A movement to oppose President Donald Trump organized under the hashtags #buildtheresistance and #50501, which stands for 50 protests, 50 states, is looking to spark nationwide protests on Wednesday. Organized largely online, many of the protests are planned at state capitols, with some in other cities. Flyers circulating decry Project 2025, a hard-right playbook for American government and society, and include messages such as “reject fascism” and “defend our democracy.”
Hundreds are also rallying in Washington, D.C., in support of USAID as the Trump administration seeks to dismantle the government agency aid, sending U.S. workers around the world scrambling to pack up households and shutter the institutions six-decade mission.
Here's the latest:
A Black church in DC that was vandalized by the Proud Boys gains control over the group’s trademark
A judge has awarded a historic Black church in Washington control over the Proud Boys trademark after the far-right group defaulted on a $2.8 million judgment.
The ruling in D.C. Superior Court grants rights to the trademark of the group’s name to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church and bars the Proud Boys members from selling any merchandise with its name or symbols without the church’s consent. The ruling also allows the church to try to seize any money made from selling the group’s merchandise.
The church filed the lawsuit to try to recoup damages from vandalism made by group members after a December 2020 pro-Donald Trump rally. Black Lives Matter banners were torn down and burned at two churches, including Metropolitan African Methodist. There were also violent clashes between opposing protesters and arrests were made that night.
Enrique Tarrio, then the leader of the Proud Boys, confessed to participating in the burnings and was later sentenced to more than five months in jail on those and other charges. Tarrio was later sentenced to 22 years in federal prison for orchestrating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
▶ Read more about the ruling
Democrats demand answers over Musk’s access to sensitive data
Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee questioned the White House Wednesday about President Donald Trump’s decision to grant billionaire Elon Musk and his staff access to classified information and the personal data of millions of Americans.
Writing to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, the lawmakers said national security and Americans’ personal privacy must be protected from security lapses that could occur as Musk and his staff look to overhaul the federal workforce.
Musk and inspectors at the Department of Government Efficiency now have access to information contained within dozens of agencies, including medical and financial data belonging to millions of Americans, and classified material about foreign intelligence or the identity of undercover operatives.
In their letter, the senators asked how department staff were vetted and what safeguards are in place to prevent the misuse of information.
Democratic lawmakers also invited themselves into House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office to meet with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over DOGE’s access of a highly private federal payment system.
Rep. Judy Chu, D-Ca., and Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., who are both members of the powerful Ways & Means Committee, headed over to the speaker’s suite to demand answers. It was unclear if the speaker or the Treasury secretary were on hand to meet and discuss.
More pushback on Trump’s Gaza plan, this time from Republicans
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called Trump’s proposal for a U.S. takeover of Gaza as “problematic.”
“The idea of Americans going in on the ground in Gaza is a non starter for every senator,” the South Carolina lawmaker told reporters Wednesday. “So I would suggest we go back to what we’ve been trying to do which is destroy Hamas and find a way for the Arab world to take over Gaza and the West Bank, in a fashion that would lead to a Palestinian state that Israel can live with.”
Callers swamp Senate offices, only to get busy signals and voicemail
Callers are getting busy signals and voicemail inboxes too full to leave comments at many U.S. Senate offices. There’s a deluge of people trying to voice their opinions on Trump’s Cabinet picks, executive orders and moves to dismantle various federal programs.
The problem was confirmed in a memo distributed to Senate staff obtained by The Associated Press.
Constituents want to reach their representatives as Trump and his ally Musk work to dismantle much of the federal government, shuttering agencies, temporarily freezing funding and pushing workers to resign.
One popular social media post urges opponents to call their lawmakers six times a day, every day — two calls to each of their senators and two to their House members. “You should NOT be bothering with online petitions or emailing,” it said.
▶ Read more on efforts of constituents to reach Congress
McConnell’s office says he’s doing fine, using wheelchair as precaution
“Senator McConnell is fine,” his spokesman David Popp said.
The office sent a statement after the former GOP leader, who suffered from childhood polio, stumbled on a small series of steps exiting the Senate.
“The lingering effects of polio in his left leg will not disrupt his regular schedule of work,” Popp said.
McConnell was using a wheelchair as a precautionary measure at the Capitol.
EPA to resume payments for major programs
The Environmental Protection Agency will resume payments for major programs including Superfund site cleanup, clean drinking water infrastructure and habitat restoration, according to a Tuesday memo obtained by The Associated Press and first reported by E&E News.
