During Noem's appearance before Congress on Tuesday, Senator John Kennedy, among other lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle, pressed Noem about the department's spending of taxpayer dollars, including a $220 million ad contract. The ads, which Noem said were intended to encourage undocumented immigrants to leave the US, included footage of the now-former secretary riding a horse in front of Mount Rushmore while delivering stern messages about border enforcement.
I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected United States Senator from the Great State of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), effective March 31, 2026.
This has now become a consistent pattern in which Americans are being killed in the West Bank by settlers or the [Israel Defense Forces (IDF)] without justice or accountability, despite promises from US officials, the lawmakers wrote in the Wednesday letter, which was shared exclusively with the Guardian.
The military is required to formally notify the FAA anytime it takes any counter-drone action inside US airspace. The earlier laser firing did not hit a target. It was carried out by the CBP near Fort Bliss, about 80km (50 miles) to the northwest, prompting the FAA to shut down air traffic at El Paso airport and the surrounding area.
It then got, at the end, quite unusual because I started being asked about UFOs and a series of questions about Pizzagate, one of the most vile bogus conspiracy theories that was propagated on the internet that was serving as the basis of a member's questions to me.
Democracy in the United States, and its institutions, are certainly under pressure. They are holding, but under strain. What is unusual is that Congress often absolves itself of its normal responsibility to serve as a co-equal branch of government in the legislative process and in overseeing the executive branch. This has been seen in debates including tariffs, the use of military force, and the elimination of institutions like USAID that were congressionally mandated.
A NIST employee tells WIRED that some plans to bring on foreign workers through the agency's Professional Research and Experience Program have recently been canceled because of uncertainty about whether they would make it through the new security protocols. The staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, says the agency has yet to widely communicate what the new hurdles will be or why it believes they are justified.
The letter sent Thursday by Tillis and Schiff requested answers from Wood about why over one-third of the participants on the Restatement project resigned.
Trump made the announcement while addressing the Board of Peace at its meeting on Thursday, stating that the Board of Peace - which he founded and controls - is "showing how a better future can be built." "I want to let you know that the United States is going to make a contribution of $10 billion to the Board of Peace," he said. "We've had great support for that number. And that number is a very small number when you look at that compared to the cost of war. That's two weeks of fighting."
These new restrictions-which can be found throughout the appropriations bill for the Department of Education and other sections of the 11-part funding package that was signed into law last week-are part of what policy experts describe as a bipartisan attempt to rebuke the Trump administration's budget proposal and restore Congress's power of the purse. Historically, the language of these budget bills has largely stayed the same, serving as little more than a template into which lawmakers plug that year's dollar amounts and policy riders.
