A 25-Year-Old With Elon Musk Ties Has Direct Access to the Federal Payment System  —  The Bureau of the Fiscal Service is a sleepy part of the Treasury Department.  It's also where, sources say, a 25-year-old engineer tied to Elon Musk has admin privileges over the code that controls Social Security payments, tax returns, and more.

About 20,000 federal workers took “buyout” so far, official says  —  About 20,000 federal workers have accepted the “buyout” offer put forward by the Trump administration last week, a senior administration official tells Axios. … - The offer is open through Thursday, meaning the total could rise …

The worst thing Trump has done so far  —  About two and a half months ago, I wrote a piece about what foreign aid might look like in the second Trump term.  Reading that piece now feels bizarre.  —  I thought that Trump's second term would look much like his first: lots of proposals …

China counters with tariffs on US products.  It will also investigate Google  —  China countered President Donald Trump's across-the-board tariffs on Chinese products with tariffs on select U.S. imports Tuesday, as well as announcing an antitrust investigation into Google and other trade measures.

Trump Blinks on North American Tariffs  —  The President pauses after minor concessions from Canada and Mexico.  —  President Trump never admits a mistake, but he often changes his mind.  That's the best way to read his decision Monday to pause his 25% tariffs against Mexico and Canada after minor concessions from each country.

Trump Is Testing Our Constitutional System.  It's Doing Fine.  —  The president's flurry of illegal actions have been stopped by the courts.  That's how it is supposed to work.  —  The Trump administration is subjecting the US constitutional system to a stress test.

Top ‘60 Minutes’ Producer Says He Will Not Apologize Over Trump Lawsuit  —  Bill Owens, the show's executive producer, addressed his staff as CBS's parent company, Paramount, pursues a legal settlement with the president.  —  The head of “60 Minutes” told the show's staff on Monday …

State audit finds overall unnecessary spending under former UF President Ben Sasse  —  Sasse's expenditures included more than $300,000 in private jet flights  —  A preliminary report from the Florida Auditor General found UF failed to prevent former President Ben Sasse from leveraging …

The Situation: What's Going on at the FBI?  —  Don't look now but the FBI is resisting the political witch-hunt loosed upon it.  —  Meet The Authors … The Situation on Friday was too fluid to write responsibly on the ongoing purge at the FBI.  —  Things have clarified enough today …

N.Y. lets doctors keep names off abortion pills to avoid red-state charges  —  Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) approved the law on Monday, after New York doctor Margaret Carpenter was charged with prescribing abortion pills to a girl in Louisiana.

USAID personnel told to stay away from headquarters after Elon Musk's shutdown comments  —  Marocco held several national security positions during the first Trump administration, including at USAID, where he tried to consolidate power and slash funding.  —  WASHINGTON — Secretary …

Republican Senators Say They're Fine Handing Their Power to Elon Musk  —  Musk's actions may be unconstitutional but “nobody should bellyache about that,” Sen. Thom Tillis said.  — Copy  —  Tech billionaire Elon Musk is working to shut down government agencies and cancel congressionally approved funding …

El Salvador offers to house violent US criminals and deportees of any nationality in unprecedented deal  —  El Salvador has agreed to house violent US criminals and receive deportees of any nationality, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Monday, in an unprecedented …

To Save Democracy, Start Filing Cases  —  The Trump-Musk ransacking of the federal government must stop.  The courts offer one important way to apply the brake, says an administrative law scholar.  —  If you were a state senator in 1975 seeking constitutional advice, any competent lawyer …

A Coup Is In Progress In America  —  A coup is underway in the United States, and we must stop pretending otherwise.  The signs are unmistakable and accelerating: in just the past 48 hours, Elon Musk's DOGE commission has seized control of Treasury payment systems and gained unauthorized access …

Trump's impending massacre of the federal workforce will destroy his second term  —  The Trump administration has initiated what may become the most devastating dismantling of the federal workforce in modern history — not with mass firings, but with a carefully designed invitation to resign.

E.P.A. Demotes Career Employees Overseeing Science, Enforcement and More  —  A spokeswoman for the agency said the change was “common practice.”  Others said it injects partisanship into jobs that have always been neutral.  —  The Environmental Protection Agency plans to demote career employees …

‘Scared and betrayed’ — workers are reeling from chaos at federal agencies … As the third week of Donald Trump's presidency begins, workers across federal agencies are scrambling to find their footing among the chaos.  —  From the US Agency for International Development and the Department of Agriculture …

Trump's plan to kill offshore wind is paying off  —  The end of a project in New Jersey “plays right into the hands of Donald Trump.”  —  Blue states spent the last four years one-upping each other with bigger and bigger plans to build offshore wind farms that could power the nation into the future

How Democratic Gen Z activists lost the Gen Z vote  —  This story was originally published in The Highlight, Vox's member-exclusive magazine.  To get early access to member-exclusive stories every month, join the Vox Membership program today.  —  Six months ago, young Democrats were preparing for a very different conversation.

Democrats flood the zone with acts of anti-Trump resistance … - “That's not a thing. … - House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) unveiled a 10-part plan for countering Trump that includes using the federal funding process to thwart his efforts to “defund programs important to everyday Americans.”

A guide to using Signal for government workers  —  Editor's note: A friend of mine works in the federal government and wrote a guide for their fellow federal workers on how to use Signal.  There are lots of good reasons for switching to Signal for messaging, and this does a great job of laying it all out.