AFP USA

Tesla reported lower than expected profits Wednesday but confirmed key 2025 benchmarks, saying it will return to sales volume growth and move forward with fully autonomous driving.The results — the first since the return of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s ally Donald Trump to the White House — capped a mixed year for Tesla in which Musk’s big bet on US electoral politics was countered by profit pressures as Tesla’s streak of annual car volume growth came to an end.The electric car company reported fourth-quarter profits of $2.3 billion, down 71 percent from the year-ago quarter, where profits were boosted by a one-time tax benefit.Revenues rose two percent to $25.7 billion, also missing analyst estimates, but reflecting a more than doubling of sales in energy generation and storage.Musk has sought to temper expectations about Tesla’s near-term financial growth, while employing superlatives in touting Tesla’s autonomous driving and robotic ventures, saying they could make Tesla “the most valuable company in the world by far,” worth more than the “next five companies combined.”Musk, who spent some $270 million or more to help Trump win the White House, largely steered clear of political subjects during the 65-minute conference call. The company has been confronted by intensifying EV competition in leading markets, including China and the United States, where General Motors and Ford have introduced more models.Another factor has been lower sales than expected from the Cybertruck, Musk’s futuristic auto giant that has won cheers from Tesla fans and jeers from critics.But Tesla expects growth in 2025, saying in its earnings release that “with the advancements in vehicle autonomy and the introduction of new products, we expect the vehicle business to return to growth in 2025.”The company confirmed plans to unveil new, more affordable vehicles in 2025 and said its launch of a new robotaxi venture in parts of the United States was on track to begin this year.- Full autonomy soon? -Tesla named its driver-assistance programs “autopilot” and “full self-driving” (FSD), even though the programs require the driver to maintain attention, while rival robotaxi venture Waymo has achieved full driverless functionality in three US cities so far.Musk has repeatedly missed earlier targets towards full autonomy, quipping during Wednesday that he was like the boy who cried wolf.”But I’m telling you, there’s a damn wolf this time, and you can drive it,” Musk said. “In fact, it can drive you. It’s a self-driving wolf.”Musk said he intends to launch FSD as a paid service in Austin, Texas this year, where the company also plans to introduce robotaxi services.”Teslas will be in the wild,” he said, describing a gradual expansion of service once the company can demonstrate its autonomous service is “unequivocally safer” than a human driver.Musk did not directly comment on how his alliance with Trump will affect Tesla.The billionaire’s widening influence and activism on behalf of far-right political movements has drawn rising attention and blowback. Polling data released Wednesday by YouGov showed Musk with a 44 percent favorable public opinion compared with a 48 percent negative.That’s a worse ratio than Trump, who came in at three points net-positive, according to YouGov.A coalition that includes a public workers union has filed a lawsuit to block Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, arguing the panel flouts federal laws and is “beset” by the conflicts of interest of an extremist “libertarian billionaire class.”And only days after being criticized for a hand gesture at Trump’s inauguration that resembled a Nazi salute, Musk drew scrutiny last weekend for reiterating support for Germany’s far-right, anti-immigrant AfD party, including comments that young Germans should feel able “to move beyond” expressing regret for the Holocaust.During the call, Musk’s most overtly political comment concerned what he described as the cumbersome process to introduce FSD in Europe, calling Europe “a layer cake of regulations and bureaucracy, which really needs to be addressed.”Shares of Tesla rose 4.4 percent in after-hours trading.

