Latest news with #BBB
USA Today
6 days ago
- Business
- USA Today
How will no tax on overtime work? Here's what Trump's BBB means for your paycheck, taxes
President Donald Trump's signature 'one big beautiful bill' promises to let workers keep more of what they earn by making tips and overtime wages tax-free. In states like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware — where hundreds of thousands of workers rely on overtime and tips to make ends meet — that sounds like a big deal. But will it mean bigger paychecks every week? Or just a larger tax refund later? Here's what you need to know. Fitzpatrick doesn't vote with GOP on BBB Rep. Fitzpatrick one of two Republicans to vote against Trump's 'big, beautiful' bill How does no tax on overtime work? Under the new law, workers can deduct up to $12,500 in overtime pay and $25,000 in reported tips from their taxable income on federal tax returns. But this won't give you an immediate bump in take-home pay. Deductions apply during tax-return season. Employers will still withhold federal taxes from your overtime and tips during the year. But when you file your 2025 return early next year, the deduction could shrink your tax bill or increase your refund. And the benefit is temporary. The deductions expire at the end of 2028 unless Congress extends them. Will my weekly paycheck go up under BBB? If you're banking on tax-free overtime to boost your paycheck, you're out of luck. Trump's 'big beautiful bill' doesn't change what you're paid; it changes what you're taxed. That happens at tax time, not on payday. Employers will keep withholding taxes as usual, and it's up to you to apply the deduction — if you qualify — when you file. So your weekly paycheck won't grow, but your tax refund could. The tax break packs the biggest punch for middle- and high-income workers who rack up overtime or bring in substantial tips. For example, a police officer earning a $75,000 base salary and another $15,000 from overtime would pay federal income taxes on only $2,500 of those extra earnings. A high-end restaurant sommelier with an $80,000 salary and generous tips could hit the cap on tip deductions and still save thousands on their tax bill. Earning more than the thresholds — $12,500 in overtime and $25,000 in tips — doesn't wipe out the benefit. It just means anything above those limits is fully taxed. Midrange earners stand to see meaningful savings too. A warehouse supervisor earning $60,000 with $10,000 in overtime could shave a couple thousand dollars off their federal tax bill. A hotel bartender making $45,000 plus $5,000 in tips could get back all the federal taxes withheld from their tips. For lower-income workers, the impact is more modest. A retail employee earning $28,000 with some overtime, or a diner server making $20,000 in wages and tips, could deduct all of their extra earnings — but with incomes low enough that standard deductions already erase most federal taxes, their refunds might grow by only a few hundred dollars. So, Trump's 'no tax on overtime' law could mean bigger federal tax refunds for many middle-income workers across the Mid-Atlantic, especially in industries like healthcare, manufacturing, and construction where extra hours are common. But don't expect your weekly paycheck to grow. The savings will come when you file your 2025 taxes in early 2026. And you'll still owe state income taxes on your overtime and tips. The new federal law doesn't change state tax laws. Jerry Haught is a New Jersey-based journalist with the Mid-Atlantic Connect Team.
