in America”. That would mean slashing bureaus promoting traditional soft power initiatives – such as those advancing democracy, protecting human rights and supporting scientific research.

It’s not clear yet how many embassies would be closed, but Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, is on board with cutting a significant number, a person familiar with the internal discussions told Politico.

The move is “going to dramatically shrink the ambit of American diplomacy, dramatically shrink the purpose and the practice of our diplomacy and return it, if not to the 19th century, at least” before the second world war, said Tom Shannon, a former senior state department official who served under Republican and Democratic presidents.

The Trump administration has set its government-shrinking sights on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Assocation (Noaa), the US’s preeminent climate research agency, where around 800 employees have been tapped for termination, two sources close to the agency have told ABC7 NewYork.

More layoff are possible today, one of the sources said, potentially costing the agency more than a thousand employees by the end of the week.

Employees began receiving termination notices on Thursday, learning via email that their jobs would be cut off by the end of the day. The firings specifically affected probationary employees, a categorization that applies to new hires or those moved or promoted into new positions, and which makes up roughly 10% of the agency’s workforce.

Noaa conducts climate and weather modeling and forecasts for the country, as its National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center provides information that helps communities plan for natural disasters and climate change-driven events. These cuts come days before a potential severe weather outbreak in the south-eastern US and just a few months ahead of the next Atlantic hurricane season.

It is not only laid-off employees who will be harmed by the cuts, one worker said yesterday. Ordinary Americans who rely on Noaa’s extreme weather forecasts, climate data and sustainably monitored fisheries will also suffer. They said:

Words can’t describe the impact this will have, both on us at Noaa and on the country. It’s just wrong all around.

Andrew Rosenberg, former deputy director of Noaa’s National Marine Fisheries Service, said Thursday was a “sad day”.

There is no plan or thought into how to continue to deliver science or service on weather, severe storms and events, conservation and management of our coasts and ocean life and much more.

Let’s not pretend this is about efficiency, quality of work or cost savings because none of those false justifications are remotely true.

Tucked away in a former garage space in Toronto’s west end, Gram’s Pizza, is usually packed with diners hankering for anything from a classic pepperoni to vodka and hot hawaiian.

Lately, however, owner and chef Graham Palmateer has made some changes to how he makes his pizzas.

After Donald Trump threatened to slap a 25% tariff on Canadian goods – and even to annex the whole country – Palmateer decided to banish US ingredients from his restaurant.

“I just decided I was done with the US. I wanted to move away from American companies,” he said. “Canadians know Americans pretty well, and we don’t always agree with the choices that they make. A lot of us are disappointed, to put it mildly.”

Making the switch has not been the easiest task: the two countries’ economies have been tightly bound through a longstanding free trade agreement since the late 1980s.

But years of cross-border trade and investment has blurred the lines on country of origin: in the car manufacturing industry, for example, a vehicle passes the border an average of seven times during the manufacturing process.

Read the full report here:

by Kat Lay, Global health correspondent

Sweeping notices of termination of funding have been received by organisations working with HIV and Aids across Africa, with dire predictions of a huge rise in deaths as a result.

After the US announced a permanent end to funding for HIV projects, services across the board have been affected, say doctors and programme managers, from projects helping orphans and pregnant women to those reaching transgender individuals and sex workers.

The cuts could result in 500,000 deaths over the next 10 years in South Africa, modelling suggests, while thousands of people are already set to lose their jobs in the coming days.

The US government has announced it will be cutting more than 90% of the contracts of its key development agency, USAid, and slashing $60bn (£48bn) of overseas aid spending.

The Guardian has heard that notices of termination have been sent to organisations in other countries in the region, including Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, as well as with the joint United Nations programme UNAids.

Read the full report here:

America must not surrender its democratic values

Bernie Sanders

For 250 years, the United States has held itself up as a symbol of democracy – an example of freedom and self-governance to which the rest of the world could aspire. People have long looked to our declaration of independence and constitution as blueprints for how to guarantee those human rights and freedoms.

Tragically, all of that is changing. As Donald Trump moves this country towards authoritarianism, he is aligning himself with dictators and despots who share his disdain for democracy and the rule of law.

This week, in a radical departure from longstanding US policy, the Trump administration voted against a United Nations resolution which clearly stated that Russia began the horrific war with Ukraine. That resolution also called on Russia to withdraw its forces from occupied Ukraine, in line with international law. The resolution was brought forward by our closest allies, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and dozens more democratic nations. And 93 countries voted “yes”.

Rather than side with our longstanding allies to preserve democracy and uphold international law, the president voted with authoritarian countries such as Russia, North Korea, Iran and Belarus to oppose the resolution. Many of the other opponents of that resolution are undemocratic nations propped up by Russian military aid.

Let’s be clear: this was not just another UN vote. This was the president of the United States turning his back on 250 years of our history and openly aligning himself with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. This was the president of the United States undermining the independence of Ukraine.

Read the full opinion piece here:

The Russian foreign ministry praised the latest round of talks with the United States in a statement on Friday, calling them “substantive and businesslike”.