Social media giant Meta on Wednesday reported surging profits and revenue for 2024, announcing ambitious plans to expand its artificial intelligence infrastructure in the year ahead.The bullish projection about the company’s AI future sent shares in the company spiking by as much as five percent in after hours trading, though this later steadied to two percent.CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he believed that Meta’s AI powers would make it a world leader on the technology, even if he warned that delivering on the hefty investments needed would “take time.”The parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp saw its net income soar 59 percent to $62.36 billion for the full year, while fourth-quarter profits jumped 49 percent to $20.84 billion.Revenue reached $164.5 billion, up 22 percent from 2023, boosted by stronger advertising performance as ad prices rose 10 percent and impressions increased 11 percent across its platforms.The solid performance comes amid significant shifts in Meta’s content policies intended to endear the company to US President Donald Trump.The company recently announced the end of its US fact-checking program aimed at combating misinformation, a move that followed criticism from conservative voices who viewed such efforts as censorship.Zuckerberg said that 2025 was going to be a “big year for redefining our relationship with governments.””We now have a US administration that is proud of our leading companies, prioritizes American technology winning, and that will defend our values and interests abroad,” Zuckerberg told analysts.Meta has also scaled back diversity initiatives and relaxed content moderation rules on its platforms, particularly regarding certain forms of speech — changes that could potentially concern major advertisers who are wary of having their ads appear alongside divisive content.On the analyst call, Meta’s chief financial officer said the changes had not had an impact on ad revenue.- User growth -The company’s user base continued to grow, reaching 3.35 billion daily active users across its platforms in December 2024, a 5 percent increase year-over-year.Looking ahead, Meta plans massive infrastructure investments, with expected capital expenditures of $60-65 billion for 2025, primarily supporting AI initiatives. Total expenses are projected to reach $114-119 billion.”In AI, I expect this is going to be the year when a highly intelligent and personalized AI assistant reaches more than 1 billion people, and I expect Meta AI to be that leading assistant,” Zuckerberg said.But he warned the investments would “be expensive for us to serve all of these people, because we are serving a lot of people.”Meta’s Reality Labs unit, which encompasses its virtual reality endeavours, posted a lower-than-expected operating loss of $4.97 billion while generating $1.1 billion in sales during the fourth quarter.The company expanded its workforce by 10 percent to 74,067 employees in 2024, with plans for further growth in technical roles focused on AI development and infrastructure.Meta last month said it will dismiss 3,600 employees (5 percent of its workforce) identified as low performers, with the intention to bring in new talent to strengthen the company.While Meta’s stock has performed strongly, the company faces both regulatory challenges and emerging competition.The rise of Chinese startup DeepSeek’s more economical AI model has reportedly prompted Meta to establish war rooms to study and potentially adapt the innovations for its own Llama AI models.The company projects first-quarter 2025 revenue between $39.5-41.8 billion, representing growth of 8-15 percent year-over-year.This was a lighter outlook than expected and “indicates that Meta’s recent content moderation changes may be having an impact on revenue in the coming quarter,” said Debra Aho Williamson of Sonata Insights.

US aid experts on Wednesday rejected Donald Trump’s claim that the United States had spent $50 million to fund condoms for the war-battered Gaza Strip, which the president has sought to make a poster child for wasteful spending.”We identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas,” Trump told reporters, referring to the militant group that has ruled the Palestinian territory for nearly two decades.”And do you know what’s happened to them? They’ve used them as a method of making bombs.”Trump offered no evidence to back his claim, which prompted both vehement rejections and ridicule from relief agencies and experts.The United States sent no condoms to any part of the Middle East since 2019, according to a detailed report last year from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).Its only family planning contribution to the region was a small shipment of injectable and oral contraceptives worth $45,680 that was sent to Jordan in 2023, the report said.International Medical Corps, a humanitarian aid organization, said it received about $68 million from USAID for its Gaza operations since October 7, 2023 — the day Hamas launched a major attack on Israel –- which paid for two field hospitals providing lifesaving care.”No US government funding was used to procure or distribute condoms,” the organization said in a statement.- ‘Dangerous’ -On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed the $50 million expenditure was discovered in Trump’s first week by the budget office and the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by tech billionaire Elon Musk.She called it a “preposterous waste of taxpayer money.””The White House claim that DOGE uncovered $50 million in funding for condoms in Gaza is quite obviously untrue,” Matthew Kavanagh, director of Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Policy and Politics, told AFP.”It does not even make sense.”A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests $50 million would buy over a billion condoms for Gaza’s adult population.”What’s going is here is NOT a billion condoms for Gaza,” Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International, wrote on X, the Musk-owned site formerly called Twitter.”What’s going on is that the bros at DOGE apparently can’t read (government) spreadsheets.”Jesse Watters, host of a conservative-leaning talk show on Fox News, said that Hamas were using the non-existent US shipments to make “condom bombs,” floating explosives-laden balloons into Israel — a claim echoed by Trump.Soon after returning to office for a second term on January 20, Trump ordered a 90-day freeze in foreign assistance.He has vowed a review to ensure that aid conforms with policies of his administration, which opposes abortion, transgender rights and diversity programs.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a memo that the United States was freezing nearly all aid disbursement except for emergency food and military aid to Egypt and Israel. “What seems clear is the administration is taking a large grant to support healthcare infrastructure in Gaza and mischaracterizing it in order to justify the dangerous halt to lifesaving aid programs around the world,” Kavanagh said.