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
ICE Kidnappings Are Terrifying. Trump's Bill Will Supercharge Them
Scenes of 'law enforcement' that look like lawlessness are unfolding, daily, on the streets of America. Masked agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies jump out of unmarked cars. They wear masks and are often irregularly uniformed, in a slapdash assemblage of jeans and security vests. Some may have labels reading POLICE. Some may have badges. Others dress in t-shirts and baseball caps. They often refuse to identify themselves or produce warrants. These squads are snatching individuals off the streets, and out of federal courthouses, and wrestling them into vehicles to be spirited away in a spectacle that even a U.S. senator has likened to 'being kidnapped.' This anarchic authoritarianism is playing out in isolated pockets, for now. But if the budget reconciliation legislation known as President Donald Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' becomes law, the horror will spread nationwide. 'This bill is a force multiplier for ICE,' Nayna Gupta, Policy Director of the pro-immigrant American Immigration Council tells Rolling Stone. 'It allows them to hire 10,000 more agents around the country,' she says, 'while simultaneously deputizing state and local police departments to do things like interrogate, arrest, detain and deport immigrants.' The Senate's version of the bill steers an astonishing $130 billion into immigration enforcement, detention, and border security, according to the American Immigration Council's tally, which includes funding for Trump's border wall. In the buildup to passage in the Senate, this funding became the central MAGA sales pitch. 'Everything else' — including the bill's staggering cuts to the social safety net — 'is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions,' Vice President J.D. Vance posted on X Monday night, Vance's post preceded, by hours, his casting the tie-breaking vote in the Senate. Stephen Miller, Trump's nativist policy chief, touts the 'Big Beautiful Bill' for the same reason Gupta blasts it: 'The BBB will increase by orders of magnitude the scope, scale and speed of removing illegal and criminal aliens,' Miller posted on X in June, branding the bill, with a chauvinistic flourish, 'the most essential piece of legislation… in the entire Western World, in generations.' Building the case for the bill, Trump's so-called Border Czar, Tom Homan, appeared last week at a conference in Washington D.C. held by the Faith & Freedom Coalition, a right-wing organization led by the scandal-tainted evangelical power broker Ralph Reed. Homan got raucous cheers from the Christian audience for a profanity-laced speech, in which he touted the administration's agenda to arrest and remove the strangers among us. 'If I offend anybody today,' Homan said, 'I don't give a shit.' In his speech, Homan advanced a version of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. He baselessly alleged that Democrats under Joe Biden 'unsecured the border on purpose' to build a new political power base of immigrants. 'They knew exactly what they're doing,' Homan said. 'They saw future political benefit on doing it. They thought millions of people coming into the country are going to be future Democratic voters.' Homan continued: 'They sold this country out for future political power. And to me, that's treasonous.' Homan talked up congressional passage of the 'Big Beautiful Bill' as a countermeasure: 'They pass that bill, we're gonna have more money than we ever had to do immigration enforcement,' he said, adding gruffly: 'You think we're arresting people now? You wait till we get the funding to do what we got to do.' (Homan's comments were first highlighted by Right Wing Watch.) The bill will swell the ranks of ICE agents. The Senate bill earmarks about $30 billion for recruiting and retention; the House version specifies the hiring of nearly 10,000 new agents, or 'boots on the ground,' as Homan described them, militaristically. The bill also has more than $45 billion to ramp up detention facilities and detainee transportation — to turn the Trump deportation machine into what acting ICE director Todd Lyons envisions as an Amazon-like logistics operation: 'Like Prime, but with human beings.' Gupta, the immigrant-rights policy advocate, tells Rolling Stone: 'The dollar numbers that we're seeing here will have the effect of creating an immigration detention system as large, or larger, than the U.S. federal prison system.' She adds that the law would create an 'enforcement regime that militarizes American communities in a much more extreme way than what we've already seen in the first six months of the Trump administration.' Homan, in his speech, pointed to current ICE detention capacity as limiting arrests, with the administration playing a constant 'chess game' to clear out enough beds to then jail more migrants. 'We need 100,000 beds. So I can fill 100,000 beds,' Homan said. 