The Trump administration moved Thursday to issue a rule that would make it easier to fire tens of thousands of federal workers. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said it was reclassifying certain career civil service roles so agencies can “quickly remove employees from critical positions who engage in misconduct, perform poorly, or obstruct the democratic process by intentionally subverting Presidential directives”.
Traditionally, only political appointees – roughly 4,000 positions – can be dismissed “at will”.
Under the new rule, many nonpartisan roles would be shifted into a category called “Schedule Policy/Career,” effectively treating them as political appointees. That reclassification could allow the administration to remove employees it views as disloyal. The rule – set to be published in the Federal Register on Friday – also states that “personal or political loyalty tests as a condition of employment” are prohibited.
Critics argue the change would open the door to politically motivated purges. “We have successfully fought this kind of power grab before, and we will fight this again. We will return to court to stop this unlawful rule and will use every legal tool available to hold this administration accountable to the people,” said Skye Perryman, CEO of Democracy Forward.
The largest union representing federal workers called the rule “a direct assault on a professional, nonpartisan, merit-based civil service.” In a statement, American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) president Everett Kelley said OPM is “rebranding career public servants as ‘policy’ employees, silencing whistleblowers, and replacing competent professionals with political flunkies without any neutral, independent protections against politicization and arbitrary abuse of power.”
Trump briefly enacted a similar change at the end of his first term through an executive order known as “Schedule F,” which Joe Biden rescinded upon taking office in 2021. Stripping civil service protections has also been a central plank of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint.
In a statement Thursday, anticipating the rule’s release, OPM director Scott Kupor said the reclassification would bring “much-needed accountability to career policy-influencing positions in the Federal government.”
Updated at 12.07 EST
Key events
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White House continues to defend Gabbard’s role FBI raid of Georgia election office
Karoline Leavitt doubled down on Trump’s earlier defense of Tulsi Gabbard’s role in an FBI raid of an election center in Georgia. Earlier today, Trump said that Gabbard – the director of national intelligence – went at the urging of attorney general Pam Bondi.
At today’s briefing, Leavitt said that it is a part of Gabbard’s role “to make sure that American elections are free of foreign interference, and that American elections are safe and secure”.
As the Guardian reported, Trump’s remarks earlier marked a departure from remarks in an interview with NBC News on Wednesday. “I don’t know,” Trump said when asked why Gabbard was present. The Guardian has also reported that Gabbard is conducting her own review of the 2020 election through her office with Trump’s approval – working separately from the justice department investigation – and that she was sent to observe the raid as part of that effort.
Leavitt did not clarify whether the president directed Gabbard to go to Fulton County for the seizure of almost 700 boxes of 2020 election documentation.
“It’s the media who has said that there’s Russian interference in American elections. You guys have been saying that for many saying that for many, many years,” the press secretary said. “I don’t understand why anyone in this room, considering you’re all American citizens I believe, and like to vote in our nation’s elections, should have any problem with that whatsoever.”
When asked about Donald Trump’s comments in an NBC News about the federal government’s role in elections.
“What the president is suggesting, and I just spoke to him about this, is that Republicans and Democrats in Congress should pass the SAVE America act,” Leavitt said of the legislation that requires prospective voters to provide proof of citizenship, like a birth certificate or passport, when registering to vote.
ShareLeavitt says that some DHS funding demands from Democrats are ‘non starters’
Leavitt said today that the administration is willing to discuss “some” of the items on the list of demands sent by the Senate’s top Democrat Chuck Schumer and the House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries. “Others don’t seem like they are grounded in any common sense, and they are non starters for this administration,” Leavitt said.
She didn’t elaborate on which aspects are off the table, but many Republican remembers of Congress have said that some of the key demands from Democrats, like asking federal immigration agents to not wear masks and the need for judicial warrants to conduct raids, are untenable.
Of note, Leavitt says that the president will announce the unveiling of TrumpRx at 7pm ET on Thursday. This will be a new website that helps Americans buy prescription drugs directly from manufacturers.