The internal memo from Gregg Treml, acting Chief Financial Officer, complies with a recent court order temporarily freezing the Trump administration’s broad pause on federal financial assistance.
Funding will continue to flow “while ongoing litigation proceeds or until otherwise directed by a court,” the memo said.
Palestinians reject Trump’s call to expel them from Gaza
Saeed Abu Elaish’s wife, two of his daughters and two dozen others from his extended family were killed by Israeli airstrikes over the past 15 months. His house in northern Gaza was destroyed. He and surviving family now live in a tent set up in the rubble of his home.
But he says he will not be driven out, despite Trump’s call for transferring all Palestinians from Gaza so the U.S. could take over the devastated territory and rebuild it for others.
“We categorically reject and will resist any plans to deport and transfer us from our land,” he said from the Jabaliya refugee camp.
▶ Read more reactions from Palestinians to Trump’s comments on Gaza
Sen. Mitch McConnell stumbles on Senate steps
The Republican former leader fell slightly on a few steps while exiting the Senate chamber after late-morning votes.
Mitchell was immediately scooped up by colleagues, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., and they headed into a private GOP lunch.
Daines said McConnell seemed just fine. “He walked on his own power to lunch,” he said.
McConnell of Kentucky experienced a more serious fall two years ago and has since had a few other stumbles and setbacks while back at the Capitol. He ended his run as the longest serving Senate leader at the end of the last congressional session.
Protests against Trump and Project 2025 begin in cities across the US
A movement to protest the early actions of President Donald Trump’s administration took off Wednesday, as thousands of demonstrators gathered outside a federal courthouse in Philadelphia and at state capitols in Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin and Indiana.
Protesters waved signs decrying Trump; billionaire Elon Musk, the leader of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency; and Project 2025, a hard-right playbook for American government and society.
“Democracy is not a spectator sport! Do something,” said one demonstrator’s sign in Philadelphia.
A movement is organizing the protests online under the hashtags #buildtheresistance and #50501, which stands for 50 protests, 50 states, one day. Social media calls for action included such messages as “reject fascism” and “defend our democracy.”
▶ Read more about the anti-Trump protests
White House press secretary confirms hundreds of arrested migrants have been released, not deported
Karoline Leavitt said 461 people in the country illegally who have been arrested since Trump took office were released back into the U.S. rather than being deported.
Leavitt said that, as of Wednesday morning, more than 8,000 migrants have been arrested since Jan. 20. The people released from immigration custody amount to about 6% of them.
Leavitt said they were released for health reasons, because individuals weren’t likely to be deported quickly, or because of a lack of capacity in immigration detention facilities.
Trump campaigned on ending “catch and release,” accusing the Biden administration of releasing migrants too easily. Trump also has signed an executive order mandating “removing promptly all aliens.”
Cybersecurity expert: DeepSeek’s chatbot could be riskier than TikTok
Feroot CEO Ivan Tsarynny says “It’s mindboggling that we are unknowingly allowing China to survey Americans and we’re doing nothing about it.”
Former Homeland Security and National Security Agency official Stewart Baker says DeepSeek “raises all of the TikTok concerns plus you’re talking about information that is highly likely to be of more national security and personal significance than anything people do on TikTok.”
Congress voted to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company to divest or face a nationwide ban, but then the app received a 75-day reprieve from President Donald Trump to work out a sale.
▶Read more about DeepSeek’s code:
New Chinese AI company DeepSeek tied to Chinese government-run telecom, researchers find
The chatbot offered by the new Chinese AI company DeepSeek appears to be more closely tied to the Chinese state than previously known. Cybersecurity experts say using it may be more risky than watching videos on TikTok.
The web login page of DeepSeek’s chatbot contains some heavily obfuscated computer script. According to the cybersecurity research firm Feroot Security, deciphering it reveals computer infrastructure connections to China Mobile, a state-owned telecom that’s banned in the United States because it feeds information to the Chinese military.
▶Read more about DeepSeek’s code:
White House walks back Trump’s suggestion of permanent resettlement for Gaza residents
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has contradicted Trump’s suggestions that the residents of the Gaza Strip could be permanently relocated elsewhere.
“The president has made it clear that they need to be temporarily relocated out of Gaza,” Levitt said during her briefing with reporters. “It’s a demolition site.”
