Severe storm risk for the Piedmont Triad Wednesday, damaging winds & tornadoes possible
The Triad and points east have a level 2 out of 5 slight risk for severe weather Wednesday. The Triad and points east have a level 2 risk for severe storms on Wednesday. Damaging wind gusts will be our main concern, but brief spin-ups are possible as well. Timing is morning through mid-afternoon.
Majorities say state of the union is not strong, and Trump is rushing change
Majorities say the state of the union is not strong, that the country is headed in the wrong direction and President Trump is rushing to make changes without considering their impact, a new poll finds. There are some real warning signs for Trump, particularly with independents, who oppose his cuts to the federal government, as well as his approach to foreign policy and the economy. Most respondents expect prices to go up. They also believe federal workers are essential to making the government function and are not huge fans of Elon Musk, who is shepherding Trump’s government overhaul. They don’t think Trump would follow court orders springing up from his slew of executive orders, and don’t believe that the U.S. system of checks and balances is working well. A slim majority of respondents — 53% — said the state of the union is either not very strong or not strong at all. A similar 54% said the country is headed in the wrong direction. Even though those are majority-negative views of the country, they are improvements over recent years. Under former President Joe Biden, in January 2023, 62% overall said the state of the union was not strong. In December of last year, 64% said the country was headed in the wrong direction.
US Supreme Court won’t let Trump withhold payment to foreign aid groups
A divided U.S. Supreme Court declined on Wednesday to let President Donald Trump’s administration withhold payment to foreign aid organizations for work they already performed for the government as the Republican president moves to pull the plug on American humanitarian projects around the world. Handing a setback to Trump, the court in a 5-4 decision upheld Washington-based U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s order that had called on the administration to promptly release funding to contractors and recipients of grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department for their past work. Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal members to form a majority in rejecting the Trump administration’s request.
Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the decision. The order by Ali, who is presiding over an ongoing legal challenge to Trump’s policy, had originally given the administration until February 26 to disburse the funding, which it has said totaled nearly $2 billion that could take weeks to pay in full.
Trump and his adviser Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, have taken dramatic steps to reshape and shrink the federal government. They have dismantled some agencies, fired thousands of workers, dismissed or reassigned hundreds of officials and removed the heads of independent agencies, among other actions.
As he moves to end American-backed humanitarian efforts in numerous countries, Trump’s administration has sent funding termination notices to key organizations in the global aid community. Global aid groups have said the U.S. retreat endangers the lives of millions of the world’s most vulnerable people including those facing deadly diseases and those living in conflict zones.