ShareKaroline Leavitt holds White House press briefing
Karoline Leavitt kicked off today’s White House press briefing noting that she and Donald Trump were watching the press conference about the search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today show anchor Savannah Guthrie. Leavitt described the situation as “heartbreaking” and noted that she spoke with the FBI directly about the ongoing investigation today.
ShareMore than 26,000 people without criminal records in ICE detention
My colleagues Will Craft and Andrew Witherspoon have collated the latest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data, and report that there are more than 26,000 people with no criminal record in ICE detention. For context, this is up from 2,760 when Donald Trump returned to office last year.
You can read the full report here:
ShareArizona sheriff says Savannah Guthrie’s mother is ‘still out there’ as search continues
Chris Nanos, the Pima county sheriff, said today that local authorities believe 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, is “still out there” following her disappearance almost five days ago. “We just want her home and find a way to get to the bottom of this,” Nanos said.
The FBI is now supporting Pima county authorities on the investigation, and Nanos added that officials did not yet have a suspect, when he addressed the press on Thursday. “We’re not there yet,” he said.
Chris Nanos, speaks to the media in Tucson, Arizona, 3 February 2026. Photograph: Jan Sonnenmair/Getty ImagesShare
Donald Trump also said today that he had “productive” discussions with Keir Starmer regarding Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands, which he said was “of great importance to the National Security of the United States”.
Trump, who has previously called the UK PM’s Chagos deal “an act of great stupidity” and linked it to his own ambition to acquire Greenland, said today in a post on Truth Social that he understood it was “the best deal he [Starmer] could make”.
“However,” he went on, “if the lease deal, sometime in the future, ever falls apart, or anyone threatens or endangers U.S. operations and forces at our Base, I retain the right to Militarily secure and reinforce the American presence in Diego Garcia.”
Last week, Starmer said that US intelligence agencies disagreed with Trump’s newly found opposition to the deal, as he underlined how the US administration had supported the deal as it bolstered their defences.
An aerial view of Diego Garcia, the largest island of the Chagos Archipelago, which has been used as a joint UK–US military base since the 1970s. Photograph: APShare
Donald Trump has said that Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi had his “total endorsement” ahead of a legislative election in Japan on Sunday, adding that they would meet on 19 March at the White House.
“Prime Minister Takaichi is someone who deserves powerful recognition for the job she and her Coalition are doing,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“Therefore, as President of the United States of America, it is my Honor to give a Complete and Total Endorsement of her, and what her highly respected Coalition is representing.”
Takaichi is widely expected to win in the snap election this Sunday.
ShareRevealed: private jet owned by Trump friend used by ICE to deport Palestinians to West Bank
Harry Davies, Alice Speri and Sufian Taha
On the morning of 21 January, Israeli authorities left eight Palestinian men at a West Bank checkpoint. Disoriented and cold, they were dressed in prison-issued tracksuits and carried their few belongings in plastic bags.
Hours earlier, they had been sitting with their wrists and ankles shackled on the plush leather seats of a private jet owned by the Florida property tycoon Gil Dezer, a longtime business partner of Donald Trump.
Dezer is also a Trump donor, friend of Donald Trump Jr and member of the Miami branch of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.
His sleek Gulfstream jet – which he has called “my little rocket ship” – was used to transport the men from an airport near a notorious removal centre in Arizona to Tel Aviv. The jet made three refuelling stops en route: in New Jersey, Ireland and Bulgaria.
A Guardian investigation has established the flight was part of a secretive and politically sensitive US government operation to deport Palestinians arrested by ICE to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Gil Dezer and Donald Trump at an event in 2011. Photograph: Miami Herald/Tribune News Service/Getty Images
One of those deported on the January flight was Maher Awad, a 24-year-old originally from the West Bank, who had lived in the US for nearly a decade. Speaking to the Guardian in the town of Rammun, Maher shared photos of his girlfriend and newborn son in Michigan.
“They dropped us off like animals on the side of the road,” Awad said. “We went to a local house, we knocked on the door, we were like: ‘Please help us out.’”
You can read the full investigation here:
Updated at 12.56 EST
US job openings dropped to a five-year low in December 2025, report shows
US job openings dropped to the lowest level in more than five years in December and data for the prior month was revised lower amid a softening in labor market conditions at the end of 2025.
