At the start of 2025, we’ve seen many events unfold, such as record-breaking winter storms on the east coast of the U.S., a new president, a ceasefire in Gaza, and overall a lot of promises from the Trump Administration. One question arises for many people: How has everything unfolded since then? This article seeks to inform you of all the major news from mid-January into early February.
Let’s start off with the U.S. related news. Early into his presidency, President Donald Trump signed many executive orders; however, many of those orders have found themselves being blocked by federal judges across the nation. Over two dozen lawsuits have been filed against Trump’s executive orders. Here are the details of the major ones:
DOGE: The Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE), was created by President Trump and is led by Elon Musk, with the intention of downsizing the government. Republicans were quite vocal about their distaste for the Biden Administration’s frequent spending. DOGE was given access to the Treasury and citizen’s social security numbers and banking information. Many people had issues with this, as DOGE wasn’t an act of Congress and was the result of an executive order. People were concerned about the individuals who are at the helm in DOGE, including Elon Musk. Elon Musk has found himself under increasing criticism from the public. His running of “X”, formerly known as Twitter, has led to many questioning his ability to lead a social media app, so a job in government is more questionable to critics.
Government union members and retirees quickly filed a lawsuit against DOGE, stating that DOGE having access to both people’s social security and banking information was a violation of numerous privacy laws. Their main hope is that DOGE and its personnel will be blocked from such important private information. Additionally, nineteen states, being led by New York, have claimed that Elon Musk’s access to such information via DOGE is unconstitutional. The exact outcomes of this are currently unknown, so stay aware in the coming weeks for updates on the situation.
USAID: In his efforts to decrease the scale and spending of the U.S. government, President Trump has turned his head on the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID has become a target by Republicans as many believe that the funding that USAID receives is wasteful and the funds should be reallocated elsewhere. However, a federal judge prevented the stripping of USAID, leaving only a couple hundred workers employed for USAID.
Buyouts: President Trump, in his continued efforts to downsize the government, offered to buy out the contracts of federal workers of various departments and agencies. Union members sued to stop this, believing that the president doesn’t have the power to conduct buyouts of this scale. Additionally, George A. O’Toole Jr., a federal judge in Boston, Massachusetts, blocked President Trump’s buyouts.
Birthright Citizenship: When Trump signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship, many states and federal judges blocked the motion. U.S. District Judge, John C. Coughenour, stated that “Citizenship by birth is an unequivocal constitutional right.” If the Trump Administration wished to end birthright citizenship, they would have to repeal the amendment, which would have to be done through Congress and the states.
DEI: To continue with the Trump Administration’s axing of the government, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs have been targeted. Republicans have targeted DEI for a while now, believing that DEI programs have led to the “degradation” of various fields of work. These claims have little to no backing in reality, and are little more than just baseless claims. Despite this, the Trump Administration has taken Republican disdain for DEI to higher levels, with orders to cut funding for those programs.
Federal judge, John J. McConnell, blocked the order from the Trump Administration to cut funding for DEI programs. In addition to this, he believes that the White House is breaking the law with this action, “Federal law specifies how the Executive should act if it believes that appropriations are inconsistent with the President’s priorities — it must ask Congress, not act unilaterally,” said McConnell.
Transgender prisoners: In his wave of executive orders, transgender people in prison were ordered to be moved into prisons that matched the gender they were assigned with at birth. On behalf of four transgender women, a federal judge blocked the order, believing that transgender women could become victims of sexual assault and targeted assault in male prisons. The judge also claims that such a movement would be classified as a “cruel and unusual punishment”. For viewer knowledge, there are only 16 transgender women in women’s prisons, all of which have “posed no threat” to other prisoners.
To move on, recently, one of Trump’s most controversial appointees, Tulsi Gabbard, who was appointed to be the director of national intelligence, was approved by Congress. The voting was split down party lines, Republicans voting yes, and Democrats voting no. However, there was one exception to this, that being Senator Mitch McConnell, the only Republican to vote no on Gabbard’s approval. To add onto this, McConnell has increasingly disagreed with Trump and his plans over the past few years. Even in the recent Senate hearing for Robert Kennedy, McConnell was once again the only Republican to vote no. McConnell has been a constant figurehead for the Republican Party in Congress for a long time, starting his service in Congress in 1985. McConnell’s disagreement with all of President Trump’s appointees has served as a major talking point about the Republican Party for many people.