That contradicted Trump, who said on Tuesday night of Gaza, “If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people, permanently, in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot and not be killed and not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza.”
Rubio calls Trump’s proposal in Gaza ‘generous’
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that President Donald Trump’s proposal to take “ownership” of Gaza and redevelop the area into “the Riviera of the Middle East” was a “generous” offer.
“It was not meant as a hostile move,” Rubio said. “It was meant as a, I think, a very generous move.”
He said it is “akin to a natural disaster” and people can’t live there because there are unexploded munitions, debris and rubble.
“In the interim, obviously people are going to have to live somewhere while you’re rebuilding it,” the top diplomat said.
Trump previewed his plan to Israel’s leader
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “was indeed” aware of Trump’s plan for the U.S. to take “ownership” of Gaza before he publicly announced it.
Leavitt said during a briefing with reporters that she was not present to witness Netanyahu’s reaction to Trump’s plan but said “this is something the president has been socializing and thinking about for quite some time.”
Rubio suggests USAID workers have themselves to blame
The U.S. secretary of state said the original intention was to keep the U.S. Agency for International Development running pending a review of whether and how money was being spent in alignment of U.S. foreign policy under President Trump.
But he said the Trump administration received no cooperation, and employees were acting in “contravention” and “insubordination.”
“It is not the direction I wanted it. It’s not the way we wanted to do it initially, but it is the way we will have to do it now,” Rubio said, referring to the sudden order late Tuesday to pull almost all USAID workers overseas off the job and out of the field.
Rubio spoke at a press conference with the Guatemalan president in the country’s capital.
Guatemala strikes deal with Rubio to accept migrants from other countries deported from the US
Guatemala’s president said Wednesday after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio that his country will accept migrants from other countries being deported from the United States.
Under the “safe third country” agreement announced by President Bernardo Arevalo, the deportees would then be returned to their home countries at U.S. expense.
Immigration, a Trump administration priority, has been the major focus of Rubio’s first foreign trip as America’s top diplomat, a five-country tour of Central America.
In El Salvador, he announced a similar but broader agreement, which included an offer to accept American citizens jailed in the U.S. for violent crimes.
Pro-Trump Arab American group changes its name after the president’s Gaza ‘Riviera’ comments
A group that played a key role in Donald Trump’s voter outreach to the Arab American community alongside his allies is rebranding itself after the president said that the U.S. would “take over” the Gaza Strip.
Bishara Bahbah, chairman of the group formerly known as Arab Americans for Trump, said during a phone interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday that the group would now be called Arab Americans for Peace.
The name change came after Trump held a Tuesday press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House and proposed the U.S. take “ownership” in redeveloping the area into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
FBI agents who ‘simply followed orders’ in Jan. 6 probes won’t be fired, a Justice official says
FBI agents “who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner” while investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol are not at risk of being fired, a top Justice Department official said in a memo to the bureau workforce obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday.
But the memo from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove also provides no reassurances for any agents found to have “acted with corrupt or partisan intent” and suggests those employees, if there any, should be concerned about a massive and highly unusual review process the Trump administration Justice Department has embarked upon.
The message from Bove is aimed at providing a measure of clarity about highly unusual Justice Department demand for the names of agents who participated in the investigation, a request seen within the FBI as a possible precursor for mass firings.
__By Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer
GOP quashes Democratic effort to force Musk to appear for congressional oversight questions
Republicans blocked Democratic efforts Wednesday to subpoena Musk to appear before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform during a hearing on “Rightsizing Government.”
Musk is leading Trump’s “government efficiency” effort. He’s positioned personnel in key federal agencies where they have sought to close the U.S. Agency for International Development and gain access to sensitive payment systems at the Treasury Department.
“Who is this unelected billionaire that he can attempt to dismantle federal agencies, fire people, transfer them, offer them early retirement and have sweeping changes to agencies without any congressional review, oversight or concurrence?” said Rep. Gerry Connolly, the panel’s ranking Democrat.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., then moved to table the motion, and Republicans quashed it with a 20-19 vote.
Frustrated anti-Trump protesters get a reality check as Democrat notes Republicans hold power
Demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. Capitol to protest the shutdown of USAID seem increasingly frustrated with Democratic lawmakers, chanting “do your job!”
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia took the microphone and described how Democrats plan to fight the changes in court, withhold support for Trump nominees and hopefully win future elections.
