By James P. Sutton,Pacific Legal Foundation,Peter Gattuso,Ross Anderson
Copyright thedispatch
The Senate voted against two short-term federal funding bills on Wednesday, extending the current government shutdown at least until Friday. Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that, because of the government shutdown, President Donald Trump ordered his Cabinet and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to identify prospective “across the board” personnel cuts. “We believe that layoffs are imminent,” she said. Axios reported on Wednesday that, per OMB Director Russell Vought, the layoffs will begin in a “day or two.”
Vought announced Wednesday morning on X that the Trump administration would freeze $18 billion in federal funding for two major New York City infrastructure projects—the Second Avenue Subway and the Hudson Tunnel—ostensibly to review whether the funds were allocated based on unconstitutional DEI principles. New York leaders—including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who are central in shutdown negotiations—criticized the funding freeze, calling it politically motivated and warning that it could jeopardize thousands of jobs and disrupt commutes.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump has signed off on providing Ukraine with intelligence for long-range missile strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure, marking the first time the administration will support Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russian territory. The intelligence sharing will help Kyiv target oil refineries, pipelines, and power stations far from its borders in an effort to deprive the Kremlin of revenue. U.S. officials are asking NATO allies to provide similar support. This comes as the administration weighs whether to provide Ukraine with Tomahawk and Barracuda missiles, which have ranges of around 500 miles.
The Trump administration on Wednesday withdrew funding for the Council of Inspectors General, a federal watchdog group, and the entity’s website was disabled. The group oversaw a network of 72 inspectors general. According to the Washington Post, the Trump administration had decided last week to pull the group’s funding.
German authorities arrested three men on Wednesday they believed were affiliated with Hamas and suspected of planning attacks targeting Israeli and Jewish institutions. According to German prosecutors, the suspects—two German nationals and one Lebanese-born individual—were arrested in Berlin, and authorities later found in their possession “various weapons, including an AK-47 assault rifle and several pistols, and a significant amount of ammunition.” Hamas on Wednesday denied any association with the three detained individuals, and called statements claiming otherwise “completely unfounded.” Separately, Munich’s Oktoberfest was temporarily closed for several hours on Wednesday after an unrelated bomb threat linked to a domestic dispute.
FBI Director Kash Patel announced on X Wednesday that the bureau is cutting ties with the Anti-Defamation League, calling the organization “political fronts masquerading as watchdogs.” Patel criticized former FBI Director James Comey—who now faces federal charges for allegedly lying to Congress—for writing what he called “love letters” to the ADL and embedding FBI agents with the group. The break follows backlash after the ADL listed Turning Point USA, founded by recently assassinated right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, in its “Glossary of Extremism and Hate.” The ADL deleted the glossary this week, saying many entries were outdated and had been “misrepresented and misused.”
A military court in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Tuesday convicted former President Joseph Kabila of war crimes, murder, sexual assault, torture, involvement in an insurrection movement, conspiracy and supporting terrorism, and supporting a Rwandan-backed rebel group—among other charges—sentencing him to death and ordering him to pay more than $30 billion in damages. Kabila—who led the country from 2001 to 2019 before entering self-imposed exile in 2023—was tried in absentia on charges including collaborating with the M23 rebel group, which seized territory in the DRC’s eastern region earlier this year. Kabila, whose current location is unknown, dismissed the military court’s decision as “arbitrary.”
The Supreme Court on Wednesday announced that it would hear oral arguments for Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook’s legal suit against Trump, challenging his attempt to fire her over allegations of mortgage fraud. It also ruled that a lower court’s decision to allow Cook to keep her job at the bank while the case is pending can remain in effect until oral arguments.
The federal government has reached an agreement with Lithium Americas, a Vancouver-based mining company, to acquire a 5 percent stake in the business, in addition to a 5 percent stake in the Thacker Pass lithium mine in northern Nevada, which is currently under construction. Once the first stage of Thacker Pass—a joint venture between Lithium Americas and General Motors—is completed, projected to be in 2027, it will be one of the country’s largest lithium mines, capable of producing 40,000 metric tons annually of battery-quality lithium carbonate. Lithium Americas’ stock rose about 35 percent Tuesday following the announcement.
The European Commission rejected a plan on Wednesday to unfreeze 545 million euros (approximately $640 million) for Hungary, opting instead to allocate only 163.5 million euros (roughly $190 million). The European Commission can rescind that decision if it determines that Hungary is not using the money efficiently. While the EU had initially planned to unfreeze the full amount in the hope of persuading Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to approve new EU energy sanctions on Russia, he has so far been unwilling to support any such move.
The Taliban’s government in Afghanistan returned the public’s access to the internet on Wednesday, following two days of a countrywide online blackout, which was part of a broader effort to curb “immoral activities.” Shortly after the country returned online, Kabul residents took to the capital’s streets to inform others that internet access had been restored. Meanwhile, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) warned on Wednesday that tens of thousands of Afghans are in critical need of shelter ahead of the country’s approaching winter, following a magnitude 6.0 earthquake that hit the region last month, killing more than 2,200 people and destroying more than 8,000 homes.
Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to invest an additional $50 million in a childhood cancer research initiative launched by his first presidential administration in 2019, with the new funds directed toward AI-assisted research. “AI has the potential to transform the current care and research approach for pediatric cancer by building on CCDI’s foundational data infrastructure, aggregating and generating new data, and using this data to make new discoveries—all secured with appropriate individual privacy protections,” the White House said in a fact sheet about the order.