The US Federal Reserve is in no “hurry” to adjust interest rates again, the central bank’s chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday, after policymakers voted to pause rate cuts in the first decision since Donald Trump’s White House return.The Fed’s rate-setting committee voted unanimously to keep the bank’s benchmark lending rate at between 4.25 percent and 4.50 percent, the Fed announced in a statement.”With our policy stance significantly less restrictive than it had been, and the economy remaining strong, we do not need to be in a hurry to adjust our policy stance,” Powell told reporters after the decision.The Fed’s pause follows three consecutive rate reductions which together lowered its key rate by a full percentage point.In its statement, the Fed said the unemployment rate had stabilized “at a low level,” and the labor market was still solid.Inflation however “remains somewhat elevated,” the Fed said, removing a reference in earlier statements to inflation making progress towards its long-term target of two percent.”By design, Powell provided little in the way of new information at this FOMC meeting,” economists at Citi wrote in a note to clients Wednesday, referring to the Fed’s rate-setting committee. Powell, they added, had “effectively” kept all options for the Fed’s next rate decision in March.- Trump slams Powell, Fed -The US central bank has a dual mandate from Congress to act independently to tackle inflation and unemployment.It does so primarily by raising or lowering its key short-term lending rate, which influences borrowing costs for consumers and businesses.Most analysts agree that the US economy is going fairly well, with robust growth, a largely healthy labor market, and relatively low inflation which nevertheless remains stuck above the Fed’s target. But in a post to his Truth Social account, President Trump slammed both Powell and the Fed, accusing them of failing “to stop the problem they created with Inflation.”Futures traders see a probability of more than 80 percent that the Fed will extend its pause to rate cuts at its March meeting, according to data from CME Group.- ‘Wait and see’ -Since returning to office on January 20, Trump has revived his threats to impose sweeping tariffs on US trading partners as soon as this weekend and to deport millions of undocumented workers.He has also said he wants to extend expiring tax cuts and slash red tape on energy production.Most — though not all — economists expect Trump’s tariff and immigration policies to be at least mildly inflationary, raising the cost of goods faced by consumers.”I think those policies are definitively inflationary, it’s just a question of what degree,” Mark Zandi from Moody’s Analytics told AFP ahead of the rate decision.Asked about the likely impact of Trump’s proposals, including tariffs, Powell said the Fed would have to “wait and see” how they affected the economy.At the Fed’s previous meeting, policymakers dialed back the number of rate cuts they expect this year to a median of just two, with some incorporating assumptions about Trump’s likely economic policies into their forecasts, according to minutes of the meeting.Given the uncertainty about the effect of Trump’s policies on the US economy, analysts are now divided over how many rate cuts they expect the Fed to make in 2025.”We retain our baseline that the FOMC will cut rates 25bp (basis points) this year, in June,” economists at Barclays wrote, pointing to the economy’s underlying strength.Zandi from Moody’s Analytics said he also expects two rate cuts later in the year.But, he added, “there are meaningful odds that the next move by the Fed may not be a rate cut, it might be a rate increase.”