'We should be coming to work every day saying, Get everybody you can get. And we got the bed waitin'.' Homan's current 'game' has deadly consequences for detainees held in crowded conditions: 'We've already seen 10 deaths in immigration facilities in just five months,' says Gupta, citing reports of 'horrific conditions inside the facilities, including starvation, lack of gynecological care for women, [and] delayed insulin treatment for diabetic patients.' In a press availability Monday, Homan responded with indifference to the report of the recent in-custody death of a 75-year-old Cuban immigrant who'd first arrived in the United States in 1966: 'People die in ICE custody,' Homan said. 'People die in county jails. People die in state prisons.' Speaking to the religious audience in D.C., the border czar insisted that President Trump's orders to target 'the worst first' is still in effect. But he made clear that anyone without legal status should live in fear of what's coming. 'The media has been hitting me up lately saying, Homan is lying. They're not arresting just criminals and public safety threats. They're arresting non-criminals. What they're afraid to tell you is: Yeah, they're in a country illegally. So they're on the table too.'The bill also provides, Gupta says, $10 billion in funding to deputize local law enforcement into the detention and deportation ranks — a move that seems destined to exacerbate the rag-tag optics of armed men wearing face gaiters jumping out of cars and tackling alleged undocumented a recent TV interview, ICE's Lyons said he would prefer that officers not mask, because it is 'hot' and 'dangerous.' But he justified the practice, because 'ICE agents are being doxed at a horrible rate.' Doxing refers to making personal details public. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about Lyons' definition of doxing, in what circumstances it is a crime (there is a narrow federal anti-doxing provision), or what horrific metric Lyons was referring to. However DHS makes no apologies for the fact that 'undercover' federal officers on immigration duty look like irregular combatants. 'When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement while wearing masks to protect themselves from being targeted,' Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Rolling Stone. In a separate statement, DHS maintained that its agents always 'verbally identify themselves as with ICE or Homeland Security,' that they 'wear vests that say ICE/ERO or Homeland Security,' and that they're 'flanked by vehicles that also say the name of the department.' Such claims are contradicted by viral videos and Senate hearings. Consider the case of Brad Lander, the New York City mayoral candidate who was tackled and detained after trying to accompany a New Yorker through the hallway of a federal court courthouse after an immigration proceeding. One of the apparent under-cover agents who nabbed Lander wore jeans and a shirt branded 'Rogue' — from a clothing company whose motto is: 'We do not come in peace.'In a recent Senate hearing Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) pressed Attorney General Pam Bondi on the dangers of masked ICE agents who do 'not follow required protocol to identify themselves as law enforcement.' Peters told Bondi he was 'deeply concerned' about the 'lack of identification' by federal agents, calling it 'dangerous both to the public as well as to the officers themselves.' He told Bondi that 'the public risks being harmed by individuals pretending to be immigration enforcement which has already happened.' He added that federal agents 'also risk being injured by individuals who think they're basically being kidnapped or attacked by some unknown assailant.' In the face of this questioning, the attorney general struck a pose of ignorance. 'Senator Peters, that's the first time that issue has come to me.' But Bondi countered that agents 'are being doxed,' adding: 'They're being threatened; their families are being threatened.' In his speech to Faith & Freedom, Homan talked up how the feds are arresting those who challenge ICE and its irregular operations — making plain that legal peril awaits any would-be Good Samaritan who misapprehends an authorized ICE arrest as violent crime: 'You can't impede our enforcement efforts. That's a felony, and we will prosecute,' Homan said. 'You cannot put your hands on an ICE officer. We're prosecuting two judges. We're prosecuting a member of Congress,' he bragged. 