The slashing and burning continues:
Terminations at the U.S. Forest Service and Department of Interior are having a major impact on local communities. 3,400 people were fired from the Forest Service and 2,300 from the Department of Interior (National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). Learn more here. One termination email read: “You have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest.” A federal hiring freeze on firefighters is part of these cuts.
Here is more on the cuts to the National Park Service, including cuts to staff at Grand Teton National Park (WY), Shenandoah National Park (VA), Buffalo National Park (AR), and, Effigy Mounds National Park, (IA).
The JFK Presidential Library and Museum in Boston just closed. The Trump administration fired employees responsible for visitor’s experience, education, and outreach. More here.
Disabled veterans, cancer researchers and nuclear technicians have lost their jobs.
Cuts and firings at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could affect disaster relief. More here.
Incompetence reigns. The U.S. Department of Agriculture fired researchers working to prevent the H5N1 avian flu outbreak. Then they tried to hire them back. More incompetence here.
More on USAID from NBC News: “A foreign service worker whose pregnant wife allegedly was denied emergency medical transport while stationed abroad has filed an affidavit in federal court against the Trump administration, claiming its “rushed, haphazard and cruel” push to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development has placed the mother and unborn daughter at grave risk.”
Jim Jones, the Food Head of the Food and Drug Administration, resigned after 89 members of his staff were cut. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new head of Health and Human Services, will choose his successor.
More on cuts to national health agencies such as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration. Even more here.
Defense Department firings are expected very soon.
A program that provides free covid tests is on the block. According to The Washington Post, 160 million covid tests may be destroyed.
The National Science Foundation just fired 170 workers.
Members of the Office of Personnel Management, the organization that oversees the hiring of federal workers, have been fired. According to CNN, it was done “quietly.”
While all of this is going on, no one seems to know who is running Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). Not even DOGE employees know.
In case you haven’t heard, DOGE wants access to your tax returns and IRS files. They also want your Social Security records.