Job openings, a measure of labor demand, decreased by 386,000 to 6.542m by the last day of December, the lowest level since September 2020, the labor department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report, today.
Data for November was revised down to show 6.928m job openings instead of the previously reported 7.146m. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 7.20m unfilled jobs. Hiring increased by 172,000 positions to a still-low 5.293m in December.
The data came as other numbers showed a larger-than-expected increase in Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits last week, but the underlying trend remained consistent with a stable labor market.
Here’s the full story:
ShareBessent says further Russian sanctions depend on peace talks
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent has said that further US sanctions against Russia depend on talks aimed at ending its nearly four-year-old war in Ukraine.
Bessent, who participated in talks with Russian officials and Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner in Miami on 31 January, said he would consider sanctions against Russia’s shadow fleet.
“We will see where the peace talks go,” Bessent said, noting that the Trump administration’s sanctions against Russian oil majors Rosneft and Lukoil had helped bring Russia to the negotiating table in the peace talks.
Updated at 13.12 EST
Trump administration issues rule that makes it easier to fire federal workers
The Trump administration moved Thursday to issue a rule that would make it easier to fire tens of thousands of federal workers. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said it was reclassifying certain career civil service roles so agencies can “quickly remove employees from critical positions who engage in misconduct, perform poorly, or obstruct the democratic process by intentionally subverting Presidential directives”.
Traditionally, only political appointees – roughly 4,000 positions – can be dismissed “at will”.
Under the new rule, many nonpartisan roles would be shifted into a category called “Schedule Policy/Career,” effectively treating them as political appointees. That reclassification could allow the administration to remove employees it views as disloyal. The rule – set to be published in the Federal Register on Friday – also states that “personal or political loyalty tests as a condition of employment” are prohibited.
Critics argue the change would open the door to politically motivated purges. “We have successfully fought this kind of power grab before, and we will fight this again. We will return to court to stop this unlawful rule and will use every legal tool available to hold this administration accountable to the people,” said Skye Perryman, CEO of Democracy Forward.
The largest union representing federal workers called the rule “a direct assault on a professional, nonpartisan, merit-based civil service.” In a statement, American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) president Everett Kelley said OPM is “rebranding career public servants as ‘policy’ employees, silencing whistleblowers, and replacing competent professionals with political flunkies without any neutral, independent protections against politicization and arbitrary abuse of power.”
Trump briefly enacted a similar change at the end of his first term through an executive order known as “Schedule F,” which Joe Biden rescinded upon taking office in 2021. Stripping civil service protections has also been a central plank of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint.
In a statement Thursday, anticipating the rule’s release, OPM director Scott Kupor said the reclassification would bring “much-needed accountability to career policy-influencing positions in the Federal government.”
Updated at 12.07 EST
Melody Schreiber
At least two cases of measles have been confirmed at a major immigration detention center for children and their parents in Texas as cases of the dangerous virus in South Carolina, Arizona, Utah and other US states continue growing and alarming experts.
In January alone, the US saw 25% of the total confirmed in all of last year, and the outbreak shows no sign of slowing as federal officials stay silent on vaccination.
The vast majority of patients are not vaccinated, but there have been no national campaigns announced or recent statements from leaders such as Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Last year, Kennedy positioned measles vaccines as a personal choice and recommended unproven treatments for the highly contagious illness.
The measles outbreak is “frightening” and “very worrisome”, said Jason Bowling, professor of infectious diseases at UT Health San Antonio and director of hospital epidemiology at University Health.
“I unfortunately do not see this slowing down across the United States,” said Anna-Kathryn Burch, division director of pediatric infectious diseases at Prisma Health Children’s hospital in the Midlands in South Carolina. What’s happening in South Carolina could happen anywhere the vaccination rate dips too low, Burch said. “It’s not a matter of if, but more likely when.”
The Dilley family detention center in south Texas, one of two immigration facilities for children in the US, reported two measles cases on Friday. “We are aware of the cases and are assisting by providing doses of measles vaccine as requested by ICE,” said Chris Van Deusen, director of media relations at the Texas department of state health services, referring to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).