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12:55 AM ET, February 1, 2025

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 Top Items: 
Tim Reid / Reuters:
Exclusive: Musk aides lock government workers out of computer systems at US agency, sources say  —  Aides to Elon Musk charged with running the U.S. government human resources agency have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees …
RELATED:
Wired:
Elon Musk's Friends Have Infiltrated Another Government Agency  —  Elon Musk's former employees are trying to use White House credentials to access General Services Administration tech, giving them the potential to remote into laptops, read emails, and more, sources say.
Discussion: New Republic and Transman Badass
Greg Sargent / New Republic:
Trump and Elon Musk Just Pulled Off Another Purge—and It's a Scary One  —  President Donald Trump has granted Elon Musk unprecedented power to carry out his war on the “deep state.”  The justification for this is supposed to be that the government is corrupted to its core precisely …
Discussion: CNN
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Elon's Twitter Destruction Playbook Hits The US Government, And It's Even More Dangerous  —  from the twisting-the-chaos-knob-on-the-levers- of-power dept  —  Remember how Elon Musk destroyed Twitter by ripping apart its infrastructure without understanding it?  Now imagine that same playbook applied to the federal government.
Washington Post:
Senior U.S. official to exit after rift with Musk allies over payment system
Sean O'Kane / TechCrunch:   Elon Musk is reportedly taking control of the inner workings of US government agencies
Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:
Who Can Stop Elon's ‘Team’ Wilding Its Way Through the Federal Government?
Discussion: Raw Story
Los Angeles Times:
Acting on Trump's order, federal officials opened up two California dams  — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers abruptly increased the amount of water flowing from two California dams.  — The federal agency made the decision after President Trump signed an order calling for increased water deliveries.
RELATED:
Lois Henry / SJV Water:
Trump's emergency water order responsible for water dump from Tulare County lakes  —  The sudden announcement Thursday by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that Kaweah and Success lakes would immediately begin dumping water was in response to President Trump's Jan. 24 executive order mandating …
Politico:
Trump says he opened California's water.  Local officials say he nearly flooded them.  —  The Army Corps of Engineers moved to release massive quantities of water in Central California, panicking local officials.  —  SACRAMENTO, California — President Donald Trump declared victory on Friday …
Discussion: Raw Story and Mercury News
Lois Henry / SJV Water:
Decision to dump water from Tulare County lakes altered after sending locals into a mad scramble  —  Water managers were relieved Thursday evening after the Army Corps of Engineers agreed to back off of a sudden decision earlier in the day to dump massive amounts of water from Kaweah and Success lakes.
Washington Post:
D.C. U.S. attorney fires Jan. 6 prosecutors, launches new probes  —  Ed Martin has fired Jan. 6 prosecutors, launched investigations of Capitol riot prosecutions and threatened the nation's top elected Democrat with an inquiry.  —  Interim D.C. U.S. attorney Edward R. Martin, Jr. …
RELATED:
CNN:
FBI agents who worked on January 6 and Trump investigations are expected to be fired Friday  —  The Trump administration is set to expand a purge of career law enforcement officials, with dozens of FBI agents who worked on January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack and Trump-related investigations …
Shane Harris / The Atlantic:
FBI Agents Are Stunned by the Scale of the Expected Trump Purge  —  This afternoon, FBI personnel braced for a retaliatory purge of the nation's premiere law-enforcement agency, as President Donald Trump appeared ready to fire potentially hundreds of agents and officials who'd participated …
CBS News:
Watch live coverage: Plane crash in Philadelphia leaves multiple houses on fire, causes explosion  —  Emergency crews are responding to an explosion in Northeast Philadelphia after a small medical jet crashed in the area of Roosevelt Boulevard and Cottman Avenue, Philadephia police confirmed to CBS News Philadelphia.
RELATED:
NBC10 Philadelphia:
Live Updates: Medical jet carrying 6, including girl, crashes in Northeast Philly
Associated Press:
A medical plane carrying a child patient and 5 others crashes in Philadelphia, setting homes ablaze
Dennis Romero / NBC News:
Air ambulance carrying 6 crashes near mall in Philadelphia
Mattathias Schwartz / New York Times:
Federal Judge Orders White House to Keep Money Flowing to 22 States  —  A court in Rhode Island issued a temporary restraining order to block Trump's directive to defund programs he considers to be “woke.”  —  A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to keep taxpayer dollars flowing …
RELATED:
Ian Millhiser / Vox:
Brett Kavanaugh has very bad news for Donald Trump
Washington Post:   House GOP nears plan for Trump's agenda — but may not have the votes
Politico:
Second judge to block Trump's spending freeze says the policy is likely unconstitutional
Discussion: WQAD-TV
NPR:
Trump administration purges websites across federal health agencies  —  At the direction of the Trump administration, the federal Department of Health and Human Services and its agencies are purging its websites of information and data on a broad array of topics — from adolescent health to LGBTQ+ rights to HIV.
RELATED:
Katherine J. Wu / The Atlantic:
CDC Data Are Disappearing
Discussion: STAT
Joan Westenberg / The Index:
These Clowns are Economic Illiterates  —  Trump treats tariffs like a toddler treats a new word, repeating it endlessly without grasping its meaning in his stained, clutching hands.  —  Donald Trump has discovered tariffs again, and God help us all.  The President and souvenir coin salesman announced …
RELATED:
Associated Press:
White House says Trump tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China will come Saturday. No word on exemptions
Nandika Chatterjee / The Daily Beast:
Trump Admin Emails Air Traffic Controllers: Quit Your Jobs  —  REALLY?!  —  Federal employees were told they could use their paid time off to explore “dream destinations” before quitting.
Phil Williams / WTVF-TV:
Career prosecutors withdraw from federal criminal investigation of GOP Congressman Andy Ogles  —  Local prosecutors are not commenting, but move may signal plans to drop investigation of one of President Trump's Republican allies  —  NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Federal prosecutors based …
Discussion: Raw Story
RELATED:
New York Times:
More Than a Dozen Prosecutors at Washington U.S. Attorney's Office Are Dismissed
Benjamin Wittes / Default:
The Situation: Kash Patel's “Odor of Mendacity”  —  Any FBI agent who testified as the FBI Director nominee did would lose his job.  —  Meet The Authors … The Situation on Wednesday focused on the unique danger of Kash Patel among Donald Trump's nominees, in the context of the purge …
Discussion: Wired
ABC News:
Federal employees told to remove pronouns from email signatures by end of day  —  The mandate is the latest effort in the Trump administration's push to end DEI.  —  President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, Jan. 30, 2025.
Associated Press:
New York doctor indicted for prescribing abortion pill in Louisiana  —  A New York doctor was indicted by a Louisiana grand jury on Friday for allegedly prescribing an abortion pill online in the Deep South state, which has one of the strictest near-total abortion bans in the country.
ProPublica:
“People Will Die”: The Trump Administration Said It Lifted Its Ban on Lifesaving Humanitarian Aid.  That's Not True.  —  ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.  Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published.
RELATED:
Thomas Novelly / Military.com:
Governors Identify 2 Soldiers Killed in Black Hawk Collision While Third Name Withheld by Service  —  Two of the three soldiers who were killed Wednesday when their Black Hawk helicopter collided with a passenger airline have been identified by service and public officials …
RELATED:
NPR:
Army withholds name of Black Hawk helicopter crew in D.C. crash, 2 others identified
Drew Friedman / Federal News Network:
Trump administration directs 70% cut to internal OPM staffing, programs  —  Trump administration officials are taking major steps to cut down the size of the workforce and federal programs at the Office of Personnel Management.  —  During an internal meeting Friday morning …
Discussion: Talking Points Memo
Washington Post:
Trump administration seeking access to database of immigrant minors  —  The Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is responsible for caring for unaccompanied minors, has long operated independently of ICE.  —  The Trump administration is seeking to grant U.S. immigration officers access …
 