'You can't cross the line.' ICE's current director, Lyons has blamed the city of Portland, Oregon, for the agency's masking imperative, telling an interviewer: 'We had ICE officers' names, addresses, and family Instagrams [and] Facebook posted and spread all around the city of Portland, saying 'No Rest For Ice.''It will not come as any surprise that ICE agents are not celebrated in the biggest, bluest city in Oregon, a sanctuary state, where law enforcement is largely prohibited from participating in immigration enforcement. Portland has been ground zero for confrontations between protesters and the feds in recent years. Trump pioneered a militarized crackdown on protesters in Portland in 2020, when citizens were snatched off the sidewalk into unmarked cars, and feds shot chemical munitions and less-lethal projectiles against people protesting police they have not matched the intensity of the conflict in Los Angeles, where Trump federalized the National Guard and deployed the Marines, anti-ICE protests here have been smoldering here for weeks. The ICE facility in Portland is catty corner to the city's main Tesla dealership — itself the target of incessant protests in recent weeks. The ICE building resembles a minimum security prison, and it occupies an odd-angled city block hemmed in by a freeway and overgrown trolley tracks. The three-story taupe concrete structure is currently up-armored in plywood, its windows and doors covered to the second floor. The building is also splashed with graffiti ranging from Zen-like scolding — 'LOOK INWARD' — to the bloodthirsty — 'Kill KKKops.' Many of the messages equate ICE with the 'Gestapo.' One grafito reads: 'NAZI CUCKS.' Across the street from the gates of the main driveway, a small group of protesters is gathered by a folding table and a sun tent. Some are yelling 'Fuck ICE!' They have a sign for passing motorists reading: 'YOU'RE NOT SAFE, YOU'RE NEXT.' The air on a recent weekday afternoon is spicy with the scent of exploded pepper balls and 'green gas,' a crowd-control chemical, deployed against protesters the previous night when federal agents in riot gear emerged to confront a woman, whom DHS's McLaughlin alleges 'threatened officers with a large knife by swinging it and then throwing it at them.' (The woman has been charged with attempted assault of a federal officer.) A 47-year-old protester who identified herself only as Jezzy told Rolling Stone that she'd been coming to the 'nonviolent encampment' most nights since the 'No Kings' rallies against Trump in mid-June, along with her 'Latina Aztec daughter,' who's 18. Jezzy says she left before the violent clash the previous night, but added that showdowns between protesters and the feds were commonplace. 'I don't know how many times we've been smoke bombed,' Jezzy says. 'We got gassed very badly our first night.' After dark, as Jezzy describes it, feds in riot gear often emerge from the gate and fire pepper balls against protesters. She accuses them of 'ripping up protester signs.' She describes these federal agents as 'very, very angry' and 'abusive of all the fucking rights anybody has as a human — or as an American.' Despite a personal toll, Jezzy insists she's committed to showing up to defend community members at risk from Trump and his faceless forces. She describes her new daily ritual: 'I work. I protest. I do it all over again.' More from Rolling Stone El Salvador Admits U.S. Has Custody of Migrants Trump Sent to Prison There Bowzer, the Guy from Sha Na Na, Is Trying to Protect Your Health Care From Trump Texas Floods: At Least 100 Dead as Rescue Efforts Continue Amid New Flash Flood Warnings Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence Solve the daily Crossword
Forbes
16-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Our Top Dividend From The ‘Big Beautiful Bill' Is On Sale Now
steel long pipe system in crude oil factory during sunset The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (BBB) is now law—and there's one top dividend we can buy now to profit from it. I'm not talking about shorting 10-year Treasuries (though that might work, given the inflationary policies 'baked in' here!). Instead we're going long—on American oil and gas. But we're not looking at producers. We're going with pipeline operators like Kinder Morgan (KMI), a holding in our Hidden Yields dividend-growth service, to ride the $3 trillion in stimulus the BBB is about to set loose. Why? Two reasons: Now before we go further, you might hear 'pipeline' and think 'master limited partnership,' or MLP. It's true that MLPs mainly run pipelines and energy-storage facilities. That MLP structure can result in higher dividends than you'd get from pipeline operators that operate as regular corporations. But it also means a tax-season headache: MLPs send you a complex K-1 instead of a simple 1099. KMI, however, operates as a corporation, so we don't have the K-1 headache here. And as we'll see in a second, even though KMI's current payout is below that of the typical MLP, it more than makes up for it in share-price growth. DC, Not the Oil Patch, Makes Our Pipeline Case The state of play in DC fills in a lot of our buy case here. Let's start with the BBB, which offers a grab bag of breaks for oil and gas producers. Now, for example, they can write off capital expenses—think equipment and facilities—all at once instead of over a period of years. The law also delays fees on methane emissions to 2035 and allows more access to federal lands for drilling. All of this sets the table for higher oil and gas production. But that's not much help to pipeline operators unless demand picks up, too. Let's talk about that next. A $3-Trillion Tailwind Also thanks to the BBB, Washington's $3+ trillion fiscal 'open bar' is officially flowing. (That's roughly how much the bill would add to federal deficits in the next decade.) Policymakers saw a negative GDP print in Q1 and have revved up the stimulus spigots to avoid a technical recession. Rest assured, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trump do not want that scarlet letter headed into the midterms, so more moves are likely on the way here. More stimulus = stronger growth and higher demand. But wait, you might be thinking, isn't all that stimulus going to be inflationary? Absolutely! Which is why the administration needs higher oil and gas production—and the lower prices it would bring. KMI a Surprise Winner in Fed Drama Then there's the Fed, which is also under pressure. Will Chair Jay Powell last his final 10 months? I wouldn't bet on it—not when Bessent stands ready to step in and potentially lower the Fed funds rate by 300 basis points almost overnight. Talk about bullish fuel! Which brings us back to KMI, which runs 79,000 miles of pipelines throughout North America, moving crude oil, carbon dioxide and most notably natural gas. A huge 40% of 'natty' produced in the US flows through Kinder's systems—to 139 company-owned terminals storing petroleum products, chemicals and renewables. KMI has been shifting toward natural gas over the years, which is smart, as it's the least offensive of the fossil fuels. That puts it on the right side of regulators, no matter who's in control in DC. It's also helped KMI benefit as renewables have grown, as gas is a reliable backup when the sun isn't shining and the winds are calm. Beyond all that, Kinder's gas focus has put it at the crossroads of other growing trends, like the reshoring of industrial production to America (which has been rolling along since well before tariffs were in vogue) and, of course, AI's ravenous energy demand. 'Take-or-Pay,' Fee-Based Deals Add Stability But what if oil and gas demand, and prices, take an unexpected dip? KMI has us covered there, too, with 64% of its revenue signed under 'take-or-pay' deals and 26% fee-based. Now, remember when I said it often makes sense to buy a 'corporate' pipeline operator like KMI over an MLP? KMI is the poster child as to why: Over the last three years, the stock has outrun the biggest MLP out there, Enterprise Products Partners (EPD), on a total return basis (including price gains and reinvested payouts). That's despite the fact that EPD's yield is almost 60% higher—6.7% as I write this! Kinder is still down about 5% since Inauguration Day and well behind the S&P 500, but I do expect it to bounce. As a 'toll taker' rather than a producer, it generates enough cash flow to support its current dividend and fund future raises. Management expects $5.2 billion of distributable cash flow for 2025, according to its fiscal second quarter earnings report, against only $2.6 billion in dividend obligations. That leaves Kinder with an additional $2.6 billion to invest in growth projects, repay debt and fund its ongoing buyback program. Finally, KMI has something else we love: a lot of insider ownership—a combined 13% stake in the company. That nicely aligns management's interests with ours. KMI is set to report earnings on the evening of July 16, and the stock is below the $30 at which we recommend buying in Hidden Yields. Shares are a buy now, but would be even sweeter on a dip, given the trends—from DC and beyond—they're riding. Brett Owens is Chief Investment Strategist for Contrarian Outlook. For more great income ideas, get your free copy his latest special report: How to Live off Huge Monthly Dividends (up to 8.7%) — Practically Forever. Disclosure: none
Politico
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Politico
When one vote costs everything
Presented by Welcome to POLITICO's West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government, your guide to Donald Trump's unprecedented overhaul of the federal government — the key decisions, the critical characters and the power dynamics that are upending Washington and beyond. Send tips | Subscribe | Email Sophia | Email Irie | Email Ben When all but five Republicans voted earlier this month for DONALD TRUMP's 'big, beautiful bill,' the president once again flaunted his ability to strongarm his party into submission — even if it costs them their jobs. Democrats, enraged by stinging defeats in November, plan to focus their midterm messaging on the legislation's cuts to Medicaid and tax breaks for the richest Americans as they fight to retake a majority in one or both chambers. And ELON MUSK, infuriated that the law will add trillions to the national debt, has promised to use his vast wealth to start his own 'America Party' and primary conservative Republicans who voted for the bill. To be successful, Democrats would need to recreate the 1994, 2010 or 2018 midterms, in which the minority party successfully crafted a political message around a major piece of legislation. In 1994, the GOP took back control of Congress for the first time in 40 years on a message against former President BILL CLINTON's agenda. In 2010, Republicans seized on outrage over the Affordable Care Act to flip 63 House seats and six Senate seats, and in 2018, Democrats used the GOP's unsuccessful ACA repeal effort to net 40 seats in the House. (They weren't as successful in the Senate, where Republicans maintained control.) Former Democratic Rep. CHRIS CARNEY credits his vote for the ACA in 2010 for his ouster from the Pennsylvania district he'd represented for two terms — and cautioned that Republicans may have cause for concern next year. 