Donald Trump vows to end Joe Biden’s ‘ridiculous’ paper straw initiative
President Donald Trump has slammed the “eco-friendly” movement as he vowed to sign an executive order, overturning Biden’s push for paper straws.
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A clearly frustrated Donald Trump took to his Truth Social account at lunch time to declare war on paper straws.
“I will be signing an Executive Order next week ending the ridiculous Biden push for Paper Straws, which don’t work. BACK TO PLASTIC!” Mr Trump declared on Friday.
A number of liberal-lead states in America including California, Colorado, New York, Maine, Oregon, Vermont, Rhode Island and Washington have introduced various bans or restrictions on single use plastic straws which Mr Trump has indicated he would override at a federal level.
The rant came shortly before the US president met with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba who he welcomed to the White House.
The world leaders hosted a joint news conference following their Oval Office meeting where the topic of trade was brought up.
Unlike previous news conferences Mr Trump has held on the topic where he blasted the likes of Mexico, Canada and Europe, he struck a friendly tone with the Japanese leader.
Mr Trump praised Japan as a “great country” who he would work with on reducing the US trade deficit which stands at about A$108 billion.
“I’ll be announcing that next week, reciprocal trade, so that we’re treated evenly with other countries,” Mr Trump said.
He also announced that Japan’s Nippon Steel will make a major investment in US Steel, but not take over the troubled company as previously negotiated.
Both Mr Trump and Mr Biden vowed to block the takeover during their election campaigns.
“They’ll be looking at an investment rather than a purchase,” Mr Trump said.
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JUDGE PAUSES GOVERNMENT JOBS BUYOUT
A judge has paused a scheme masterminded by billionaire Elon Musk to slash the size of the US government by encouraging federal workers to quit through a mass buyout.
The federal judge in Massachusetts ordered a temporary injunction on the plan’s deadline – midnight Thursday – given by Musk for the country’s more than two million government employees.
The offer was to quit with eight months’ pay or risk being fired in future culls.
The deadline is now extended to Monday, when US District Judge George O’Toole will hold a hearing on the merits of the case brought by labor unions, US media reported.
Musk, the world’s richest person and President Donald Trump’s biggest donor, is in charge of a free-ranging entity called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that aims to radically downsize federal agencies.
According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, more than 40,000 staff have so far accepted the buyout deal – a relatively small number.
Unions representing some 800,000 civil servants and Democratic members of Congress are resisting the scheme and have challenged the legality of threats to fire civil servants.
But the broader budget cutting campaign – fanned by anti-government-worker invective from Mr Trump and his aides – has already severely disrupted the huge departments and agencies that for decades have run everything from education to national intelligence.
USAID, the government’s agency for distributing aid around the world, has been crippled, with foreign-based staff ordered home and the organisation’s programs lambasted daily – and often inaccurately – as wasteful by the White House.
Mr Trump has also repeatedly said he wants to shut down the Department of Education. The inducements to resign have even been extended to the CIA.
POLICING OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE SCALED BACK
It comes as the US Justice Department scales back policing of foreign interests operating in the United States, ending criminal enforcement of a law used to snare bad actors seeking to influence politics and elections, including two allies of Mr Trump.
In a memo sent to staff Wednesday, Attorney-General Pam Bondi revealed that she had disbanded the Foreign Influence Task Force, a unit dedicated to investigating violations of the law requiring foreign agents to register with US authorities.
She said the decision had been made to “free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponisation and abuses of prosecutorial discretion.”
Bondi did not elaborate, but figures on the Republican Party’s conspiratorial far right have accused the government of abusing the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to unfairly target political operatives, such as Paul Manafort, Mr Trump’s 2016 campaign manager.
He was indicted as part of a federal probe into Mr Trump’s role in Russia’s attack on the 2016 US election, which found extensive evidence of co-ordination between the Republican’s campaign and a Kremlin-linked influence operation.
Manafort was charged with a litany of offences, including acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign principal and lying in FARA documents, but he was ultimately pardoned by Mr Trump.
FARA was also used to pursue Mike Flynn, Mr Trump’s first national security adviser, who lied to the FBI about contacts with Russia, and former Democratic senator Bob Mendendez, who was jailed in January for bribery and failing to register as a foreign agent for Egypt.
Bondi – who previously registered herself under FARA for work she did with Qatar – said she was limiting criminal enforcement of the law to “alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.”
In a flurry of edicts sent out on her first day in the job, Bondi also launched a unit focused on the 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, targeted diversity programs for elimination and restarted enforcement of the federal death penalty, which had been halted under Joe Biden.
CANADA WILLING TO JOIN US ‘IRON DOME’
Canada is prepared to join Mr Trump’s proposed development of an “Iron Dome” missile defence shield, Defence Minister Bill Blair said.
Blair, in a call with reporters at the end of a trip to Washington on Thursday, said Canada was already an “essential partner” in the joint protection of North America, through NATO and the NORAD joint air defence program.