Russian and US teams held six hours of talks in Turkey on Thursday to try to restore the normal functioning of their embassies, and Vladimir Putin said initial contacts with Donald Trump’s administration had inspired hope.

The foreign ministry said the delegations had discussed issues related to what it said was the illegal confiscation of Russia’s diplomatic property in the US and had asked the Americans to consider restoring direct air links.

It said both sides had agreed on steps to restore the uninterrupted financing and normal operations of their respective embassies, Reuters reports.

Marty Baron, a highly regarded former editor of the Washington Post, has said that Jeff Bezos’s announcement that the newspaper’s opinion section would narrow its editorial focus was a “betrayal of the very idea of free expression” that had left him “appalled”.

In an interview with the Guardian, Baron also said: “I don’t think that [Bezos] wants an editorial page that’s regularly going after Donald Trump.”

On Wednesday, the billionaire newspaper owner and Amazon founder sent an email to Post staffers announcing that the newspaper’s editorial section would shift its editorial focus and that only opinions that support and defend “personal liberties” and “free markets” would be welcome, and other viewpoints “will be left to be published by others”.

Bezos’s announcement was met with criticism and resulted in the departure of the newspaper’s opinions editor, David Shipley. Baron, who was executive editor of the Washington Post from 2012 until 2021 and is one of the most esteemed figures in American journalism, blasted Bezos’s decision.

You can read the full report here:

Cardinal Robert McElroy, the bishop of San Diego who is preparing to take over as archbishop of Washington DC next month, has called for a compassionate approach toward refugees and immigrants who are in the United States illegally.

Associated Press reported that in a press conference in San Diego he said the removal of immunity for houses of worship from immigration enforcement is particularly problematic, and a “deep moral question.”

“When these places become targets of ICE raids, it strikes fear in everyone’s hearts, and it acts as a deterrent to people going to church and freely worshipping or going to schools,” he said. “That’s why it’s so deadly.”

“A nation needs to secure its borders and a strong immigration policy, but what we’re seeing is an effort to classify all of these people as criminals,” he said. “That casts them as the other or not having the same dignity.”

McElroy has previously stated that Trump’s threats of mass deportations of immigrants are “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.”

McElroy, 70, is set to replace retiring Cardinal Wilton Gregory.

China’s foreign ministry has hit out at comments made by secretary of state Marco Rubio. Reuters reports that the ministry said Rubio’s comments that China may be flooding the US with fentanyl demonstrated a “cold war mentality”.

At a regular press conference, ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said China expressed strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to Rubio’s comments, adding: “The US keeps coercing and threatening China, which will only backfire on itself.”

The ministry also asserted that US criticism of China’s treatment of the Uyghurs were the “lies of the century”.

China’s commerce ministry has also commented on Donald Trump’s latest tariff announcement, vowing to retaliate, and accusing the US of “shifting the blame” on fentanyl flows.

Reuters quotes a statement from the ministry which urged Washington to “return to the right track of properly resolving differences through dialogue on an equal footing as soon as possible.”

An official at the Health and Human Services agency (HHS) has criticised Robert F Kennedy’s failure to address a measles outbreak in Texas which has led to the first recorded measles death in the US since 2015.

Speaking to NBC News anonymously, the official told the news network Kennedy has done nothing about the outbreak, observing: “It’s almost like he’s still in campaign-mode rather than realizing he’s head of a large agency and workforce.”

It was reported that Kennedy has yet to issue any all staff emails or visit several HHS agencies.

Kennedy downplayed the measles outbreak yesterday, saying: “There have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country so it’s not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year.”

The Texas outbreak has affected more than 120 people and has led to the death of a school-age child.

Welcome to the Guardian’s rolling coverage of the second Donald Trump administration and US politics.

Labor unions were celebrating after a federal judge in California temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ordering the US defense department and other agencies to carry out the mass firings.

Attorneys for the coalition cheered the order, although it does not mean that fired employees will automatically be rehired or that future firings will not occur.

“What it means in practical effects is the agencies of the federal government should hear the court’s warning that that order was unlawful,” said Danielle Leonard, an attorney for the coalition, after the hearing.

“This ruling by Judge Alsup is an important initial victory for patriotic Americans across this country who were illegally fired from their jobs by an agency that had no authority to do so,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees.

“These are rank-and-file workers who joined the federal government to make a difference in their communities, only to be suddenly terminated due to this administration’s disdain for federal employees and desire to privatize their work.”

Here are the rest of the headlines:

• The Trump administration has fired hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency.

• The Trump administration has taken down the online application form for several popular student debt repayment plans, causing confusion among borrowers and likely creating complications for millions of Americans with outstanding loans.

• The US justice department has released additional files related to the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

• New laws in Florida impose harsher penalties for offenses committed by people illegally in the US than for everyone else, with an automatic death sentence for anyone who is in the US illegally and is convicted of first-degree murder.

• Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected in Washington DC later today, where he and Donald Trump are expected to hold a joint press conference.