Protests took place across the U.S. Wednesday as President Trump, Elon Musk and their associates intensified their attempts to dismantle a fast-growing number of government agencies. Thousands rallied on Capitol Hill to demand Congress protect federal agencies. This is Francisco Bencosme, former China policy lead at USAID.

Francisco Bencosme: “Let’s be clear: They’re dismantling USAID. They shut down the doors. They brought down banners. They put thousands of thousands of people on leave. This is not a reform. This is an attack. And USAID is just the beginning. It’s USAID now. It’s the Department of Education next. And it’s an attack on the entire democratic government system.”

Wired reports that employees of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have received orders to pause all “international engagements” amid concerns the scientific agency could also soon face mass firings and have its mission throttled, including its work on developing wind energy.

Meanwhile, employees of color at the Health and Human Services Department fear they could be directly targeted after their names and photos were published on a website called ”DEI Watch List,” created by the American Accountability Foundation. The list of workers claims their so-called offenses include working on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and using pronouns in their bios.

Democratic Congressmembers Judy Chu and Gwen Moore confronted House Speaker Mike Johnson Wednesday, showing up at his office during his meeting with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, to demand answers on Elon Musk’s team gaining access to the Treasury Department’s payment system. The lawmakers say Johnson “hid” Scott Bessent from them.

In the Senate, Hawaii Democrat Brian Schatz led an overnight filibuster against the confirmation of Project 2025 architect Russell Vought to head the Office of Management and Budget.

Sen. Brian Schatz: “All of us — Democrats, Republicans, independents; the media, which is so damn casual about what is happening — we have to understand that when you’re in the middle of the fight, you’re not sure if this is a historic moment. When you read about it in the past, you can identify that historic moment. When you observe it in a faraway place with a hard-to-pronounce name, you can identify what’s happening: creeping fascism.”

A coalition of labor groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday to prevent DOGE — Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — from attempting to take over the Labor Department and gaining access to its data. The agency holds sensitive data likely including worker complaints against Musk and his companies. The plaintiffs include the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, Service Employees International Union and the Economic Policy Institute.

Labor Department workers rallied in D.C. Wednesday against an expected incursion by Elon Musk, joined by Democratic lawmakers. This is Michigan Congressmember Rashida Tlaib.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “We don’t get the benefits and the support and the protections but for the fact that workers organized, and they pushed back, and they fought. And when we don’t get it, we shut it down! If we don’t get it?”

Crowd: “Shut it down!”

Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “If we don’t get it?”

Crowd: “Shut it down!”

In more labor news, a former board member of the National Labor Relations Board, Gwynne Wilcox, filed a lawsuit calling her firing by Trump last month “unprecedented and illegal,” asking a federal court to reinstate her. NLRB members are Senate-approved to fixed terms and can only be removed for “neglect of duty or malfeasance.”

The CIA sent the White House an unclassified email with the first names and last name initials of employees hired in the past two years, in response to an order by the Trump administration as it moves to drastically whittle down the federal workforce. Former CIA officials called the move a “counterintelligence disaster,” warning the employees could easily be identified.

Meanwhile, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove — Trump’s lawyer in his New York criminal election interference case — accused FBI leadership of “insubordination” after it refused to identify a “core team” of agents involved in the January 6 Capitol insurrection investigations. The Justice Department is seeking data on over 5,000 FBI employees involved in those investigations.

President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order to bar transgender students from school sports. The so-called “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” order directs federal agencies to withhold funding for schools that do not comply. This came as at least 15 attorneys general from Democratic-led states issued a joint statement vowing to protect gender-affirming care, calling Trump’s order to rescind federal funding for the lifesaving treatments “wrong on the science and the law.”

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday temporarily blocked Trump’s order that sought to move transgender women in federal prisons to men’s wards and end their gender-affirming care. The three transgender prisoners who filed the lawsuit successfully argued that the anti-trans order violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

A federal judge in Maryland has ordered a nationwide, indefinite hold on President Trump’s executive order to block birthright citizenship. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman — a Biden nominee — ruled Wednesday that civil rights groups suing to stop Trump’s order were “very likely” to succeed in their argument that it “conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment.”

In Texas, an agreement between state officials and the Trump administration will allow soldiers in the Texas National Guard to make immigration arrests at the border and help ICE detain and deport undocumented people. This comes as the Trump administration continues its campaign of mass deportations, with more than 8,000 immigration arrests since January 20.

In Colorado, heavily armed ICE agents carried out large-scale immigration raids at apartment complexes across Denver and Aurora on Wednesday. The Denver Post reports masked agents knocked on doors demanding residents show IDs and asking them to report any undocumented neighbors. Those arrested had their hands zip-tied and were loaded onto waiting buses.