President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the US Environmental Protection Agency was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday, drawing cheers from the fossil fuel industry and sparking alarm among green groups.Lee Zeldin, a former US congressman from New York, has committed to Trump’s campaign pledges of boosting US energy dominance and rolling back environmental regulations enacted under former president Joe Biden.The 44-year-old’s nomination was confirmed by a 56-42 vote, with Democrats John Fetterman of Pennsylvania as well as Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona crossing the aisle to vote with their Republican colleagues. Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Jon Ossoff of Georgia did not vote. “Administrator Lee Zeldin has a proven track record of finding solutions to the nation’s most pressing energy challenges,” said American Petroleum Institute president and CEO Mike Sommers.”We look forward to working with him to advance American energy leadership, from developing smart, effective regulations to ensuring consumers — not the government — can choose the vehicles they drive.” Faced with hostile Democratic questioning during his confirmation hearing, Zeldin acknowledged human-caused climate change is real, in contrast with Trump, who has derided it as a hoax. But he repeatedly emphasized his commitment to “clean air” and “clean water,” echoing rhetoric commonly used by conservatives who champion fossil fuels while resisting efforts to combat the worsening climate crisis, which is disrupting ecosystems and intensifying extreme weather events.”With today’s vote, Senate Republicans have installed yet another Trump loyalist to advance his agenda of environmental destruction,” said Evergreen Action’s Executive Director Lena Moffitt.”Despite Lee Zeldin’s repeated assurances to ‘fully’ follow the law, his blind loyalty to President Trump in the face of illegal, destructive executive actions makes it clear that his EPA will put polluters over people.”Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, warned that Zeldin’s leadership should be scrutinized closely.”Let’s be clear-eyed that every other person Trump has already deployed to the EPA’s pesticide, water and air divisions has a long track record of putting industry profits and polluters above our health and the environment,” he said.Zeldin’s confirmation comes amid sweeping moves by Trump to reshape US environmental policy.On his very first day in office, Trump announced he was removing the United States from the Paris climate accord for a second time, declared a “national energy emergency” to expand drilling, and signed executive orders to slow the transition to electric vehicles and halt offshore windshore farms.

Donald Trump’s commerce secretary nominee told his US Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday he favors “across-the-board” tariffs targeting countries rather than products, while signaling a hawkish China stance.”We can use tariffs to create reciprocity, fairness and respect,” said Howard Lutnick, a close Trump ally and billionaire CEO of Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald.Lutnick’s appearance comes as Trump threatens sweeping duties on imports from allies and adversaries alike — with levies on major trading partners Canada and Mexico potentially to be unveiled this weekend.On Wednesday, Lutnick said the president’s February 1 deadline for 25 percent tariffs were aimed at getting both neighbors to do more on illegal migration and particularly the flow of deadly fentanyl.”This is a separate tariff to create action from Mexico and action from Canada,” he said, differentiating between uses of duties.”As far as I know they are acting swiftly, and if they execute it, there will be no tariff.”But Lutnick stressed that duties on China — and “adversaries” — should be higher than those on other countries.In announcing his nomination last year, Trump said Lutnick would lead the world’s biggest economy’s tariff and trade agenda, with additional direct responsibility for the US Trade Representative’s office.Asked about the impact of duties on prices, Lutnick conceded certain products’ costs may rise. He charged that “it is nonsense” however that they would cause widespread inflation.Lutnick vowed to work to understand the impact of retaliatory tariffs on US agriculture and manufacturing.