Why aren’t leftists celebrating the first “person of color” to serve as FBI director?
AG Bondi: "The Epstein list is sitting on my desk right now"
That California Fire Captain stabbed to death allegedly by wife in domestic dispute
A California fire captain was found stabbed to death at her home on Monday night, and police are now searching for answers — and a suspect.
Rebecca Marodi, 49, a captain with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), was found at her Ramona residence with multiple stab wounds on the night of Feb. 17, after deputies responded to a call for an assault with a deadly weapon, according to a statement from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office.
Marodi was pronounced dead at the scene despite attempts by first responders to save her life.
The sheriff's office said in the statement that the case is being treated as a "potential domestic violence incident," and believe Marodi knew the attacker.
Marodi was a captain with Cal Fire and had served over 30 years with the department, primarily in Riverside County, the agency said in a statement.
Marodi began her career as volunteer firefighter in 1993, according to a release from the Riverside County Fire Department and Cal Fire. After rising up the ranks since then, she was promoted to Captain in 2022.
Marodi always prioritized “the well-being of her colleagues,” the statement notes. “Her legacy of mentorship, service and dedication will be felt for years to come.”
Monika Evans, a neighbor of Marodi’s, told KTLA she’d never noticed anything amiss when it came to Marodi or her home life. “They’d be mowing, they’d be doing wood, gardening … you know the usual stuff. Never saw any problems.” (It's unclear who Marodi lived with.)
Monika Evans also told WTOC that Marodi had been "very outgoing and very nice."
“She was very sweet and very kind and everything else," said Evans. "Had a sense of humor, too.”
On Tuesday morning, Cal Fire crews honored her with a procession from Marodi’s home to the San Diego Medical Examiner’s Office.
Anyone with information about Marodi’s death is urged to call the San Diego County Sheriff’s Homicide Unit at (858) 285-6330 or after hours at (858) 868-3200. Anonymous tips can be sent through Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.
https://people.com/cal-fire-captain-found-murdered-11682267
Federal Judge grants Trump approval to fire entire USAID workforce
The decision comes after the judge had temporarily paused efforts to place thousands of USAID employees on administrative leave following a lawsuit by labor groups.
A federal judge on Friday paved the way for the Trump administration to move forward with plans to remove thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development workers from their jobs.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols denied a request from labor groups to issue a preliminary injunction after the Trump administration said thousands of USAID employees would be placed on administrative leave and ordered agency personnel abroad to return to the U.S. within 30 days.
“Weighing plaintiffs’ assertions on these questions against the government’s is like comparing apples to oranges. Where one side claims that USAID’s operations are essential to human flourishing and the other side claims they are presently at odds with it, it simply is not possible for the Court to conclude, as a matter of law or equity, that the public interest favors or disfavors an injunction,” Nichols wrote.
“Plaintiffs have presented no irreparable harm they or their members are imminently likely to suffer from the hypothetical future dissolution of USAID,” Nichols wrote. “And it is not clear why the speed of proceedings in the relevant agencies would be insufficient to address the only actions that have already happened and are presently ripe for review: administrative leave placements, expedited evacuations, and other changes to working conditions of the sort those bodies routinely confront.”
Earlier this month, the judge had paused the administration’s move to place 2,200 USAID staff on administrative leave. He also rescinded leave for 500 workers and paused efforts to expedite evacuations for personnel abroad. The temporary restraining order on those actions extended until the judge’s ruling on Friday.
The lawsuit was initially filed by the American Foreign Service Association, a union representing 1,980 foreign service officers working for USAID, and the American Federation of Government Employees. They argued that efforts to dissolve USAID have had “disastrous humanitarian consequences” by terminating the agency’s efforts to stop children’s malaria deaths, ending pharmaceutical clinical trials and threatening HIV resurgence.
They also alleged that the move to gut the agency had “already imperiled American lives,” and referenced the State Department last month advising U.S. nationals to leave the Democratic Republic of the Congo due to safety concerns tied to protests at U.S. government buildings.
“By abruptly putting staff on administrative leave, Defendants left USAID workers in perilous situations stranded, without any information or funding to escape,” the lawsuit said.
Tom Yazdgerdi, the president of the American Foreign Service Association, called the judge’s ruling “a setback in our fight to protect our members from efforts that threaten to dismantle USAID, but it does not change the importance of their mission — advancing U.S. interests and delivering life-saving assistance worldwide.”
Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, one of the firms representing the unions in the lawsuit, said that they would “continue to pursue all legal options in this case in order to ensure the safety of Americans at home and abroad.”
“The Trump administration’s attack on USAID is part of a coordinated effort to undermine the will of Congress and isolate America on the global stage,” Perryman said in a statement.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday night.
The Trump administration has indicated it hopes to cut up to 10% of the federal workforce. Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has played a central role in those efforts and in overall plans to drastically reduce government spending.
