Trump aims wrecking ball at Department of Education for being ‘ineffective, wasteful and dominated by radical leftists’

Trump aims wrecking ball at Department of Education for being ‘ineffective, wasteful and dominated by radical leftists’
US President Donald Trump has indicated that he is seeking to abolish the Department of Education by executive order in the coming weeks. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Updated 10 February 2025
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Trump aims wrecking ball at Department of Education for being ‘ineffective, wasteful and dominated by radical leftists’

Trump aims wrecking ball at Department of Education for being ‘ineffective, wasteful and dominated by radical leftists’
  • Democratic politicians, teachers’ unions and many parents are in an uproar, calling Trump’s plan to shut down the agency an assault on public education
  • By law, the Education Department can be shut down only by an act of Congress, and most experts agree Trump lacks the votes to do that

WASHINGTON : President Donald Trump has taken a wrecking ball to Washington — and his latest target is the US Department of Education.
Trump has described it as ineffective, wasteful and dominated by radical leftists, and in an interview airing Sunday told Fox News he would order Elon Musk, the man leading his cost-cutting efforts, to turn his sights next on the Education Department.
Underscoring his intention, the Republican president had earlier directed Linda McMahon, his education secretary nominee, to “put herself out of a job.”
Democratic politicians, teachers’ unions and many parents are in an uproar, calling Trump’s plan to shut down the agency an assault on public education.
Conservative groups, on the other hand, hail it as a long-overdue measure to reassert local control over American classrooms. But they acknowledge that the task of winding down the vast department will not be easy.
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the country’s largest labor union, said closing down the Education Department would be devastating for students with disabilities, low-income students and other children at risk.
“If it became a reality, Trump’s power grab would steal resources for our most vulnerable students... and gut student civil rights protections,” Pringle said, adding that the union will oppose the plan.

Gutting the Education Department is part of a broader effort by Trump and his tech billionaire adviser Musk to radically trim the US federal government.
The administration has already attempted to close down the US humanitarian agency and to put thousands of federal workers on leave. It has also offered buyouts to tens of thousands — efforts that sent shock waves around Washington and that are now being challenged in courts.
Traditionally, the federal government has had a limited role in education in the United States, with only about 13 percent of funding for primary and secondary schools coming from federal coffers, according to the NEA, the rest being funded by states and local communities.
But federal funding is invaluable for low-income schools and students with special needs.
And the federal government has been essential in enforcing key civil rights protections for students, such as the historic 1954 Supreme Court ruling that ended racial segregation in public schools, or a 1990 federal law guaranteeing access to education for students with disabilities.
“There’s been a traditional federal role in trying to make sure that the most disadvantaged kids get what they need. And the civil rights enforcement is important,” said Mike Petrilli, president of the Thomas Fordham Institute, a right-leaning think tank.




US President Donald Trump has indicated that he is seeking to abolish the Department of Education by executive order in the coming weeks. (Getty Images/AFP)

Trump has shown a willingness to use federal power to regulate school policy. Earlier this week he issued an executive order to ban transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports in schools and universities.
Lindsey Burke, head of education policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, hailed Trump’s plan to get rid of the federal department, saying it has failed to improve academic standards, with American students continuing to lag behind their international peers.
Burke argues that education decisions must be made at the local level.
“Kids in South Carolina are different than kids in California, right? I mean, this is the United States, it’s a vast and diverse country,” said Burke.
“It is no service to families to put those dollars in the hands of distant federal bureaucrats who do not know these children’s names or their hopes or dreams or aspirations.”

But putting the education secretary out of a job might be easier said than done.
By law, the Education Department can be shut down only by an act of Congress, and most experts agree Trump lacks the votes to do that.
“This is mostly a talking point, it’s not going to happen,” said Petrilli. “A few weeks from now, I think this will be in the rearview mirror.”
It’s unclear how the Trump administration will proceed with its efforts to dismantle the department. Burke said it might seek to move some of its key units — civil rights enforcement, student loan servicing, statistics — to other agencies.
But Kevin Carey, head of education policy at the liberal New America think tank, fears the administration is now in a “strange territory of extralegality” and will not be shy about dismantling the agency one way or another.
“I think the question isn’t, ‘Will Congress abolish the Department of Education?’ It won’t. The question is, ‘Will Trump destroy the Department of Education on his own?” Carey told AFP.
Trump’s education secretary pick, McMahon, is a former professional wrestling executive with little experience in education — and known for once slapping her daughter during a televised wrestling match.
McMahon’s US Senate confirmation hearing is set for Thursday.
 


