24/7 News: The Latest
The Latest: 01/26/2025 10:59am ET
This is your 24/7 News Update, the latest news this hour in just four minutes. President Trump is urging Egypt and Jordan to take in more Palestinian refugees as he pushes a plan to, in his words, clean out the Gaza Strip. Trump told reporters Saturday he had a phone call with the King of Jordan on the issue and today we'll talk about it with the Egyptian President. When Trump is defending his late night purge of 15 inspectors general, independent government figures charged with rooting out fraud, waste and violations in their own agencies. Senior White House officials confirm over a dozen of the government watchdogs were fired late Friday night because they don't align with the new Trump administration. Chris Caragio has more. Officials say the legal justification of those firings is murky at best, especially since Congress strengthened protections for inspectors general from undue terminations in 2022. Inspectors general are typically independent figures in the government tasked with conducting objective audits of their agencies. Of course, Caragio, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham says he doesn't approve a President Trump's decision to pardon those who participated in the January 6th riot, telling CNN state of the union he's a firm backer of the president, but he doesn't think it's acceptable to pardon criminals who assaulted police officers. I've always said that I think when you pardon people who attack police officers, you're sending the wrong signal to the public at large. Graham says Congress may need to consider placing limits on presidential power when it comes to pardons. More American troops are at the border with Mexico as part of a crackdown on immigration. The Pentagon says at least 1,500 troops will be sent to the southern border in El Paso and San Diego. On Saturday, a second deployment of soldiers arrived in El Paso. Southern California's first major rainfall arrived last night. Forecasters expect the wet weather will continue through tomorrow, and that's got officials with the LA County Public Works Department preparing for possible mudslides, a flood watch is in effect in Los Angeles County through this evening. I'm Scott Carr. Target is now the latest large U.S. company to end its diversity, equity, and inclusion or DEI programs. Rob Martier explains. The Minneapolis-based retailer announced the decision in a memo to employees on Friday. According to CNBC, the memo cited the importance of staying in step with the evolving landscape to help drive growth and serve its millions of customers. With the move, Target joins companies like Walmart, Meta, and McDonald's in dropping DEI-related pledges and goals. I'm Rob Martier. While U.S. Air Force officials say that President Trump's new anti-DEI order, they'll no longer teach recruits about the Tuskegee Airmen, the 15,000 black pilots and service members of the Segregated Army who fought in World War II. Reuters reports after Trump signed an executive order halting all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, course instruction about the pilots was pulled from the basic training. They also pulled any course instruction about the women's Air Force service pilots of World War II. Monday will mark 80 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland. Survivor Michael Bornstein, who is only four when he was taken to the camp, will return to Auschwitz for the anniversary. I seem to remember the smell, the foul disgusting smell that I found out later is the smell of burning bodies. More than a million people, including Bornstein's father and brother, were killed at Auschwitz. Bornstein said he had no desire to return but came back anyway for one simple reason. To say the cottage, the prayer for all the dead people, and especially my father and my brother, hate and bigotry has no place in this world. And hopefully the lesson is we need to stand up to that. But 50 survivors, along with delegations from dozens of countries, are expected to attend the commemoration tomorrow. I'm Scott Carr.