In addition to promoting false conspiracy theories about USAID, Musk recently referred to the agency as “a criminal organization” in a post on X that added, “Time for it to die.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/federal-judge-gives-go-ahead-trump-gut-usaid-workforce-rcna193262
Trump calls out Maine governor Janet Mills to her face re: transgenders in sports
https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1893037019971867067
C.I.A. Plans Largest Mass Firing in Nearly 50 Years
The possible purge of officers working on recruiting and diversity comes as the agency moves to comply with the spirit of an executive order banning efforts to diversify the federal work force.
The C.I.A. has moved to dismiss an unspecified number of officers who were working on recruiting and diversity issues, according to former officials, in what would be one of the largest mass firings in the agency’s history.
The possible purge of the officers comes as the agency moves to comply with the spirit of President Trump’s executive order banning efforts to diversify the federal work force.
The C.I.A. on Friday began calling in officers who had been put on administrative leave and telling them to resign or be fired, but a federal court soon halted that action. A judge in the Eastern District of Virginia is scheduled to hold a hearing on Monday to consider a temporary restraining order against the agency.
While presidents often order policy changes at the agency, it is rare for career officers who carried out the priorities of a previous administration to be fired, the former officials said. Former President Barack Obama, for example, ended the C.I.A. interrogation program started under former President George W. Bush but did not fire the officers accused of torturing Al Qaeda prisoners.
The C.I.A. last conducted a large-scale firing in 1977, when President Jimmy Carter ordered the agency to move away from covert action. Stansfield Turner, the C.I.A. director at the time, moved to fire 198 officers involved in clandestine action. But even that downsizing was done with some care, sparing some people who were close to retirement age.
Kevin Carroll, a former C.I.A. officer and a lawyer representing 21 intelligence officers who have sued to stop the new firings, said about 51 officers working in diversity and recruiting were having their positions reviewed.
None of the officers the agency wants to fire are diversity experts, Mr. Carroll said. He and other former officials said the officers had been ordered during the Biden administration to take the posts because of their skills at persuasion and recruiting, abilities that in some cases they honed while working as spies overseas.
“No one joins the C.I.A. to be a diversity recruiter,” Mr. Carroll said.
Some officials previously said they hoped that the agency would be spared diversity-related firings, and that officers would be able to return to their old jobs of recruiting spies overseas.
Former officials said that the national security exception the White House put in place on downsizing the federal government should have prevented the firings. Mr. Carroll said Mr. Trump’s executive order required only that the agency end diversity programs, not that the people carrying out the initiatives be fired.
Expanding the diversity of the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies was a priority of William J. Burns, who led the agency during the Biden administration, and Avril Haines, the former director of national intelligence.
Mr. Carroll said his clients had been carrying out orders of the intelligence leaders and Congress, which mandated efforts to diversify the intelligence agencies in recent authorization acts.
“More than any other organization in the U.S. government, the C.I.A. has a requirement for diversity,” Mr. Carroll said. “We need to have people who can mix in overseas.”
https://archive.is/eOash#selection-839.0-911.170
Mass firings are set to hit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Mass firings are set to hit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) “imminently,” a source with knowledge told The Hill.
The person, who asked to speak anonymously due to fear of reprisal, said the agency had not yet been subjected to the steep cuts announced elsewhere due to the then-pending confirmation of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
The Commerce Department oversees NOAA and the National Weather Service. Lutnick is set to be sworn in Friday afternoon.
Many of the federal cuts thus far have targeted probationary workers, which includes recent hires but also those who have been recently promoted.
The source told The Hill that an original list of workers set to be fired comprised of new workers, except for veterans and Schedule A employees or noncompetitively appointed disabled workers. However, on Tuesday, directors of NOAA line and staff offices were asked to add the excluded workers back on the list, the source added.
Lutnick denied in his confirmation hearing that he would seek to dismantle or privatize NOAA as Commerce secretary. However, Project 2025, the sweeping conservative governance blueprint published by the Heritage Foundation, calls for such a move, and associates of tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) were reportedly present at NOAA facilities earlier this month.
President Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail but has appointed multiple figures associated with it since taking office, including White House budget director Russell Vought and Kathleen Sgamma, his nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management.
The source told The Hill that deep cuts to NOAA will have tangible effects on Americans’ lives.
“People are relying on us for life-saving information about hurricanes and the weather that’s coming towards them, even geomagnetic storms that take out telecommunication systems,” they said. “Cutting NOAA staff indiscriminately, not selectively based on the roles that they play, just based on the number of years that they’ve had experience in the agency, is going to cripple the agency and have a strong, negative impact potentially,” the source added.
“People are going to lose their lives if the weather service isn’t able to move forward as it has been,” the source added.
The Hill has reached out to NOAA and the Commerce Department for comment.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5157377-trump-administration-noaa-cuts-imminent/amp/