The Office of the Director of National Intelligence says it will dramatically reduce its workforce and cut its budget by more than $700 million annually. The move Wednesday amounts to a major downsizing of the responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including on counterterrorism and counterintelligence. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard says the office "has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence." The reorganization is part of a broader administration effort to rethink how it tracks foreign threats to American elections, a topic that has become politically loaded.

Republicans can't stop talking about former President Joe Biden. The GOP-controlled House of Representatives has launched investigations that assert Biden's closest advisers covered up a physical and mental decline. The Republican-controlled Senate has started a series of hearings focused on his mental fitness. And President Donald Trump's White House has opened its own investigation into the Biden administration's use of the presidential autopen. It all fits with Trump's practice of blaming his predecessors for the nation's ills. But the strategy also carries risks. The more Republicans and Democrats talk about the 82-year-old former president, the less they are able to make arguments to voters about Trump's presidency ahead of the 2026 midterms.

 Just 1 in 4 U.S. adults say President Donald Trump's policies have helped them. That's according to a new AP-NORC poll that finds underwhelming marks for the Republican president on key issues, including the economy, immigration, government spending and health care. Overall, Trump fails to earn majority approval on any of the issues included in the poll. A majority of Americans see Trump as at least somewhat capable of getting things done following the passage of his sprawling budget bill. The mixed reviews come six months into Trump's term as he struggles to follow through on some campaign promises, including lowering costs for working-class Americans, preserving programs like Medicaid and lowering government spending.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials will gain access to personally identifiable information for all of the nation's 79 million Medicaid enrollees. That's according to an agreement obtained by The Associated Press. ICE officials plan to track immigrants who may not be living legally in the United States. The agreement was signed Monday between officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Homeland Security. Direct access will be given to the addresses, Social Security numbers, birth dates as well as the ethnicity and race of all Medicaid enrollees.

The Supreme Court has again cleared the way for the Trump administration to strip temporary legal protections from hundreds of thousands of immigrants for now. This pushes the total number of people who could be newly exposed to deportation to nearly 1 million. The justices on Friday lifted a lower-court order that kept humanitarian parole protections in place for more than 500,000 migrants from four countries: Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The court has also allowed the administration to revoke temporary legal status from about 350,000 Venezuelan migrants in another case.

Releases of immigrant children in U.S. custody have slowed dramatically since the Trump administration increased vetting of people seeking to take care of them. Government data show only 45 of more than 2,000 children in custody were released last month. The average child stay in federal shelters has gone up from just over one month to just over seven months. Relatives looking to get the children out of government custody as they apply for legal immigration protections say there are massive delays. DNA tests take many weeks. New requirements for proof of income and identity demand documents that many caretakers — especially those in the U.S. illegally — cannot obtain.

President Donald Trump's administration says it's going to pay $1,000 to immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally and return to their home country voluntarily as it pushes forward with its mass deportation agenda. The Department of Homeland Security said Monday it has already paid for a plane ticket for one migrant to return home to Honduras from Chicago. Trump made immigration enforcement a centerpiece of his campaign. But it's a costly, resource-intensive endeavor. The Republican administration is asking Congress for an increase in resources but also pushing people in the U.S. illegally to "self-deport." Advocates for immigrants warn there's a lot for migrants to be cautious about in the latest offer from Homeland Security.

President Donald Trump says negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are "coming to a head" and insists that neither side is "playing" him in his push to end the grinding war. The comments from Trump came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned earlier Friday that the U.S. may "move on" from trying to secure a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is no progress in the coming days, after months of efforts have failed to bring an end to the fighting. Rubio's dour assessment came after landmark talks in Paris among U.S., Ukrainian and European officials produced outlines for steps toward peace and appeared to make some long-awaited progress. Another meeting is expected next week in London.

U.S. officials and members of Congress say President Donald Trump has abruptly fired the director of the National Security Agency. The White House and the Pentagon have provided no reasons for the action. Officials say senior military leaders were informed Thursday of the firing of Air Force Gen. Tim Haugh, who also oversaw the Pentagon's Cyber Command. The officials say they received no advance notice about the decision to remove a four-star general with a 33-year career in intelligence and cyber operations. The move has triggered sharp criticism from members of Congress and marks the latest dismissal of national security officials by the Republican president. It's unclear who's now in charge of the NSA and the Cyber Command.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the Trump administration will work with allies to ramp up deterrence against threats across the world, including China's aggression in the South China Sea. Hegseth, who was visiting the Philippines, blamed the previous Biden administration for insufficient actions that emboldened aggressors like China over the years. He said the U.S. military was being rebuilt under President Donald Trump and was reestablishing its "warrior ethos" in the region, but did not elaborate. Earlier, he told Marcos that deterrence was particularly needed in the Indo-Pacific region "considering the threats from the communist Chinese." The Philippines was the first stop in his first trip to Asia and he would travel next to Japan.