Donald Trump has signed an executive order making it easier to fire thousands of the best-paid workers in the US government aspart of a broader drive by his administration to overhaul the federal workforce.

The order, released by the White House and the office of personnel management (OPM) on Wednesday, strips job protections from a mostly senior group of federal workers – about 8,000 employees – earning up to almost $200,000 a year, and who are deemed to be “influencing” government policy.

In a call previewing the move, Scott Kupor, director of the OPM, which oversees the government’s human resources policies, said the administration needs to employ people willing and able to carry out orders to achieve the administration’s policy priorities.

“You can have any political views, but if you allow those views to basically interfere with your willingness to actually carry out lawful orders and policy directives with the administration, then this provides a mechanism obviously for people in those agencies to be able to be removed effectively at will,” he said.

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Americans who receive Social Security checks could see benefit checks cut by $500 a month on average if the program is allowed to hit its projected “go-broke” date in late 2032, according to a new analysis.

That amount represents the 24% benefit cut that would be necessary to allow Social Security Administration (SSA) payments after the retirement fund is exhausted, according to fiscal policy think tank Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB).

“Applying this projected reduction to current state-level data, we estimate an across-the-board monthly cut would range from $459 to $556 across the 50 states and the District of Columbia,” the report says.

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for Alabama Republicans to remove the state’s second majority-Black congressional district for the midterms, handing the party a pickup opportunity in an apparent 6-3 vote.

Alabama chastised a lower court for keeping its map blocked, insisting it should move ahead in the wake of the Supreme Court narrowing the Voting Rights Act.

The justices’ emergency order allows Republicans to do so over the objections of Black voters and other challengers, who contended the design should be halted for an independent reason and it was too late for the Supreme Court to intervene, anyways.“While federal courts should not impose changes close to an election,” the justices wrote in their unsigned ruling, “States are free to decide for themselves whether last-minute changes to an election are in their best interests.”

“Now the Court is squarely faced with a record of the turmoil it has caused and the harm it has wrought,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

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President Donald Trump has signed an executive order directing the Treasury Department to shut down bank accounts used to support illegal immigration.

Trump announced the order in a June 2 Truth Social post, saying it targets the banks, credit card companies, and other financial institutions that criminals use to move money tied to human smuggling, drug trafficking, illegal immigration, and cartels.

"Illegal Immigrants and Foreign Fraudsters steal BILLIONS every year from the American Taxpayer." posted President Donald Trump, Truth Social, June 2.

Under the order, Trump said, accounts used to support illegal immigration or to hold government benefits paid to undocumented immigrants could be closed, seized, or forfeited.

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