Tag Archives: State Department

Bloomberg News reports: President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday elevated El Salvador’s travel safety designation to the best possible, putting it above countries in Western Europe, before President Nayib Bukele’s visit to the White House next week. “Exercise normal precautions in El Salvador,” the State Department said in its updated travel advisory. “Gang activity has decreased over the last three …

CBC News reports: The United States is revoking all visas for South Sudanese passport holders and blocking new arrivals, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday, complaining the African nation is not accepting its nationals expelled from the U.S. The State Department “is taking actions to revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders and prevent further issuance to …

Reuters reports: Former Costa Rican President and Nobel Prize winner Oscar Arias said on Tuesday that the U.S. had revoked his visa to enter the country, weeks after he criticized U.S. President Donald Trump on social media saying he was behaving like “a Roman emperor.” Arias, 84, was president between 1986 and 1990 and again between 2006 and 2010. A …

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration intends to terminate the United States’ financial support for Gavi, the organization that has helped purchase critical vaccines for children in developing countries, saving millions of lives over the past quarter century, and to significantly scale back support for efforts to combat malaria, one of the biggest killers globally. A spokesperson for …

Politico reports: The Trump administration is slashing the State Department’s annual human rights report — cutting sections about the rights of women, the disabled, the LGBTQ+ community and more. The goal appears to be a far thinner report that meets the minimum standards required by the law, according to documents obtained by POLITICO, as well as a current and a …

From the State Department’s official G7 transcript: QUESTION: If I can follow up. Mr. Secretary, I know that we’re not speaking about Canada becoming the 51st state at this meeting, but I’m asking you now: Do you consider what the President has said about Canada becoming the 51st state – is he serious? SECRETARY RUBIO: I’ll tell you how that …

CNN reports: Top acting State Department official deleted at least half a dozen tweets that ridiculed his now boss, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, including ones calling him “low IQ” and repeating a false rumor about Rubio’s sexuality. The deleted tweets from Darren Beattie, the acting under secretary of state for public diplomacy, were uncovered as part of a CNN …

Axios reports: Secretary of State Marco Rubio is launching an AI-fueled “Catch and Revoke” effort to cancel the visas of foreign nationals who appear to support Hamas or other designated terror groups, senior State Department officials tell Axios. The effort — which includes AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders’ social media accounts — marks a dramatic …

NBC News reports: U.S. embassies and consulates have stopped monitoring air quality abroad, ending a program that had provided essential public health data for more than a decade. The State Department said its collection of air pollution data at more than 60 U.S. embassies and consulates around the world had been suspended as of Tuesday due to “budget constraints.” The …

The New York Times reports: Starting Wednesday afternoon, a wave of emails went out from the State Department in Washington around the world, landing in inboxes for refugee camps, tuberculosis clinics, polio vaccination projects and thousands of other organizations that received crucial funding for lifesaving work. “This award is being terminated for convenience and the interest of the U.S. government,” …

The Associated Press reports: Thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development workers who have been fired or placed on leave as part of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the agency are being given a brief window Thursday and Friday to clear out their workspaces. Many USAID workers saw the administration’s terms for retrieving their belongings as insulting. In the notice, …

Axios reports: A federal district court judge on Tuesday granted a motion to enforce his temporary restraining order against the Trump administration over its foreign aid freeze. It comes days after U.S. District Court Judge Amir Ali said the administration had “not complied” fully with his order pausing the freeze on foreign aid. Ali ordered the Trump administration to pay …

Drop Site reports: The State Department’s procurement forecast, revised as of late December 2024, lists Tesla as the recipient of the largest expected contract, with Marco Rubio’s department planning to buy $400,000,000 worth of “Armored Tesla.” The award is targeted for Q4, and is forecast to last for five years. The procurement forecast is listed as having been modified on December …

The Washington Post reports: A 19-year-old acolyte of Elon Musk known online as “Big Balls” has taken on new roles as a senior adviser at the State Department and at the Department of Homeland Security, raising concerns among some diplomats and others about his potential access to sensitive information and the growing reach of his tech billionaire boss into America’s …

Boston’s PBS affiliate reports: The annual State Department report documenting the severity of human trafficking around the world will not include a section on LGBTQ victims this year, one of its authors told GBH News. Each year the State Department publishes what it calls the Trafficking in Persons Report — also known as TIP — to gauge how individual countries …

Axios reports: In a rebuke of the Trump administration, Panama has refuted a claim by the U.S. State Department that American vessels can now transit the Panama Canal without being charged fees. The dispute comes shortly after the State Department made the announcement Wednesday evening. President Trump has pushed to regain control of the canal — one of the world’s …

Semafor reports: The US State Department has suspended its organization for LGBTQ employees, with leadership ordering a pause on all official activities. The move is part of the department’s wider directive to all employee affinity groups to “cancel any planned events, meetings, announcements or other activities,” GLIFAA, the official group representing LGBTQ State Department employees, told its members in an …

The Independent reports: The State Department on Friday froze new funding for almost all U.S. foreign assistance, making exceptions to allow humanitarian food programs and military aid to Israel and Egypt to continue. The sweeping order threatened a quick halt to countless projects globally aiding health, education, development, job training and other efforts by the United States, the largest provider …

The Guardian reports: The US state department has frozen all applications for passports with “X” sex markers and changes to gender identity on existing passports, following a new executive order signed by Donald Trump on his first day of office. In an internal cable obtained by the Guardian, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, instructed department staff on Thursday to …

Politico reports: Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to visit Panama — the country whose canal President Donald Trump has suggested he’d seize — as early as next week, according to three U.S. officials briefed on the plan. The trip is expected to be Rubio’s first foreign travel as secretary of State, said one former official who was also …