“The Agriculture Department has axed two programs that gave schools and food banks money to buy food from local farms and ranchers, halting more than $1 billion in federal spending.
Roughly $660 million that schools and child care facilities were counting on to purchase food from nearby farms through the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program in 2025 has been canceled, according to the School Nutrition Association.”
“After more than three years of war, Ukraine has agreed to a U.S. proposal for an immediate ceasefire. The 30-day truce will come into effect if Russia signs up to the same terms, according to a joint statement from the Ukrainian and American governments.”
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“Trump’s team say they will now take the plan for a 30-day ceasefire to Moscow. “The ball is now in their court,” said Rubio. Russia has been delighted by Trump’s attitude so far, and the ceasefire does not impose any pre-conditions on the Kremlin, as far as is known, other than a pause in the fighting.
Under the outline ceasefire plan, the pause in the fighting would allow humanitarian steps, including the exchange of prisoners of war, the release of detained civilians “and the return of forcibly transferred Ukrainian children,” the joint statement said.”
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“After taking the radical step of cutting off the supply of military kit and intelligence to Kyiv, the U.S. has now agreed to resume sharing its secret information. It will also restart “security assistance.””
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“The terms of the proposal are for a temporary truce that can be extended if both sides agree. Once fighting is paused, negotiations will begin immediately on the terms of a permanent peace. Both the U.S. and Ukraine have promised to name their negotiating teams as soon as possible.”
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“Ahead of the talks, Rubio warned Kyiv that it would need to make concessions, including on territory. But during the eight hours of discussions in Jeddah on Tuesday, the topic of ceding territory did not even come up, according to a Ukrainian official. The point is certain to be brought up, however, if substantive negotiations begin on a permanent settlement.”
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“The U.S. president has made clear that he is not inclined to guarantee “very much” by way of Ukraine’s future security, seeing this as a job for Europe, not America. Nothing in Tuesday’s joint statement suggests that has changed.”
“The European Union hit back hard as U.S. President Donald Trump imposed 25 percent global steel and aluminum tariffs on Wednesday, announcing a two-stage retaliation covering €26 billion in EU exports that far exceeded a trade fight that blew up in his first term.
The European Commission said it would, from April 1, reimpose tariffs in response to €8 billion in U.S. tariffs — including on iconic American products such as Harley-Davidson motorcycles, bourbon and jeans. And, from mid-April, it will set further countermeasures over €18 billion in new U.S. tariffs, subject to the approval of EU member states.
“We deeply regret this measure,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in an early-morning statement.”
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“The 27-nation bloc — a common market spanning 450 million people — wants to send an unmistakable message that the EU is serious about defending its economic interests should Trump launch a full-scale trade war.”
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“The Commission left the door open to a deal with Trump, saying it “remains ready to work with the U.S. administration to find a negotiated solution” and adding that its measures “can be reversed at any time should such a solution be found.””
“Economist Peter C. Earle, the director of economics and economic freedom at the American Institute for Economic Research, tells Reason that referring to Trump’s proposal to acquire vast amounts of cryptocurrency as a “strategic reserve” is “misleading first and foremost because traditional strategic reserves…like the strategic petroleum reserve [and] China’s strategic pork reserve are basically…repositories where large amounts of commodities are held [that] serve economic and security functions.” No cryptocurrency serves a security function, and only two, bitcoin and cardano, could plausibly serve the economic role since their supply is algorithmically constrained, explains Earle. Instead, the federal government committing itself to purchasing cryptocurrency would put a “floor under crypto values” and would function as a “sort of soft subsidy.””
“Multiple lawsuits he’s filed against media operations are “chilling attempts to convert Trump’s complaints about press coverage into causes of action are legally baseless and blatantly unconstitutional,” notes Reason’s Jacob Sullum. He used as an example Trump’s recent social-media post after MSNBC cancelled a TV show: “Fake News is an UNPARDONABLE SIN! The whole corrupt operation is nothing more than an illegal arm of the Democrat Party. They should be forced to pay vast sums of money for the damage they’ve done to our Country.”
Trump, who calls the media the “enemy of the people,” is all for a free press as long as it’s parroting his political line. He recently booted the Associated Press—which despite its biases provides mostly nuts-and-bolts reporting—from presidential events after it refused to start calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, following our Chief Mapmaker’s childish edict. This is bullying.
The New York Times reported that the administration “would start handpicking which media outlets were allowed to participate in the presidential press pool, the small, rotating group of reporters who relay the president’s day-to-day activities to the public.” This is not just an assault on protocol, but a glaring attempt to punish outlets that don’t bend the knee. A California Assembly speaker once denied my reporting team press passes for dubious reasons. It’s hard to do one’s job as a journalist if the government denies you access to its activities.
Trump’s interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, recently threatened criminal investigations of members of Congress and the media who have criticized Elon Musk and his team of DOGE budget-cutters. It’s preposterous for prosecutors to treat feisty comments as “threats,” which is the justification used by Martin’s office. And, as a letter from various civil-rights groups points out, it is certainly not a crime “to identify individuals openly conducting government work that is of the utmost public concern.”
A Trump executive order relating to anti-Israel protests called on universities to “monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff.” It’s fine to deport visiting students who engage in violence and law-breaking—but the highly respected and non-ideological rights group, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), argues that this edict “would make universities monitor students’ constitutionally protected speech.”
There are plenty of other examples to belie MAGA’s boast that it champions free-speech absolutism.”
“Trump and his allies believe tariffs are the key to all sorts of wondrous economic outcomes that will make America more prosperous. In his speech to Congress on Tuesday night, Trump said that tariffs “are about protecting the soul of our country,” whatever that means.
But even if you buy those arguments, it should be obvious that tariffs being implemented and then immediately withdrawn (for the second month in a row) will not produce the promised benefits.
They won’t generate revenue for the government, won’t cause businesses to alter their supply chains, and won’t stop the flow of illegal drugs. It’s the equivalent of looking at a river, declaring your intention to build a dam, and then expecting the river to become a reservoir.”