Elderly UK couple held by Taliban ‘moved to high security jail’: media

Elderly UK couple held by Taliban ‘moved to high security jail’: media
Updated 13 sec ago
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Elderly UK couple held by Taliban ‘moved to high security jail’: media

Elderly UK couple held by Taliban ‘moved to high security jail’: media

LONDON: An elderly British couple arrested by Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have been separated and moved to a high-security prison, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
Peter and Barbie Reynolds, who are in their 70s, were detained last month with an American friend, Faye Hall, as they traveled to their home in central Bamyan province.
Their daughter Sarah Entwistle described her parents’ alleged transfer to a heavily guarded prison in an undisclosed location as a “shocking escalation,” the Sunday Times reported.
In particular she expressed concern for the health of her father who will turn 80 in April.
She said that according to information provided by a “reliable source” he had been “beaten and shackled.”
He was in “immense pain” and her mother, 75, had been told she could no longer see him.
“We hear he now has a chest infection, a double eye infection and serious digestive issues due to poor nutrition. Without immediate access to necessary medication, his life is in serious danger,” she told the Sunday Times.
“Our desperate appeal to the Taliban is that they release them to their home, where they have the medication he needs to survive,” she added.
The Reynolds, who married in Kabul in 1970, have run school training programs in the south Asian country for 18 years.
They remained in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021 when the British embassy withdrew its staff.
Following their arrest on February 1, the couple’s home had been ransacked and staff questioned over whether there was a missionary component to the training, the report said.
The suggestion is strongly denied by the staff and family.
The Taliban’s interior ministry has confirmed the detention of two Britons, a Chinese-American and their Afghan translator arrested “based on certain considerations.”
“Efforts are underway to resolve this issue,” a spokesperson said in late February, without identifying the detainees.
Taliban leaders swept back to power in 2021 ousting the US-backed government and implementing a strict interpretation of Islamic law, despite promises not to return to the brutality displayed when they ruled in the 1990s.
They have since imposed broad restrictions on women and girls, barring them from education beyond the age of 12 and squeezing them out of jobs and public life with rules the United Nations has labelled “gender apartheid.”


China’s Xi declines EU invitation to anniversary summit, FT reports

China’s Xi declines EU invitation to anniversary summit, FT reports
Updated 16 March 2025
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China’s Xi declines EU invitation to anniversary summit, FT reports

China’s Xi declines EU invitation to anniversary summit, FT reports
  • Beijing told EU officials that Premier Li Qiang would meet the presidents of the European Council and Commission instead of Xi

Chinese President Xi Jinping has declined an invitation to visit Brussels for a summit to mark the 50th anniversary of EU-China diplomatic ties, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
Beijing told EU officials that Premier Li Qiang would meet the presidents of the European Council and Commission instead of Xi, the FT said, citing two people familiar with the matter whom it did not identify.
The Chinese premier usually attends the summit when it is held in Brussels, while the president hosts it in Beijing, but the EU wants Xi to attend to commemorate half a century of relations between Beijing and the bloc, the newspaper said.
Tensions between Brussels and Beijing have grown since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with the EU accusing China of backing the Kremlin, the FT said. Last year, the European Union also imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle imports.
China’s Foreign Ministry and the EU did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
“Informal discussions are ongoing, both about setting the date for the EU-China summit this year and the level of representation,” an EU official told the newspaper, while the Chinese ministry was quoted as saying it did not have any information to provide on the matter.
China, the world’s second-biggest economy, and the EU, its third-largest, spent most of 2024 exchanging barbs over allegations of overcapacity, illegal subsidies and dumping in each other’s markets.
In October, the EU imposed double-digit tariffs on China-made electric vehicles after an anti-subsidy investigation, in addition to its standard car import duty of 10 percent. The move drew loud protests from Beijing, which in return, raised market entry barriers for certain EU products such as brandy.


Tornadoes strike US South, killing 33 people amid rising risk

Tornadoes strike US South, killing 33 people amid rising risk
Updated 16 March 2025
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Tornadoes strike US South, killing 33 people amid rising risk

Tornadoes strike US South, killing 33 people amid rising risk
  • Twenty-six tornadoes were reported but not confirmed to have touched down late on Friday night and early on Saturday

ATLANTA: Tornadoes killed at least 33 people across several states in the US Midwest and Southeast on Saturday night, CNN reported.
Missouri reported 12 fatalities spanning five counties, the state’s highway patrol posted on X.
Robbie Myers, the director of emergency management in Missouri’s Butler County, told reporters that more than 500 homes, a church and grocery store in the county were destroyed. A mobile home park had been “totally destroyed,” he said. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves posted on X that six deaths had been reported in the state – one in Covington County, two in Jeff Davis County and three in Walthall County.
According to preliminary assessments, 29 people were injured statewide and 21 counties sustained storm damage, Reeves said.
In Arkansas, three deaths occurred, the state’s Department of Emergency Management said, adding that there were 32 injuries.
Twenty-six tornadoes were reported but not confirmed to have touched down late on Friday night and early on Saturday as a low-pressure system drove powerful thunderstorms across parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Mississippi and Missouri, said David Roth, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center.