“Frankly, an integrated missile defence system for all of North America is the thing that makes sense to everybody,” he said, rather than having it stop at the US-Canada border.
“And we’ve been able to demonstrate that we are a ready and willing partner, and that we have a great deal to contribute to the alliance.”
Mr Trump last week signed an executive order to start planning for an “Iron Dome” air defence system for the United States, like the one that Israel has used to intercept thousands of rockets.
He ordered an implementation plan for the “next-generation missile defence shield” designed to guard against ballistic, hypersonic and advanced cruise missiles, including through the development of space-based interceptors, within two months.
The proposal has prompted criticism over its expected cost, and for the fact that the system is designed for short-range threats, making it ill-suited to defending against intercontinental missiles that are the main danger to the United States.
Blair’s comments on extending US-Canada military co-operation come as the countries’ ties face deep strains over Trump’s threats to impose steep tariffs.
ANTI-CHRISTIAN BIAS TASKFORCE; AIR TRAFFIC TECH BOOST
Donald Trump announced Thursday the creation of a task force to “eradicate anti-Christian bias” in government, intensifying a right-wing crackdown since returning to power.
The Republican billionaire said he was putting new Attorney-General Pam Bondi at the head of the force to end “persecution” of the majority religion of the United States.
Trump said its mission would be to “immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination” in the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, the FBI and other government agencies.
He also said it would prosecute “anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society.”
“We will protect Christians in our schools, in our military and our government, in our workplaces, hospitals and in our public squares,” Mr Trump told a national prayer breakfast at a Washington hotel.
He also announced the creation of a “White House faith office” led by his spiritual adviser, the televangelist Paula White.
Mr Trump also touched on the twin air crash tragedies in Washington DC and Philadelphia in his speech before the prayer breakfast.
“I think what is going to happen is we’re all going to sit down and do a great, computerised system for our control towers, brand new,” he said.
“We spent billions and billions of dollars trying to renovate an old broken system. Instead of just saying cut it loose and let’s spend less money and build a great system done by two or three companies.”
Mr Trump vowed to investigate passing legislation on the new technology while making a very personal revelation about his own air travel.
“When I land in my plane privately, I use a system from another country because my captain tells me I’m landing in New York and I’m using a system — I won’t tell you what country — but I use a system from another country,” he said.
TRUMP BANS TRANS ATHLETES FROM WOMEN’S SPORT
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports.
“With this executive order the war on women’s sports is over,” Mr Trump said before he signed the order, with dozens of female athletes of all ages surrounding him in the Oval Office.
The order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” gives federal agencies the right to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with the White House’s view that “sex” is the gender someone was assigned at birth.
Ahead of the signing, White House officials said allowing trans women to compete against biological women is “dangerous” and “unfair”.
It came as shock video captured the moment a man dressed all in black got stuck climbing tall security fencing outside the White House.
Shocked tourists filmed the man, who was heard saying “F--- it” before trying to climb over the fence on the South Grounds.
The man made his way to the top of the fence as Secret Service agents inside the White House grounds raced toward the barrier.
The climber then got stuck on spikes at the top and tried to climb back down before being swarmed by agents.
LARA TRUMP TO HOST FOX NEWS SHOW
Fox News has hired Mr Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to be a program host.
The 42-year-old former co-chair of the Republican National Committee will host a prime-time show, My View with Lara Trump, to air on the Fox News Channel.
Fox News Media chief executive Suzanne Scott called Lara Trump “a gifted communicator” in a statement announcing her appointment.
“I’m thrilled to bring my voice back to FOX News, talk directly with the American people, and highlight what makes this country so great,” Lara Trump said, according to the network.
‘HIGH THREAT’: MIGRANTS ARRIVE AT GUANTANAMO
Ten “high-threat” migrants have arrived at the notorious detention facility Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The Trump administration later identifying the men as members of the powerful Tren de Aragua gang.
Mr Trump last week ordered the preparation of a 30,000-person “migrant facility” at the base, which is primarily known as a detention centre for suspects accused of terrorism-related offences.
“These 10 high-threat individuals are currently being housed in vacant detention facilities,” the Pentagon said in a statement, referring to them as “illegal aliens”.
“US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is taking this measure to ensure the safe and secure detention of these individuals until they can be transported to their country of origin or other appropriate destination,” it said.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later said the flight carrying the migrants had arrived the previous day and that they were “10 members of the transnational gang Tren de Aragua.”
The Trump administration has launched what it has cast as a major effort to combat illegal migration that has also included immigration raids, arrests and deportations on military aircraft.
The US President has made the issue a priority on the international stage as well, threatening Colombia with sanctions and massive tariffs for turning back two plane loads of deportees.
The Guantanamo prison was opened in the wake of the September 11 attacks and has been used to indefinitely hold detainees seized during the wars and other operations that followed.
Conditions there have prompted outcry from rights groups, and UN experts have condemned it as a site of “unparalleled notoriety.”
– with AFP
Originally published as Donald Trump vows to end Joe Biden’s ‘ridiculous’ paper straw initiative
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