- ‘Strong’ export curbs -Lutnick also signaled he would take a firm stance on export controls involving China, after the recent emergence of the DeepSeek chatbot and its lower cost breakthrough threatened US-based artificial intelligence leaders.”Let them compete, but stop using our tools to compete with us,” he said of rivalry with Beijing. “I’m going to be very strong on that.”If confirmed, Lutnick will helm a department overseeing export controls to competitors, aimed at ensuring the United States’ lead in sensitive technology with military uses.”Our export controls, not backed by tariffs, are like a whack-a-mole model,” he told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.”I do not believe that DeepSeek was done all above board,” he added, pledging rigorous enforcement of restrictions to help the United States stay ahead.On the CHIPS and Science Act, a major law passed during former president Joe Biden’s term aimed at strengthening the US semiconductor industry, Lutnick called investments towards it “an excellent downpayment.”But he added that “we need to review them and get it right.”Vice President JD Vance, in remarks introducing Lutnick to the panel, said the billionaire ally would help convince businesses that America is thriving, bringing US commerce “back on track.”The commerce secretary nominee was co-chair of Trump’s 2024 transition team, identifying new hires for the administration.In the past, he has criticized electric vehicles and blamed China for being the source of fentanyl into the United States.He has also lamented the loss of US manufacturing jobs and off-shoring to China.On Wednesday, he said: “Tariffs will encourage companies to come back and build in America.”The Commerce Department under Biden ramped up export controls on critical technologies like quantum computing and semiconductor manufacturing goods, taking aim at access by countries such as China.Trump’s administration could harden this stance.

A judge sentenced a powerful former US senator to 11 years in prison Wednesday, after he was convicted of corruption following the discovery of gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash at his home.Robert Menendez, a 71-year-old Democrat from New Jersey, was convicted of federal charges of extortion, obstruction of justice and accepting bribes to perform favors for businessmen with connections to Egypt and Qatar. He said he would appeal.”Somewhere along the way… you lost your way,” District Judge Sidney Stein said in announcing the sentence. “Working for the public good became working for your good.”Menendez, who had served as chairman of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had vowed to appeal the verdict handed down in July 2024, and on Wednesday he asked for leniency from the judge ahead of his sentencing.”I am going to ask you for mercy — not for me, but for Anthony,” a crying Menendez said, referring to his son who has autism.Ahead of the sentencing, the court received letters from acquaintances of Menendez testifying to his character.”Bob inspired many people, including me, with hope that it is possible to change the world,” said one, from author Donald Scarinci.Menendez’s attorney Adam Fee said that “despite his decades of service, he is now known more widely as ‘gold bar Bob.'”The counts on which Menendez was convicted after less than three days of jury deliberations included conspiracy to commit bribery and acting as a foreign agent while a public official.- ‘Egregious abuse’ -Menendez said outside court following his conviction last year: “I have never been anything but a patriot of my country and for my country. I have never, ever been a foreign agent.”On Wednesday he vowed to appeal and called his prosecution a “witch hunt.””President (Donald) Trump is right. This process is political and it’s corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores integrity to the system,” he said.He was not immediately taken into custody following the hearing.In a raid on Menendez’s New Jersey home, FBI agents were said to have found nearly $500,000 in cash hidden around the house, as well as gold bars worth around $150,000 and a luxury Mercedes-Benz convertible.His wife Nadine Menendez, to whom defense lawyers sought to shift the blame, was charged but faces trial separately as she receives treatment for breast cancer.Menendez was convicted alongside two of the businessmen he helped — Egyptian-American Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, a real estate developer. They were both sentenced to jail terms Wednesday.A third businessman, insurance broker Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty to bribery charges in March and assisted investigators.Menendez is said to have interfered in the nomination of New Jersey’s prosecutor in a bid to ensure that proceedings were dropped against Daibes and Uribe.He is also accused of accepting bribes to use his power and influence to enrich his co-conspirators and benefit the government of Egypt, including by helping Hana protect his monopoly on US exports of halal food products to the country.Prosecutors had sought a jail term of 15 years while Menendez’s defense sought no more than eight years behind bars.Prosecutor Danielle Sassoon said in a statement “the sentences imposed today result from an egregious abuse of power at the highest levels.”

