President Trump announced Thursday he was exempting his 25% tariffs for Mexican and Canadian goods that come under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a trade pact that he signed in his first term to replace NAFTA. The exemption is in place until April 2, for now, and comes after Trump spoke with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. According to the White House, some 50% of Mexican imports and 38% of Canadian imports are part of this trade deal. Trump’s tariffs first went into effect on Tuesday, including an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods, causing markets to tumble.

The State Department on Thursday ordered an immediate pause on nearly all U.S. funding for aid projects in South Africa. The pause comes after Trump issued an executive order in February in retaliation for South Africa’s land reform law, which he claimed was “racial discrimination” against white South Africans. The “pause” reportedly spares funding for PEPFAR, the U.S. global HIV/AIDS program. South African-born billionaire Elon Musk has said white South Africans have been victims of, quote, “racist ownership laws,” and accused the post-apartheid government of anti-white racism.

In more news from the State Department, the agency is preparing to shutter a dozen overseas consulates, as well as many more diplomatic missions. The move would include laying off many local employees crucial for U.S. diplomatic relations in those countries.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from firing the head of the U.S. African Development Foundation after Elon Musk’s DOGE operation brought in U.S. marshals to gain access to the foundation’s headquarters on Thursday. The judge’s order came after the foundation’s president sued DOGE and State Department official Pete Marocco over their attempts to dismantle the agency, which was established in 1980 to provide grants and loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs in Africa.

Attorneys general from eight states have filed a lawsuit against the Education Department, accusing the agency of unlawfully slashing more than $600 million in federal grants for teacher training programs that had already been appropriated by Congress. The Trump administration froze the funds in February, claiming they’re used to promote what it called “divisive ideologies” like anti-racism. On Thursday, Senate Democrats, including Connecticut’s Chris Murphy, slammed reports that Trump is preparing to sign an executive order abolishing the Department of Education.

Sen. Chris Murphy: “So, if the Department of Education closes, it’s going to hurt millions of families in this country. It’s just going to enable the theft of resources from regular families to pad the pockets of the billionaires. But it is also likely to result in you waking up one day and finding out that your local elementary school that your kids go to is owned by a private equity firm on the other side of the country and is being run for profit.”

A federal judge on Thursday ruled that Trump illegally fired a member of the National Labor Relations Board in January, and ordered Gwynne Wilcox be reinstated. Judge Beryl Howell wrote, “A president who touts an image of himself as a 'king' or a 'dictator,' perhaps as his vision of effective leadership, fundamentally misapprehends the role under Article II of the U.S. Constitution.”

In related news, the nonprofit union-focused watchdog LaborLab is warning against Trump’s pick to head the Office of Labor-Management Standards. Elisabeth Messenger was previously the CEO of Americans for Fair Treatment, an anti-union advocacy group.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been ordered to temporarily reinstate nearly 6,000 workers recently fired by the Trump administration. The order from the MSPB — the Merit Systems Protection Board — requires the USDA to return the fired workers to their jobs for 45 days while it investigates whether they were unlawfully terminated. The ruling came just days after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from firing MSPB board member Cathy Harris, a Democratic appointee whose term doesn’t expire until 2028. Harris successfully argued that an MSPB member can only be removed by the president for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”

The head of the Office of Special Counsel, which handles whistleblower complaints, has ended his legal fight against President Trump’s attempts to fire him. Hampton Dellinger cited his long odds at prevailing in an appeal to the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court, after a federal appeals court allowed Trump to proceed with his termination.

Axios is reporting Secretary of State Marco Rubio is deploying artificial intelligence to help identify and revoke visas for individuals the State Department believes support Hamas or other U.S.-designated terror groups. The process involves scanning tens of thousands of social media accounts, in particular to identify students who participated in antiwar and pro-Palestine protests since October 7, 2023. Abed Ayoub, head of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said, “This should concern all Americans. This is a First Amendment and freedom of speech issue and the administration will overplay its hand.”

Earlier this week, Trump threatened to prosecute and deport foreign students who take part in such protests, and cut funding for universities that allow them.

Undeterred, hundreds of students at Harvard and Columbia this week led protests against former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who had speaking engagements at the Ivy League schools.

The Pentagon’s inspector general is halting efforts to identify and root out extremism in the U.S. military, saying the initiative does not align with Trump’s policies. The watchdog issued a directive last week abruptly ending ongoing reviews of how military branches are countering extremism, as many military members have been linked to far-right groups including the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and the Ku Klux Klan.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has issued a travel advisory warning immigrants from majority-Muslim nations not to leave the U.S. over the next 30 days amid reports Trump is poised to announce a new travel ban. According to reports, the ban could affect citizens of Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, Yemen and Pakistan. It could also include tens of thousands of Afghans who have been cleared for resettlement in the U.S. and face life-threatening danger in their home country for assisting U.S. forces during their 20-year occupation of Afghanistan. Trump’s first-term Muslim ban was repealed in 2021.

Some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled Russia’s war and are living in the U.S. under temporary protected status are bracing themselves after Trump said he’s considering revoking those protections. Groups like the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America say they are making sure their community is prepared.