 
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 More Items: 
Ben Kamisar / NBC News:
Democratic National Committee prepares to elect a new party chair
Wall Street Journal:
Vaccine Information, Transgender References Disappear From Federal Websites
Discussion: Axios
U.S. Department of Defense:
Identity Months Dead at DoD
Discussion: Ken Klippenstein
Joey McFadden / The Daily Beast:
Trump Orders Schools to Ease Sexual Misconduct Rules
Discussion: Raw Story
Paul McLeary / Politico:
Pentagon plans to start migrant flights to Guantanamo this weekend
Discussion: New York Post
Declan Harty / Politico:
Trump Media gifts Patel, McMahon thousands of shares
Discussion: CNN, CNBC and Raw Story
Garrett M. Graff / Doomsday Scenario:
A Red-Alert for Democracy: The Patel FBI Purge Begins
 Earlier Items: 
Michael M. Grynbaum / New York Times:
CBS News Set to Hand Over Transcript of ‘60 Minutes’ Interview to F.C.C.
Jonathan V. Last / The Bulwark:
Please Don't Resign  —  How to stop Elon Musk.  (And Trump.)  —  ∙ Paid
Michael Levenson / New York Times:
Woman Pardoned in Jan. 6 Case Gets 10-Year Sentence in Drunken-Driving Death
Melissa Brown / The Tennessean:
Tennessee GOP passes immigration law to criminalize elected officials' votes
David Bauder / Associated Press:
Former ‘Meet the Press’ moderator Chuck Todd exits NBC News after nearly two decades
Slate:
The D.C. Air Disaster Is a Flashing Warning Sign About DOGE
 

 
From Techmeme:

Wes Davis / The Verge:
Apple updates the Mac Studio with an M4 Max for $1,999+ and an M3 Ultra for $3,999+, with up to 32 cores, including 24 performance cores, shipping from March 12

Cade Metz / New York Times:
Reinforcement learning pioneers Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton win the 2024 Turing Award; their work contributed to the rise of AI, like AlphaGo and ChatGPT

Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Sesame's AI speech model demo has many users expressing astonishment at its realism, with some testers reporting an emotional connection to the voice assistant
 
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