Trump news at a glance: more Signal messages released as Republicans break ranks with White House

More Signal messages from Trump officials released

Newly released messages from the Signal group chat discussing an attack on Yemen revealed details of US bombings, drone launches and other information about the assault, including descriptions of weather conditions and specific weapons.

“There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared,” the Atlantic wrote.

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Republican senators call for investigation of Signal scandal

In rare signs of unrest, top Republican senators called for an investigation into the Signal leak scandal and demanding answers from the Trump administration, as they raise concerns it will become a “significant political problem” if not addressed properly.

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Intel chiefs deny discussing war plans on Signal

US intelligence chiefs on Wednesday denied breaking the law or revealing classified information in a group chat where they discussed details of airstrikes on Yemen in the presence of a journalist, despite allegations from Democrats that the leak was reckless and possibly illegal.

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Private data of Hegseth, Gabbard and Waltz available online, Spiegel reports

The private data of top security advisers to US President Donald Trump can be accessed online, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported, adding to the fallout from the Signal group chat scandal.

Mobile phone numbers, email addresses and in some cases passwords used by national security adviser Mike Waltz, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, and director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard can be found via commercial data-search services and hacked data dumped online, it reported.

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Trump announces new 25% tariffs on cars from overseas

Donald Trump announced plans to impose sweeping 25% tariffs on cars from overseas on Wednesday, days before the president is expected to announce wide-ranging levies on other goods from around the world. Canadian prime minister Mark Carney called the move a “direct attack” on Canadian workers.

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Tufts graduate student detained over pro-Palestinian activism

Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student in Boston detained on Tuesday by federal immigration agents in response to her pro-Palestinian activism, was on Wednesday evening being detained at the South Louisiana Ice processing center, according to the government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detainee locator page.

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US supreme court upholds Biden regulation on ‘ghost guns’

The US supreme court upheld a federal regulation targeting largely untraceable “ghost guns” imposed by Joe Biden’s administration in a crackdown on firearms whose use has proliferated in crimes nationwide.

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NPR and PBS testify in heated hearing before Doge panel

The heads of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service testified in a heated congressional subcommittee hearing, helmed by conservative Marjorie Taylor Greene, amid a renewed Republican effort to defund US public media.

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Mike Johnson floats eliminating federal courts

Republican House speaker Mike Johnson suggested potentially defunding, restructuring or eliminating US federal courts as a means of pushing back against judicial decisions that have challenged Donald Trump’s policies.

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What else happened today:

• A Democrat won a Pennsylvania state senate seat in a district that overwhelmingly voted for Trump, offering a ray of hope for the party.

• Trump nominated a conservative, pro-Israel media activist as US ambassador to South Africa, at a time when the relationship between the two countries is at a nadir.

• A US appeals court upheld a lower court’s temporary block on the Trump administration’s deportation of some Venezuelan immigrants under a little-used 18th-century law.

• Edward Coristine, the best-known member of Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) service team of technologists, once provided support to a cybercrime gang that bragged about trafficking in stolen data and cyberstalking an FBI agent, according to digital records reviewed by Reuters.

• The Department of Health and Human Services canceled around $12bn in federal grants to states that were allocated during the Covid-19 pandemic, the federal department and state officials said on Wednesday.