But he acknowledged political reality: “We are where we are because we lost a presidential election and we lost two houses in November. We have a lot more tools in majority than we do in minority,” Kaine said.
Trump’s birthright citizenship order is put on hold by a second federal judge
A federal judge has ordered a second nationwide pause on President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship for anyone born in the U.S. to someone in the country illegally, calling citizenship a “most precious right.”
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman said no court in the country has endorsed the Trump administration’s interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“This court will not be the first,” she said. “Citizenship is a most precious right, expressly granted by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.”
Boardman said citizenship is a “national concern that demands a uniform policy,” adding that “only a nationwide injunction will provide complete relief to the plaintiffs.”
Trump’s inauguration week order had already been on temporary hold nationally because of a separate suit brought by four states in Washington state, where a judge called the order “blatantly unconstitutional.”
In total, 22 states, as well as other organizations, have sued to try to stop the executive action.
▶Read more about what the judge had to say
Pam Bondi is sworn in as U.S. attorney general
Before Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas administered the oath of office in the White House’s Oval Office, Trump praised Bondi’s record as a prosecutor and said she will restore “fair, equal and impartial justice” to the department.
It was the first time Trump participated in a swearing in ceremony for a cabinet member in his new term, underscoring the president’s immense personal interest in the department that charged him in two since-abandoned criminal cases.
Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, told the president that she would not let him down, saying: “I will make you proud and I will make this country proud.”
Bondi takes the reins of a Justice Department bracing for upheaval as Trump looks to exert his will over an agency that has long provoked his ire.
Senate Democrats to pull an all-nighter to protest Vought, Project 2025 and DOGE
Senate Democrats are planning an all-nighter to protest confirmation of Russ Vought as Trump’s budget director.
All 47 Democrats are opposing the Vought, who is a chief architect of Project 2025 and influential in the Musk-run DOGE cuts ripping through the federal government. While Democrats don’t have the votes as the minority party to stop the nominee, they will try to muster the stamina to rail against him all night — running out the procedural clock before the roll call.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said they will “sound the alarm on Russell Vought through the night.”
Supporters and lawmakers turn out to back USAID
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered across the street from the U.S. Capitol to protest the latest cuts and dismantling of USAID. Half a dozen Democratic members of Congress were expected to speak at the rally, the second with lawmakers this week.
Posters titled “the faces of foreign aid” showed images of doctors and farmers and teachers who administer USAID programs across the globe.
“Hell no, we won’t go!” chants began before the speakers took the mics.
USAID workers scramble for answers after Trump pulls almost all of them off the job worldwide
U.S. aid staffers around the world are scrambling Wednesday for answers and starting to pack up households or pull their children from school after a sudden Trump administration order yanking almost all of them off the job and out of the field.
In Washington, Democratic lawmakers and other supporters of the U.S. Agency for International Development planned rallies to protest the dismantling of the independent government agency established six decades ago. USAID has been one of the agencies hardest hit as the new administration and Elon Musk’s budget-cutting team target federal programs they say are wasteful or not aligned with a conservative agenda.
U.S. embassies in many of the more than 100 countries where USAID operates convened emergency town halls for the thousands of agency staffers and contractors looking for answers. Embassy officials said they had been given no guidance on what to tell staffers, particularly local hires, about their employment status.
Speaker Mike Johnson calls Trump’s plans for Gaza ‘common sense’
House Speaker Mike Johnson calls Trump’s plans to redevelop Gaza a “bold move” that should be given a look.
“If we could control that situation and bring about a lasting peace there, it would do well for everybody,” Johnson, a Republican, said at a press conference.
“It just makes sense to make the neighborhood there safer,” he said. “I think it follows common sense.”
The speaker said plans to discuss the idea further when he meets with Netanyahu on Thursday at the Capitol.
He acknowledged while Trump’s announcement surprised many Johnson by said it was also cheered by others around the world.
Russian ally hails suspension of US foreign aid
The president of a Serb-dominated part of Bosnia says U.S. funding has inflicted “serious evil” around the world for years.
Milorad Dodik was sanctioned by the Biden administration over allegations of corruption and separatist policies that are undermining the U.S.-brokered peace agreement that ended the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.
In an interview with The Associated Press, he praised Trump’s election as “a magnificent event in the new political history.” He also claimed that the U.S. Agency for International Development has been used to destabilize nations.
The Associated Press
