On today’s show: NBC reports on how Republicans in districts across the country faced furious voters at recent town halls, signaling that the Trump administration’s honeymoon period is waning. Pentagon staffers are concerned that personnel cuts will hurt critical work. The Washington Post’s Alex Horton has the story. ProPublica’s Lizzie Presser explains how pregnancy in Texas has become more dangerous as a result of the state’s abortion ban. Plus, the U.S. voted against a U.N resolution condemning Russia’s actions in Ukraine, several of the men convicted of raping Gisèle Pelicot are now free, and, after controversy over old tweets derailed her awards-season campaign, Karla Sofía Gascón says she will attend the Oscar ceremony. Today’s episode was hosted by Shumita Basu.
Full Episode
Good morning. It's Tuesday, February 25th. I'm Shamitza Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, Republican lawmakers are feeling the heat from their constituents at town halls. A look at how abortion bans affect sepsis rates. And a controversial pick could win the Oscar for Best Actress. But first, to the ongoing fallout from federal job firings.
Yesterday, the Office of Personnel Management, which is effectively the government's HR department, told federal agencies that they can ignore Elon Musk's email, demanding they outline what they accomplished last week or risk losing their jobs. President Trump commented, too, saying some employees work with sensitive information and should be exempt from the email request.
But he also suggested employees could still be fired or, quote, semi-fired for noncompliance. One DOJ employee described the past few days to Politico as massive whiplash all the time. The next large scale cuts are coming for the Pentagon. On Friday, the Defense Department announced plans to cut 5,400 probationary workers starting this week, which would reduce its workforce by up to 8 percent.
The Pentagon also said it plans to put a hiring freeze in place and it's proposed cutting 8 percent of its budget per year over the next five years. That's roughly 50 billion dollars a year. However, the Pentagon says a number of defense priorities will be exempt from cuts, like money that goes toward border security and countering China in the Pacific.
The Washington Post examined one agency within the Defense Department where there's a lot of fear about the impact of cuts to staffing and budget.
The small office that handles the recovery of missing in action personnel, otherwise known as the Defense Department, POW, MIA accounting agency.
Alex Horton is a national security reporter for The Post.
It's not really clear to us whether this is a sacred cow that they're willing to lose or if it's going to be overlooked when it comes to sparing some of the federal employees.
The agency has around 700 people on staff, and their backgrounds are quite unique. There's forensic anthropologists, historians, even underwater archaeologists. That's because this agency does the difficult and painstaking work of finding, identifying, and repatriating the remains of Americans who died in wars overseas.
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