'I took that vote knowing I was going to lose,' Carney said in an interview with West Wing Playbook. 'But to be a good member of Congress, you have to be willing to lose your seat for things that are important. And the Republicans who voted for the BBB probably understood that they run the risk of losing their seat by voting for it.' This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What similarities and differences do you see between the ACA and the BBB in terms of the degree of electoral liability they pose to the lawmakers who voted for them? Do you think the megabill will be the defining piece of legislation for the midterms? Both the ACA and the BBB were organizing principles for the opposition party. The Tea Party movement used Obamacare as a way to rally forces against Democrats who voted for it, and, in fact, against Democrats who didn't vote for it. Democrats this time will use the BBB probably in the same way. The real question is: How well can Democrats message against it, and how well can Republicans defend it? Back in 2010, I don't think we were given exactly the tools we needed to defend decisions to vote for it. How worried should House Republicans be as they approach 2026? As a member, you have to decide what you're willing to lose your seat over. I took the vote in 2010 knowing full well that I was going to lose in November. But for me, a bill that created that much health care was important, and as it turned out, 33,000 families and individuals in my district got health care who never had it before. As a member of Congress, you are exquisitely aware of the electoral impact your votes have. I'm sure that Republicans in Kamala Harris and Joe Biden districts are making that same calculation: Is it more important that I appease Donald Trump and take the vote for him, or do I take a vote that may preserve my reelection in the next cycle? How should Democrats seize on this moment? It's important that Democrats message in an effective way: Talk about how the BBB reduces health care while providing tax cuts to the very rich — those bread-and-butter issues resonate. As the BBB is gone through with a fine-tooth comb, there are going to be a lot of things in there that the Democrats can take advantage of in terms of messaging. The question is, can they be effective in the messaging, and can they be consistent in the messaging, and can they sustain the messaging? If they can do all those things, I think 2026 might be a tough year for Republicans, certainly in the House. If you talk about it in terms of Medicaid, a specific program, that's a little bit harder to sell than if you talk about it generally as health care, which it is. There are quite a few similarities between the situation in Washington in 2010 and today — but one new variable is Musk. What do you make of his threats to primary conservative Republicans? Who, in your opinion, are the winners and losers if the America Party comes to fruition? If the America Party actually becomes a thing, the Republican Party will lose more of its votes, and certainly lose the votes it gained in 2024. I don't think that there are many Democrats that would be supportive of Elon Musk's party, but I think that there are a number of libertarian and Trump-curious voters that might be turned off by how he's governed since he's been in office in his second term, and what the Republicans in Congress have done. If the America Party does end up forming, I think it hurts Republicans far more than it hurts Democrats. MESSAGE US — West Wing Playbook is obsessively covering the Trump administration's reshaping of the federal government. Are you a federal worker? A DOGE staffer? Have you picked up on any upcoming DOGE moves? We want to hear from you on how this is playing out. Email us at westwingtips@ Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe! POTUS PUZZLER Who was the first president to have his Cabinet appointee rejected? (Answer at bottom.) Agenda Setting YOU CAN STAY: Senate Republicans will scale back the White House's request for $9.4 billion in spending cuts as they look to shore up their votes, our JORDAIN CARNEY and CASSANDRA DUMAY report. Sen. ERIC SCHMITT (R-Mo.), who is leading the recissions effort with the White House, said Republicans will restore a $400 million cut to the global AIDS program known as PEPFAR, bringing the total amount of cuts to $9 billion. Senate Majority Leader JOHN THUNE said he expects the