cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/29403272

“His selection isn’t just a conflict of interest — it’s an aggressive step toward handing America’s mail system over to corporate interests,” Brian Renfroe, the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said in a statement. “Private shippers have been waiting to get USPS out of parcel delivery for years.”

Tesla told Austin workers on its Model Y and Cybertruck lines to stay home for the week of Memorial Day, three workers told Business Insider.

The break is unusually long, the workers said. Production lines were up and running during the same period last year, they said.

The electric vehicle maker notified employees earlier this week. The workers, who are paid hourly, were told they could either take paid time off or come in for cleaning and training but would not be working on the production line.

Tesla deliveries dropped 13% year over year during the first quarter.

The Department of Agriculture is demanding states hand over personal data of food assistance recipients — including Social Security numbers, addresses and, in at least one state, citizenship status, according to emails shared with NPR by an official who was not allowed to speak publicly.

The Trump administration’s widespread layoffs and firings for government workers are likely unlawful, a federal judge in California tentatively said at a Friday hearing.

Judge Susan Illston of the US District Court for the Northern District of California said President Donald Trump’s February executive order calling for a radical reorganization of the federal workforce likely violates the Constitution.

She said she was leaning toward granting a temporary restraining order requested by coalition of labor unions, nonprofit organizations, and municipal government to halt worker layoffs nationwide.

“I’m inclined to issue an TRO at this stage to protect the power of the legislative branch,” she said.

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has selected Rocket Lab’s medium-lift reusable Neutron for the Rocket Cargo mission...Earlier this year, the company announced that its Neutron rocket will land its payloads at sea. To facilitate this, the company is modifying an offshore barge, named “Return on Investment,” to serve as an ocean landing platform for returning missions...Rocket Lab, along with Stoke Space, will now be eligible to bid against established giants like Blue Origin, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance.

NEWARK, N.J. (PIX11) — Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was taken into custody by homeland security at an ICE facility in New Jersey on Friday afternoon, according to Alina Habba, the Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey.

“The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon,” read the social media post from Habba.

Baraka is being held at the ICE Newark field office.

This is a developing story please check back for updates.

• Duterte awaits trial in the Hague over bloody war on drugs
• He is also running for election as mayor of southern Davao
• Victory could help his daughter's presidential ambitions
• Candidates of incumbent President Marcos ahead in polls

DAVAO CITY, Philippines, May 9 (Reuters) - Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte spends his days in a small, spartan room in detention at the Hague, awaiting trial for a bloody war on drugs that killed thousands during his time in office.

But halfway around the world, in his hometown of Davao City, Duterte is on the ticket for mayor in midterm elections on Monday that he is widely expected to win, riding on support in the family stronghold, though it may not translate nationwide.

The Pentagon has ordered all military leaders and commands to pull and review all of their library books that address diversity, anti-racism or gender issues by May 21, according to a memo issued to the force on Friday.

• Rumeysa Ozturk ordered released immediately from Louisiana detention center

• Ozturk was detained after pro-Palestinian campus advocacy
  

• Judge said her detention chills free speech of non-citizens

May 9 (Reuters) - A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to immediately release a Tufts University student from Turkey who has been held for over six weeks in a Louisiana immigration detention facility after she co-wrote an opinion piece criticizing her school's response to Israel's war in Gaza.

U.S. District Judge William Sessions during a hearing in Burlington, Vermont, granted bail to Rumeysa Ozturk, who is at the center of one of the highest-profile cases to emerge from Republican President Donald Trump's campaign to deport pro-Palestinian activists on American campuses.

The judge said Ozturk had raised a substantial claim that the sole reason she was being detained was "simply and purely the expression that she made or shared in the op-ed in violation of her First Amendment rights."

"Her continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens," Sessions said. "Any one of them may now avoid exercising their First Amendment rights for fear of being whisked away to a detention center."

Following the hearing, Ozturk, who appeared before the judge virtually from the Louisiana detention facility, could be seen hugging one of her attorneys. Tufts has said it plans to help provide Ozturk housing upon her release.

The judge ruled shortly after a federal appeals court rejected, the Trump administration's bid to re-detain Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian campus activist who a different judge in Vermont ordered released last week after immigration authorities arrested him as well.

Ozturk's arrest on March 25 by masked, plainclothes law enforcement officers on a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts, near her home was captured in a viral video and occurred after the U.S. Department of State revoked her student visa.

The sole basis authorities have provided for revoking her visa was an opinion piece she co-authored in Tufts' student newspaper criticizing the school's response to calls by students to divest from companies with ties to Israel and to "acknowledge the Palestinian genocide."

• Trump officials mull proposing COFA status to Greenland
• COFA agreement would see U.S. defending Greenland, but keep island independent
• Plan faces several practical hurdles

WASHINGTON, May 9 (Reuters) - U.S. officials are discussing a plan to pull Greenland into America's sphere of influence using a type of agreement that the United States has used to keep close ties with several Pacific Island nations, according to two U.S. officials and another person familiar with the discussions.

Under the plan being considered, the Trump administration would propose to Greenland's leaders that the island enter into a so-called Compact of Free Association, or COFA, with the United States.

While the precise details of COFA agreements - which have only ever been extended to the small island nations of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau - vary depending on the signatory, the U.S. government typically provides many essential services, from mail delivery to emergency management to military protection. In exchange, the U.S. military operates freely in COFA countries and trade with the U.S. is largely duty-free.

President Donald Trump, who during his first administration floated the idea of acquiring Greenland, has pressed even harder since taking office in January, refusing to rule out taking the island by force. Denmark, which governs the island, has sharply rebuffed the idea.

A COFA agreement would stop short of Trump's ambition to make the island of 57,000 people a part of the U.S. It is not the only Greenland plan on the table, the sources said, and it would face many practical hurdles.

Reuters reported before Trump took office that some advisers had informally suggested the idea. But it has not been previously revealed that White House officials have begun talks about the logistics behind such a proposal.

Some officials at the National Security Council and the National Energy Dominance Council, which Trump established, are involved in the talks, two of the sources said. The National Economic Council is also involved, one of those sources added.

COFA agreements have previously been inked with independent countries, and Greenland would likely need to separate from Denmark for such a plan to proceed. While polls show Greenlanders are interested in independence, surveys also show most do not want to be part of the U.S. A COFA - which cedes significant autonomy to Washington - could be viewed with similar skepticism.

The Trump administration has tightened its control over the independent agency responsible for overseeing America's nuclear reactors, and it is considering an executive order that could further erode its autonomy, two U.S. officials who declined to speak publicly because they feared retribution told NPR.

As Republicans hone the details of their plan to strip $880 billion in federal funding from Medicaid and similar programs, the GOP and its allies are launching a concerted effort aimed at obscuring those efforts.