Social media giant Meta on Wednesday reported surging profits and revenue for 2024, announcing ambitious plans to expand its artificial intelligence infrastructure in the year ahead.The parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp saw its net income soar 59 percent to $62.36 billion for the full year, while fourth-quarter profits jumped 49 percent to $20.84 billion.Revenue reached $164.5 billion, up 22 percent from 2023, boosted by stronger advertising performance as ad prices rose 10 percent and impressions increased 11 percent across its platforms.”We continue to make good progress on AI, glasses, and the future of social media,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, expressing optimism about scaling these initiatives in 2025.The solid performance comes amid significant shifts in Meta’s content policies intended to endear the company to US President Donald Trump.The company recently announced the end of its US fact-checking program aimed at combating misinformation, a move that followed criticism from conservative voices who viewed such efforts as censorship.”We now have a US administration that is proud of our leading companies, prioritizes American technology winning, and that will defend our values and interests abroad,” Zuckerberg told anlayats.Meta has also scaled back diversity initiatives and relaxed content moderation rules on its platforms, particularly regarding certain forms of speech — changes that could potentially concern major advertisers who are wary of having their ads appear alongside divisive content.- User growth -The company’s user base continued to grow, reaching 3.35 billion daily active users across its platforms in December 2024, a 5 percent increase year-over-year.Looking ahead, Meta plans massive infrastructure investments, with expected capital expenditures of $60-65 billion for 2025, primarily supporting AI initiatives. Total expenses are projected to reach $114-119 billion.”In AI, I expect this is going to be the year when a highly intelligent and personalized AI assistant reaches more than 1 billion people, and I expect Meta AI to be that leading Assistant,” Zuckerberg said.The company expanded its workforce by 10 percent to 74,067 employees in 2024, with plans for further growth in technical roles focused on AI development and infrastructure.Meta last month said it will dismiss 3,600 employees (5 percent of its workforce) identified as low performers, with the intention to bring in new talent to strengthen the company.While Meta’s stock has performed strongly, the company faces both regulatory challenges and emerging competition.The rise of Chinese startup DeepSeek’s more economical AI model has reportedly prompted Meta to establish war rooms to study and potentially adapt the innovations for its own Llama AI models.The company projects first-quarter 2025 revenue between $39.5-41.8 billion, representing growth of 8-15 percent year-over-year.

US President Donald Trump unveiled a surprise plan Wednesday to detain thousands of undocumented migrants in Guantanamo Bay — distracting from spiraling confusion after the White House withdrew a shock order to freeze federal funds.Trump said he had ordered construction of a detention camp to hold up to 30,000 of what he called “criminal illegal aliens” at the notorious military facility on the eastern tip of Cuba, used for holding terrorism suspects since the 9/11 attacks.The plan intensifies the crackdown on illegal immigration that Trump has pledged in his second term, along with a parallel push to transform the US government itself in his right-wing image.That broader goal hit a road bump when the White House sparked confusion by withdrawing a memo ordering a halt on trillions of dollars in federal funds — only to insist minutes later that Trump’s plan remained in “full force.”Speaking as he signed a bill at the White House ordering the pre-trial detention of migrants charged with theft or violence, Trump said the Guantanamo plan would “bring us one step closer to eradicating the scourge of migrant crime.” “We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people,” said the Republican, adding that it would “double our capacity immediately” to hold undocumented migrants.- ‘Act of brutality’ -The Guantanamo Bay facility currently holds 15 detainees from the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and other operations triggered by the September 11, 2001, attacks. At its peak around 800 people were incarcerated there, drawing widespread condemnation from human rights campaigners.Newly sworn-in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News that migrants would not be kept where the remaining 9/11 detainees are and that a golf course could be used to build facilities.Cuba slammed Trump’s plan as an “act of brutality.”Numbers of migrants held in US custody could rise dramatically due to the bipartisan bill that Trump signed on Wednesday, the first since his return to the White House.The Laken Riley Act is named after a 22-year-old US nursing student murdered by a Venezuelan undocumented migrant who was arrested twice before her killing but then released. “Her name will also live forever in the laws of our country,” Trump told the signing ceremony, which was attended by her parents.