NASA’s stuck astronauts welcome their newly arrived replacements to the space station

NASA’s stuck astronauts welcome their newly arrived replacements to the space station
Updated 16 March 2025
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NASA’s stuck astronauts welcome their newly arrived replacements to the space station

NASA’s stuck astronauts welcome their newly arrived replacements to the space station
  • The Boeing Starliner capsule encountered so many problems that NASA insisted it come back empty, leaving its test pilots behind to wait for a SpaceX lift

CAPE CANAVERAL: Just over a day after blasting off, a SpaceX crew capsule arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday, delivering the replacements for NASA’s two stuck astronauts.
The four newcomers — representing the US, Japan and Russia — will spend the next few days learning the station’s ins and outs from Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Then the two will strap into their own SpaceX capsule later this week, one that has been up there since last year, to close out an unexpected extended mission that began last June.
Wilmore and Williams expected to be gone just a week when they launched on Boeing’s first astronaut flight. They hit the nine-month mark earlier this month.
The Boeing Starliner capsule encountered so many problems that NASA insisted it come back empty, leaving its test pilots behind to wait for a SpaceX lift.
Wilmore swung open the space station’s hatch and then rang the ship’s bell as the new arrivals floated in one by one and were greeted with hugs and handshakes.
“It was a wonderful day. Great to see our friends arrive,” Williams told Mission Control.
Wilmore’s and Williams’ ride arrived back in late September with a downsized crew of two and two empty seats reserved for the leg back. But more delays resulted when their replacements’ brand new capsule needed extensive battery repairs. An older capsule took its place, pushing up their return by a couple weeks to mid-March.
Weather permitting, the SpaceX capsule carrying Wilmore, Williams and two other astronauts will undock from the space station no earlier than Wednesday and splash down off Florida’s coast.
Until then, there will be 11 aboard the orbiting lab, representing the US, Russia and Japan.


Trump ‘silences’ Voice of America and other US-funded networks, including Urdu service

Trump ‘silences’ Voice of America and other US-funded networks, including Urdu service
Updated 16 March 2025
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Trump ‘silences’ Voice of America and other US-funded networks, including Urdu service

Trump ‘silences’ Voice of America and other US-funded networks, including Urdu service
  • VOA director Michael Abramowitz says he was among 1,300 staffers placed on leave this week
  • US media outlets were seen as critical to countering Russian, Chinese information offensives

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday put journalists at Voice of America and other US-funded broadcasters on leave, abruptly freezing decades-old outlets long seen as critical to countering Russian and Chinese information offensives.

Hundreds of staffers at VOA, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and other outlets received a weekend email saying they will be barred from their offices and should surrender press passes and office-issued equipment.

Trump, who has already eviscerated the US global aid agency and the Education Department, on Friday issued an executive order listing the US Agency for Global Media as among “elements of the federal bureaucracy that the president has determined are unnecessary.”

Kari Lake, a firebrand Trump supporter put in charge of the media agency after she lost a US Senate bid, said in an email to the outlets that federal grant money “no longer effectuates agency priorities.”

The White House said the cuts would ensure “taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda,” marking a dramatic tone shift toward the networks established to extend US influence overseas.

White House press official Harrison Fields wrote “goodbye” on X in 20 languages, a jab at the outlets’ multilingual coverage.

VOA director Michael Abramowitz said he was among 1,300 staffers placed on leave Saturday.

“VOA needs thoughtful reform, and we have made progress in that regard. But today’s action will leave Voice of America unable to carry out its vital mission,” he said on Facebook, noting that its coverage — in 48 languages — reaches 360 million people each week.

“I am deeply saddened that for the first time in 83 years, the storied Voice of America is being silenced,” Abramowitz said, adding that it has played an important role “in the fight for freedom and democracy around the world.”

The head of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which started broadcasting into the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, called the cancelation of funding “a massive gift to America’s enemies.”
“The Iranian ayatollahs, Chinese communist leaders, and autocrats in Moscow and Minsk would celebrate the demise of RFE/RL after 75 years,” its president, Stephen Capus, said in a statement.

US-funded media have reoriented themselves since the end of the Cold War, dropping much of the programming geared toward newly democratic Central and Eastern European countries and focusing on Russia and China.

Chinese state-funded media have expanded their reach sharply over the past decade, including by offering free services to outlets in the developing world that would otherwise pay for Western news agencies.

Radio Free Asia, established in 1996, sees its mission as providing uncensored reporting into countries without free media including China, Myanmar, North Korea and Vietnam.

The outlets have an editorial firewall, with a stated guarantee of independence despite government funding.

The policy has angered some around Trump, who has long railed against media and suggested that government-funded outlets should promote his policies.

The move to end US-funded media is likely to meet challenges, much like Trump’s other sweeping cuts. Congress, not the president, has the constitutional power of the purse and Radio Free Asia in particular has enjoyed bipartisan support in the past.

Advocacy group Reporters Without Borders condemned the decision, saying it “threatens press freedom worldwide and negates 80 years of American history in supporting the free flow of information.”

Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and senior Democratic congresswoman Lois Frankel said in a joint statement that Trump’s move would “cause lasting damage to US efforts to counter propaganda around the world.”

One VOA employee, who requested anonymity, described Saturday’s message as another “perfect example of the chaos and unprepared nature of the process,” with VOA staffers presuming that scheduled programming is off but not told so directly.

A Radio Free Asia employee said: “It’s not just about losing your income. We have staff and contractors who fear for their safety. We have reporters who work under the radar in authoritarian countries in Asia. We have staff in the US who fear deportation if their work visa is no longer valid.”

“Wiping us out with the strike of a pen is just terrible.”