January 28, 2025
U.S. GUN VIOLENCE | In a shooting incident at a supermarket in Elkhart, Indiana, yesterday evening, three people were killed, including the suspected shooter, and two police officers were wounded. The incident remains under investigation. [more]
U.S. DOMESTIC FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE | The Office of Management and Budget yesterday ordered a temporary pause, effective later today, of federal grant, loan, and other financial assistance programs, excluding Medicare and Social Security, that may be affected by Trump administration executive orders, "including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal." The order has been criticized for being confusingly vague and as a potential violation of existing laws allocating funds. [more]
U.S. FOREIGN AID | Following last week's announcement of a 90-day pause in U.S.-funded foreign aid, Jason Gray, acting director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, placed more than 50 senior agency officials on paid leave yesterday amidst an investigation into actions that he said "appear to be designed to circumvent the President's Executive Orders.” [more]
U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT | Acting Attorney General James McHenry fired more than a dozen Justice Department employees yesterday who worked on the criminal prosecutions of now-President Donald Trump. McHenry said the employees could not be trusted to implement Trump’s agenda. [more]
U.S. MILITARY | In a series of military-related executive orders yesterday, President Donald Trump ordered the reinstatement of some 8,200 service members who were separated for refusing COVID-19 vaccines; directed the development of advanced missile defense systems for the U.S., including space-based systems; abolished diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and initiatives across the Defense Department and the Coast Guard; and ordered newly installed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to develop a plan on how to implement a policy of banning transgender persons from military service. [more]
U.S. PUBLIC HEALTH | In a follow-up to President Donald Trump’s executive order to begin the process of withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization, staff at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were ordered yesterday to immediately cease work and coordination with the WHO. [more]
GLOBAL HEAT DEATHS | A new study published in the journal Nature suggests that as many as 2.3 million people in Europe could die from extreme temperatures, particularly high heat, by the end of the century without carbon pollution reductions and other adaptations to hotter conditions. [full study] [more]
DENMARK AND GREENLAND | Amidst continuing suggestions by President Donald Trump that the U.S. should have control of Greenland, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is on a tour of major European capitals with a reported aim of gathering support for Denmark's sovereignty over the autonomous Arctic territory. [more]
SUDAN | International Criminal Court prosecutors announced yesterday that they will seek arrest warrants for persons accused of atrocities in Sudan’s West Darfur region, where both government and opposition paramilitary forces have been suspected of committing war crimes during the African country’s nearly two-year-old civil war. [more]
SERBIA | University students and farmers took part in a 24-hour blockade of key traffic routes in the Serbian capital of Belgrade yesterday to demand government accountability for a deadly canopy collapse that killed 15 people in November at a train station in the northern city of Novi Sad. Amidst the protests, Prime Minister Milos Vucevic announced his resignation earlier today. [more]
CHINA | Citing satellite imagery and related analysis, Reuters reports that China appears to be building a new large laser-ignited fusion research center in the southwestern city of Mianyang that could aid in the design and development of nuclear weapons and advanced power generation methods. [more]
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE | The American Library Association has named Erin Entrada Kelly’s “The First State of Being,” a coming-of-age story that blends time travel and the approaching millennium of the year 2000, as this year’s winner of the John Newbery Medal for the year’s most outstanding children’s book. [more]
TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1986, the U.S. space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Florida, killing all seven aboard, including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe who had been chosen as the first American civilian to travel in space. [more history]