PEPFAR switch to be the only change made to the package, adding that there was a 'lot of interest' among his caucus in funding the GEORGE W. BUSH-era program, which has been credited with saving tens of millions of lives. RURAL FOOD ACCESS HIT: The Department of Agriculture has cut nearly all funding for a dozen rural centers that support farms and food businesses across the country, our MARCIA BROWN reports. Funding for Regional Food Business Centers, established under the Biden administration, has been frozen since January. The department has not provided the centers with a reason aside from saying that the funding was under review for its alignment with Trump administration priorities. USDA confirmed the end of the program later today, saying that the centers 'should not have been established in this manner in the first place.' TWIDDLING OUR THUMBS: Despite employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau still getting paid, the bureau has in practice been mostly inoperable for nearly six months, AP's KEN SWEET reports. CFPB employees say they essentially spend the workday not doing anything, forbidden from doing any work by directive from the White House. One current employee told AP that outsiders would be amazed at how little work gets done. Conversations between colleagues are seldom out of fear that they would be possibly violating the directive. The agency's press office doesn't respond to emails. WHO'S IN, WHO'S OUT ETHICS CHANGES AT DOJ: The Justice Department is ramping up its efforts to strip law enforcement officials with civil service protections intended to insulate their work from political interference, NYT's DEVLIN BARRETT reports. On Friday, a new batch of more than 20 career employees at the department and its component agencies were fired, including the attorney general's own ethics adviser, JOSEPH W. TIRRELL. The rest included senior officials at the U.S. Marshals Service, as well as prosecutors and support staff who once worked for JACK SMITH when he was a special counsel prosecuting the president. Some DOJ veterans say the move represents a pattern of the administration ignoring and eventually demolishing longstanding civil service legal precedents meant to keep politics out of law enforcement work, and to give more leeway to Trump's loyalists. A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment. Knives Out LIKE HE NEVER LEFT: Former national security adviser MIKE WALTZ pledged today to push for reform at the United Nations, following in the administration's footsteps in slashing the size of the federal government, our AMY MACKINNON reports. Waltz, who Trump nominated as his ambassador to the organization, said that the administration was conducting a number of reviews of the UN to examine how it is spending its funds, calling for the body to refocus on its founding principles. What We're Reading 'We're not buying it': Trump ties Ukraine aid to America First (POLITICO's Eli Stokols and Dasha Burns) Federal Workers' 'Emotional Roller Coaster': Fired, Rehired, Fired Again (NYT's Eileen Sullivan) The government wants AI to fight wars and review your taxes (WaPo's Douglas MacMillan, Faiz Siddiqui, Hannah Natanson and Elizabeth Dwoskin) Event Planners Are Cancelling on Trump-Era Washington. Is This a Sign of Things to Come? (POLITICO's Michael Schaffer) POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER That would be former President ANDREW JACKSON, who had his nominee for Treasury secretary, ROGER TANEY, rejected in 1834 as part of inter-party disagreements over the National Bank.
CNA
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CNA
Singapore Night Festival returns for its 16th edition this August
Something exciting is coming back to town. The Singapore Night Festival (SNF) returns for its 16th edition, transforming the Bras (BBB) district into a vibrant celebration of light, art and culture. Running from Aug 22 to Sep 6, this year's festival, organised by HeritageSG, is especially significant as it coincides with Singapore's 60th birthday. Themed Island Nights, this year's SNF promises a refreshed take on Singapore's rich culture and historical landscapes by illuminating the stories of belonging, exchange and connectivity that define island life. Running for three weekends, there will be beloved festival staples such as projection mapping artworks, light installations and experiential programmes. Visitors can also enjoy a lively mix of food and retail offerings, experiencing the full-sensory celebration of island culture. Highlights include Australian studio ENESS' Sky Castle, located at Cathay Green. This whimsical installation features vibrant, inflatable arches that respond to your every movement with cascading colours and sounds. On the other side of the BBB precinct at Capitol Singapore, you will find the Kampong Chill installation by artist duo Sheryo and Yok. Designed as a pavilion for rest and relaxation, this immersive space offers unique experiences and exclusive merchandise that reflect the essence of island life in Singapore.