Andrij Dobriansky: “Many of these people do not have homes to return to. We’re talking about people whose entire towns have been leveled altogether. Where would we be sending them back to? Nothing. … We’re preparing our community by making sure that leaflets for 'Know Your Immigrant Rights' are translated into proper languages. For them, that could be Ukrainian. That also could be Russian language, Crimean Tatar and other languages.”

European leaders agreed to increase military spending for Ukraine as they met in Brussels for an emergency summit following Trump’s decision to suspend U.S. military support for Kyiv. Some 20 nations have also said they’re open to joining a “coalition of the willing” to support Ukraine.

President Trump directed members of his Cabinet Thursday to take the lead in firing thousands of federal workers, rather than waiting for directives from billionaire adviser Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

President Donald Trump: “We want them to keep the good people, and so we’re going to be watching them. And Elon and the group are going to be watching them. And if they can cut, it’s better. And if they don’t cut, then Elon will do the cutting.”

The Republican-controlled Senate voted to repeal a rule that would subject digital payment apps to the same consumer protections as credit cards and bank accounts. After the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized the rule in November, Elon Musk called for the agency to be “deleted.” Musk is seeking to turn his social media site X into a digital payments app.

There’s been another disaster involving Elon Musk’s private spaceflight company. On Thursday, SpaceX launched the eighth test flight of its giant experimental rocket Starship. Several minutes into flight, the vehicle’s second stage began tumbling out of control and reentered the atmosphere above the Bahamas, creating an artificial meteor shower that rained debris across the Caribbean. The FAA halted flights into several Florida airports, and multiple airliners were rerouted around the debris field. The FAA allowed SpaceX to proceed with Thursday’s launch even though the agency has an open mishap investigation into Starship’s previous flight in January, which also ended in an explosion that littered debris over the islands of Turks and Caicos.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has ordered Tesla to pay fines of $49,650 for three serious safety violations after a factory worker was electrocuted to death. Victor Gomez Sr. died from electric shocks he received last August while inspecting electrical panels at the Tesla Gigafactory near Austin, Texas. In a wrongful death lawsuit, Gomez’s family alleges Tesla was negligent because the panel should have been switched off. OSHA previously fined Tesla $7,000 for chemical hazard workplace safety violations at the Austin Gigafactory. Elon Musk owns about 13% of shares at Tesla, where he’s served as CEO since 2008.

The U.S. Supreme Court has further eroded the power of the Environmental Protection Agency and state governments to safeguard water quality under the Clean Water Act. In Tuesday’s 5-4 ruling, the majority overturned measures limiting the discharge of wastewater into harbors and coastal areas, including limits on the release of raw sewage. This comes less than two years after the Supreme Court gutted Clean Water Act protections for about half of all wetlands in the contiguous United States.

The Trump administration has halted an international air quality monitoring program that sampled pollution levels at more than 80 U.S. embassies and consulates, due to what the State Department called “budget constraints.” The program is credited with identifying soaring levels of fine particulate pollution around the U.S. Embassy in Beijing in 2013, right before China launched its so-called war against pollution.

Sudan has filed a case with the International Court of Justice accusing the United Arab Emirates of breaching the Genocide Convention by arming and funding the rebel Rapid Support Forces. Sudan said in Wednesday’s filing the RSF and allied armed groups perpetrated “genocide, murder, theft of property, rape, forcible displacement, trespassing, vandalism of public properties, and violation of human rights” targeting the Masalit people. The UAE said it would seek an “immediate dismissal” of the case.

In news from Syria, at least 70 people were killed and dozens more wounded in overnight clashes between Syrian forces and fighters loyal to deposed leader Bashar al-Assad. Dozens of Syrian authorities were targeted in various ambush attacks by Assad loyalists in the Latakia and Tartus provinces, which have long been strongholds for Assad’s toppled government. Thousands of protesters across that region took to the streets demanding Syrian forces withdraw from the countryside, in what was the first massive demonstration against the new government of Syria since Assad was ousted in December.

This comes as Save the Children is reporting more than 600 people, including over 180 children, in Syria have been killed or injured over the last three months by landmines and explosive remnants of war as millions of families return to their homes after 13 years.

The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees has accused Israel of undertaking “the largest displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since the 1967 war.” Philippe Lazzarini added, “The refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams have been nearly emptied.” Israel has displaced some 40,000 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since launching its so-called Operation Iron Wall in late January.

The 13-year-old narrator of a BBC produced documentary on Gaza has responded to BBC’s decision to withdraw the acclaimed film “Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone” from its streaming service after pressure from pro-Israeli groups. This is Abdullah al-Yazuri speaking to Middle East Eye.

Abdullah al-Yazuri: “My message to the BBC is that I hoped that the documentary, this documentary, can see light and can be successful, can spread the message of the suffering that children in Gaza witness.”

Abdullah al-Yazuri says he and his family have received threats and the BBC has not intervened to help protect them.

Sixty years ago today, civil rights leader John Lewis led hundreds of voting rights activists over the Edmund Pettus Bridge marching from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights. Alabama state troopers beat them mercilessly. It would be a turning point in the civil rights movement. Five months later, President Lyndon B. Johnson would sign the Voting Rights Act into law. Today, civil rights groups are calling on lawmakers to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act at a time when voting rights are facing unprecedented federal threats.