- Confusion -Trump’s headline-grabbing Guantanamo announcement came shortly after another White House plan descended into confusion.As part of his crusade to shrink government — and eliminate entire segments — Trump had ordered the freezing late Monday of potentially trillions of dollars in grants and loans for programs including health care for millions of low-income Americans.The move — made in an order from White House’s Office of Management and Budget — sparked instant alarm and confusion before a US judge issued a temporary injunction.Following the outcry, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget issued a terse notification Wednesday saying the freezing of aid order had been “rescinded.”Soon after, however, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that only the memo from the budget office was rescinded — not Trump’s plan. Other orders signed last week for departments to root out “woke” spending remained operative, she said.”This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze” which remains in “full force,” she said on X. She said in a separate statement that it had rescinded the memo to “end any confusion” the judge blocked it.Democrats accuse Trump of constitutional overreach by seeking to stop spending already approved by Congress, which has authority over the US budget.Trump’s attempt to purge the workforce of officials deemed unsupportive saw another radical move Tuesday when he offered most federal workers the option to leave their jobs in exchange for eight months’ severance.Trump doubled down Wednesday, announcing that any government employee who fails to end work-from-home and appear in the office by February 6 “will be terminated.”The administration is also continuing to strip Trump opponents of their security details.Former top US military officer Mark Milley became the latest, having his security detail and security clearance stripped by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon said.

US student test scores in reading and math remain below pre-pandemic levels as a worrying gap continues to widen between high and low performers, officials said Wednesday.The biennial tests of American fourth and eighth graders — correlating roughly to ages nine and 13, respectively — showed improvements in 2024 for some students, but a steady decline for the lowest 10 percent.”The most concerning pattern within our distribution is for our lowest performing students,” Peggy Carr, head of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), told a press briefing.She said that while the gap between high and low performers had further split across subjects and ages, eighth grade math scores saw its widest difference since the assessment began.The tests were administered in early 2024 to some 235,000 fourth graders and 230,000 eighth graders.The last tests in 2022 sparked alarm, as they showed a significant across-the-board drop in scores from 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic forced most US classes to move online.The length of pandemic school closures quickly became a heated political debate, and ramifications on student performance continue to cause concern.Data released Wednesday showed average fourth grade math scores improved marginally in 2024, while the top 25 percent of performers had returned to 2019 levels.Eighth graders, who would have been in elementary school during the pandemic closures, saw average math scores hold steady below 2019-levels — but while top performers increased marginally, the bottom 10 percent dropped significantly.Reading scores fell for both eighth and fourth graders, the latter of whom would have begun school after the height of the pandemic.”The continued declines since the pandemic suggest we’re facing complex challenges that cannot be fully explained by the impact of COVID-19,” said NCES associate commissioner Daniel McGrath in a statement.The proportion of eighth graders failing a benchmark reading test was the highest since figures first were collected in 1992, while only one state out of 50, Louisiana, had better reading performance for primary school students than before the pandemic.”I think it obviously comes to mind that we should be looking at what social media and the rise of the screen-based childhood is doing for reading habits and reading skills,” Martin West, a member of the testing board and Harvard education professor, told the press briefing.The pandemic schools closures prompted fierce political debate in the United States, with Democrats generally more cautious in ending so-called remote learning, while Republicans sought to quickly return students to in-person classes.Bill Cassidy, the top Republican on the Senate education committee, blasted the former administration of Democratic president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris for the falling scores.”The most vulnerable children were hurt the most. This will be the failed legacy of the Biden-Harris education policy,” he said in a statement.