Many Democrats had concerns about Gabbard. There were two main concerns they had, the first being a meeting that Gabbard had with the then-president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad in 2017. The other concern was her vocal support for Edward Snowden, someone who leaked numerous government secrets to the press. Gabbard previously argued that Snowden should be pardoned, and when she was asked about her support for Snowden in hearings, she renounced her support for him. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer had this to say on the matter, “The director of national intelligence must be strong against America’s adversaries. But Ms. Gabbard has spent her entire career sympathizing with the likes of Vladimir Putin and Bashar Al Assad.”
To move on to our last U.S. story, citizens in Lincoln Heights, a city near Cincinnati, Ohio expressed concern over a neo-Nazi congregation along a highway bridge. Citizens felt unnerved by the fact that police had not conducted any arrests. Reverend of Lincoln Heights Missionary Baptist Church, Julian Armand Cook had this to say, “To see it show up at the gateway to this historic community, the first, the oldest Black self-governed city north of the Mason-Dixon Line, it is very clear what message it is sending. I was angry. I was hurt. I was shocked.”
The Evendale Police Department, who sent officers to the area to de-escalate, made a statement on the matter, believing that even though the neo-Nazis had no permits to be in that area, they were protected under the 1st amendment. EPD’s goal was to de-escalate through separating the neo-Nazis from each other. Evendale held two town meetings in two days to discuss the incident, and citizens still expressed their concern over the neo-Nazi congregation. State Representative Cecil Thomas had this to say on the matter to reassure citizens, “I can guarantee you we will get some action so that if this happens again, law enforcement will have the authority to take action.”
The county commissioner, Alice Reece expressed her disdain for the congregation and is supporting an investigation into the matter. She believes that the neo-Nazis were too comfortable, and expressed sympathy for the citizens, and her disappointment in the police, saying”They had to go in [their] own house, get [their] own guns, go out there and risk [their] own life.”
To move on to international news, there are two big stories to cover. The first relates to the ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian fighter group, Hamas. As of late, the safety of the ceasefire is breaking down. Hamas and Israel both agreed to exchange prisoners. Israel would send an amount of Palestinians back into their homeland, and Hamas would return an amount of Israeli hostages. Some trouble has brewed between the two parties as Hamas believes that Israel is purposefully blocking Palestinians from returning to Northern Gaza and is also blocking humanitarian aid from entering the region. People in favor of Palestinian freedom have claimed that these actions from Israel violate the ceasefire. Either way you look about this, it can only lead to more trouble for the region and harm a permanent peace solution.
Because of this, Hamas has delayed the release of three Israeli hostages. They’re choosing to do this so that they can retain their bargaining chips with Israel. Hamas is also concerned about Israeli outrage due to the physical condition of the hostages. Hamas is releasing their healthiest hostages first, and slowly working their way to the extremely unwell or dead. With their last release of hostages, Israeli media sites and channels compared the hostages’ physical conditions to that of Holocaust survivors. Hamas fears that further outrage from the media could lead to the ceasefire breaking down due to Israeli public opinion souring against Hamas. This has the potential to further polarize the Israeli population and make the goal of a peace immensely difficult.
In addition, President Trump made statements demanding the release of the hostages and that the U.S. might take over parts of Gaza for its own gain. Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, made clear that he wants to stick with the ceasefire and hasn’t immediately sided with Trump’s demands. Hamas made a statement on Trump’s demands, “The language of threats has no value and only complicates matters.” This has led Hamas to have 3 major choices, the first being to continue with their threat of not releasing those three hostages and risk the undoing of the ceasefire, but maintain their leverage with Israel. The second being to release all remaining hostages, which is around 76 in total with 30 dead, and risk outrage from the Israeli population and media. Their final option is to continue with their scheduled hostage release. Millions of both Israeli and Palestinian lives are held in the balance with these decisions.
Lastly, President Trump was reportedly in negotiations with Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Trump received heavy criticism from opponents, but also from European diplomats. Kaja Kallas, a top diplomat for the European Union expressed her displeasure with the nature of Trump’s negotiations: “It is clear that any deal behind our backs will not work. You need the Europeans, you need the Ukrainians,” she explains. Kallas likened the negotiations to that of appeasement, which historically has been unsuccessful.
For the current moment, that concludes all of the major news that’s occurred over the past few weeks. We encourage you to explore both world news and local news. Staying up-to-date with all the events occurring in the world is important, especially with how interconnected we are becoming as a society.
adviser • Mar 5, 2025 at 10:35 am
Thanks for providing thorough coverage of events in a brief manner. Great research and work!