Amid the immigration raids, thousands of protesters gathered in front of the Colorado state Capitol to denounce ICE, temporarily shutting down major roadways in Denver. Similar large-scale protests erupted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Nashville, Tennessee; Lansing, Michigan; St. Paul, Minnesota; and elsewhere. There were also student-led walkouts in solidarity with immigrants at high schools in Los Angeles and San Antonio, Texas.

The United States has begun deportation flights to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, after President Trump ordered the military to prepare to receive up to 30,000 people. On Tuesday, Customs and Border Protection said the first 10 immigration prisoners were flown from Fort Bliss, Texas, to the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo, where officials say they’ll be housed in tents surrounded by fencing and armed guards.

Refugees International condemned the plan as “gratuitously cruel, illegal, expensive, and burdensome,” adding, “Setting up an American gulag in the Caribbean in response to forced displacement in the Americas is a shameful low in U.S. history.”

Guatemala’s president has agreed to receive asylum seekers from other countries who are being deported from the United States, following a pressure campaign from the Trump administration. President Bernardo Arévalo announced the deal Wednesday after talks with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Guatemala City, saying he’d agreed to receive 40% more deportation flights from the U.S.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered his army to prepare a plan for the “voluntary departure” of residents from Gaza, following Trump’s proposal to unlawfully take over the Gaza Strip and ethnically cleanse the Palestinian enclave. Katz also falsely claimed countries which spoke out against Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, including Spain, Ireland and Norway, are “legally obligated to allow any Gaza resident to enter their territories.”
Palestinians in Gaza have forcefully rejected any efforts to force them into exile. This is displaced Gaza resident Hassan Ashour, speaking from Rafah.

Hassan Ashour: “We want to tell the Israeli defense minister that we are steadfast in Gaza. Despite the siege and despite everything, we are steadfast. God willing, we will not leave our country.”

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres responded Wednesday to President Trump’s remarks at a session of the U.N. Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

Secretary-General António Guterres: “In the search for solutions, we must not make the problem worse. It is vital to stay true to the bedrock of international law. It is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing.”

Also on Wednesday, Israel announced it would no longer participate in the U.N. Human Rights Council, one day after Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw from the U.N. body.

Vigils are being held around Sweden as more details emerge about Tuesday’s mass shooting at a continuing education school in the city of Örebro which killed 11 people, including the shooter, in the worst mass shooting in Swedish history. The suspect reportedly changed into military gear in a school bathroom before carrying out the attack. The targeted school served a large immigrant population and offered Swedish language classes. This is a nursing student and survivor of the shooting.

Hellen Werme: “There were two consecutive bangs, and then they increased in frequency. And then we understood that it was a shooting. … I thought that this was my last time, my last day, that I’m getting shot today, but I don’t know when.”

The Panama Canal Authority has denied the Trump administration’s sudden claim that U.S. vessels would be able to cross the waterway “without charge fees, saving the U.S. government millions of dollars a year.” Panama’s government said Wednesday no such adjustment had been made. Trump has repeatedly threatened to retake the Panama Canal, claiming it’s being operated by China.

Argentina’s far-right populist President Javier Milei says he is withdrawing Argentina from the World Health Organization, following in the footsteps of Donald Trump. Like Trump, Milei cited the U.N. agency’s response to the COVID pandemic, namely its backing of lifesaving lockdowns. Last month, Milei gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos blasting feminism, LGBTQ communities, the fight against climate change, social welfare and so-called wokeism. Mass demonstrations took place in Argentina following what protesters called Milei’s hate speech.

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa has announced a series of major policy changes that also appear to echo Trump just days ahead of general elections Sunday. These include a 27% tariff on Mexican imports and a plan to “immediately militarize” Ecuador’s ports of entry, including temporarily sealing the border. Noboa is up against leftist Luisa González of the Citizen Revolution Movement. González is a protegée of former President Rafael Correa who has vowed to increase social spending and crack down on crime.

California officials have accused President Trump of wasting billions of gallons of water after he ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to open two dams in Central California. Over the weekend, Trump declared on social media, “the water is flowing in California,” and claimed it was “heading to farmers throughout the State, and to Los Angeles.” Neither claim is accurate. None of the 2.2 billion gallons discharged into the dry lakebed of Tulare Lake will flow to Los Angeles to help with wildfires, which have already been contained. Meanwhile, the water was released ahead of the dry summer months, when it’s most needed, and before most farmers have even planted their fields. Southern and Central California and Nevada are experiencing record or near-record dryness.