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1 week ago | 
csmonitor.com | Henry Gass |Caitlin Babcock
Amid a running separation-of-powers battle between President Donald Trump and the federal courts, Congress is stepping forward with an audacious proposal. The House of Representatives last week passed a more than 1,000-page budget and spending bill, the Trumpian-titled “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” Buried in the bill is a paragraph that experts say would neuter, at least in the short term, a key judicial power.
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2 weeks ago | 
csmonitor.com | Stephanie Hanes |Caitlin Babcock
Only a week after the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to weaken limits on some of the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS in drinking water, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again Commission released a much-anticipated report Thursday outlining what it sees as a health crisis among American children.
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1 month ago | 
csmonitor.com | Sarah Matusek |Caitlin Babcock
Americans are waiting to see whether their country will correct what the Justice Department has called a mistake – a deportation that the Supreme Court has also called illegal.
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2 months ago | 
csmonitor.com | Francine Kiefer |Caitlin Babcock
As Democrats struggle to push back against a Trump tidal wave of government cuts and aggressive policy actions, a familiar, Brooklyn-accented voice is once again rising through the wilderness. “This country faces enormous crises. And how we respond to these crises today, will impact not only our lives, but the lives of our kids, future generations, and in terms of climate change, the very well-being of the planet,” Vermont Sen.
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2 months ago | 
csmonitor.com | Ali Martin |Caitlin Babcock
This week the tariff wars have been heating up – and the stock market has been going down. The United States imposed a 25% levy on steel and aluminum imports Wednesday, implementing a February order by President Donald Trump. The European Union and Canada, America’s largest steel supplier, responded quickly by raising tariffs of their own. China had already retaliated Monday against other new U.S. tariffs, with higher fees on American farm products. It’s classic trade-war behavior.
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Feb 24, 2025 | 
csmonitor.com | Laurent Belsie |Caitlin Babcock
President Donald Trump and his new efficiency head, Elon Musk, are taking aim at government fraud as part of their campaign to reshape and streamline the federal bureaucracy. So far, the duo has hinted at widespread fraud without posting true evidence. For example, they have said that Social Security payments may be going out in the names of tens of millions of dead centenarians. Lee Dudek, the administration’s new head of the Social Security Administration, said that is not the case.
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Feb 21, 2025 | 
csmonitor.com | Caitlin Babcock |Ish Mafundikwa |Ryan Brown
Outside the Bernice Elizabeth Fonteneau Wellness Center in Petworth, a historically Black neighborhood in Washington, D.C., bundled-up passersby swerve around piles of melting slush. But the small room on the center’s third floor radiates warmth. “So happy you’re here,” reads the mat on the doorway, welcoming visitors into the softly lit space.
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Feb 18, 2025 | 
csmonitor.com | Sarah Matusek |Caitlin Babcock
Tom Homan, the “border czar” handpicked by President Donald Trump, has arrested, detained, and deported unauthorized immigrants since 1984. Friends call him loyal. Critics have likened him to a Nazi; he counters that the agency he once led deported real ones. Mr. Homan is positioned to play an integral role in shaping the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
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Feb 10, 2025 | 
csmonitor.com | Caitlin Babcock |Sarah Matusek
As an engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Michael Garrett says he has always known he could double his salary in the private sector. But when he became a federal employee over a decade ago, Mr. Garrett (not his real name), was thinking about more than money. “[I] chose the federal government because of job stability and to have a healthy work-life balance,” says the engineer, who asked to remain anonymous so he could speak candidly.
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Feb 4, 2025 | 
csmonitor.com | Simon Montlake |Caitlin Babcock
As an investor, Elon Musk embraced the idea that business turnarounds require fast, drastic, and disruptive measures. Now he’s applying the same playbook to the country’s largest employer, the federal government, by seizing control of its payments system and its overseas aid department – and pushing aside civil servants who raise legal and ethical objections.
