{"id":10058,"date":"2026-02-12T14:15:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/02\/12\/live-updates-top-trump-homeland-security-officials-to-face-questions-at-senate-oversight-hearing-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T14:15:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:15:31","slug":"live-updates-top-trump-homeland-security-officials-to-face-questions-at-senate-oversight-hearing-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/02\/12\/live-updates-top-trump-homeland-security-officials-to-face-questions-at-senate-oversight-hearing-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Live updates: Top Trump homeland security officials to face questions at Senate oversight hearing – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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9m ago \/ 9:05 AM EST<\/p>\n

Kennedy Center head warns of \u2018skeletal\u2019 staff during two-year renovation<\/h2>\n
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As the Trump administration prepares to close the Kennedy Center for a two-year renovation,<\/a> the head of Washington\u2019s performing arts center has warned its staff about impending cuts that will leave \u201cskeletal teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a Tuesday memo obtained by The Associated Press, Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell told staff that \u201cdepartments will obviously function on a much smaller scale with some units totally reduced or on hold until we begin preparations to reopen in 2028,\u201d promising \u201cpermanent or temporary adjustments for most everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the next few months, he wrote, department heads would be \u201cevaluating the needs and making the decisions as to what these skeletal teams left in place during the facility and closure and construction phase will look like.\u201d Grenell said leadership would \u201cprovide as much clarity and advance notice as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kennedy Center is slated to close in early July. Few details about what the renovations will look like have been released since Trump announced his plan at the beginning of February. Neither Trump nor Grenell have provided evidence to support claims about the building being in disrepair, and last October, Trump had pledged<\/a> it would remain open during renovations.<\/p>\n

Read the full story here.<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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30m ago \/ 8:45 AM EST<\/p>\n

The candidate at the center of the brewing midterm AI war unveils\u00a0his agenda<\/h2>\n
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Alex Bores, a New York state lawmaker at the center of the political fight over the future of artificial intelligence,\u00a0released an eight-point plan<\/a>\u00a0for a national AI framework yesterday, wading further into the issue that is defining his campaign for Congress.<\/p>\n

Bores, one of about a dozen contenders seeking the Democratic nomination in New York\u2019s deep-blue, open 12th Congressional District, unveiled the plan as he faces opposition from some of the biggest national players in AI, as well as support from some others.<\/p>\n

The dynamic has elevated him in his House contest, where he has already faced seven figures worth of attack ads from a super PAC funded by AI industry leaders \u2014 and raised hundreds of thousands from workers at other AI companies.<\/p>\n

In an interview with NBC News, Bores said that given how quickly AI is advancing, there\u2019s a chance most of the plan will need to be reworked. That\u2019s the reality of how different the state of the technology might be by then and a big reason why he wanted to put his ideas on paper now.<\/p>\n

Read the full story here.<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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48m ago \/ 8:27 AM EST<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Epstein survivors say they felt \u2018degraded\u2019 and a \u2018lack of empathy\u2019 from Pam Bondi <\/h2>\n
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Six survivors of Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s abuse and two members of another accuser\u2019s family said they felt \u201cdegraded\u201d during yesterday\u2019s\u00a0contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing<\/a>, at which Attorney General Pam Bondi\u00a0refused to face them and apologize<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Several Epstein survivors and their relatives were on Capitol Hill, where\u00a0lawmakers grilled Bondi\u00a0<\/a>for over five hours about several matters, including the Justice Department\u2019s handling of the Epstein case. She was specifically questioned about why\u00a0released files were heavily redacted<\/a>\u00a0and why several survivors\u2019 names were not.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was such a lack of empathy today. There was such a lack of, honestly, humanity today,\u201d Dani Bensky said on NBC\u2019s \u201cHallie Jackson NOW.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the full story here.<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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57m ago \/ 8:18 AM EST<\/p>\n

Analysis: Trump faces growing GOP blowback on issues ranging from immigration to his social media posts <\/h2>\n
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Trump\u2019s policies and personal conduct regularly generate fierce backlash from his political adversaries. But over the last two months, fresh counterblasts are coming from an unexpected quarter: his allies.<\/p>\n

Three House Republicans joined Democrats on Tuesday on a rare procedural vote to rebuke the president and GOP leadership, which paved the way for more GOP lawmakers to vote for a resolution to block Trump\u2019s Canada tariff yesterday. The final head count of Republicans who backed that resolution as it was adopted, with mostly Democratic votes: six.<\/p>\n

A Republican governor who leads a national association representing governors of both parties said this week that the group\u00a0would not attend<\/a>\u00a0a typically bipartisan White House meeting because Democrats were not invited.\u00a0Trump later said<\/a>\u00a0all Democratic governors were also invited \u2014 with two exceptions.<\/p>\n

And last week, Republicans inside and outside Washington rebuked Trump for\u00a0sharing a social media video<\/a>\u00a0that depicted former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes.<\/p>\n

The dynamic is playing out across the country and around the globe \u2014 on issues from Trump\u2019s posts about the Obamas and slain Hollywood director Rob Reiner to the tactics of his mass deportation campaign and the implementation of his tariffs. But the wave of pushback may be most noteworthy as an indicator of where Republicans stand heading into the midterm elections in November.<\/p>\n

Read the full story here.<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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2h ago \/ 7:29 AM EST<\/p>\n

EPA to repeal its own conclusion that greenhouse gases warm the planet and threaten health<\/h2>\n
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The Environmental Protection Agency today plans to repeal the legal framework that underpins its power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump will be joined by Administrator Lee Zeldin to formalize the rescission of the 2009 Obama-era endangerment finding,\u201d White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a briefing earlier this week. \u201cThis will be the largest deregulatory action in American history, and it will save the American people $1.3 trillion in crushing regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Known as the endangerment finding, the EPA\u2019s 2009 decision says that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane are heating the Earth and that warming threatens public health and welfare. It therefore functions, under the Clean Air Act, as the linchpin for rules that set\u00a0emissions standards for cars and trucks<\/a>\u00a0and require\u00a0fossil fuel companies to report their emissions<\/a>, among others.<\/p>\n

The move is expected to upend most U.S. policies aimed at reducing climate pollution \u2014 if the repeal can withstand court challenges from environmental groups, which had already been preparing to sue.<\/p>\n

Read the full story here.<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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2h ago \/ 7:28 AM EST<\/p>\n

Canadian separatists optimistic after meetings with Trump officials<\/h2>\n
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Leaders of a right-wing separatist movement in Canada say they\u2019ve discussed everything from switching over to U.S. currency to creating a new military in conversations with U.S. officials from the State and Treasury departments at three meetings in the past year.<\/p>\n

Leaders of the Alberta Prosperity Project seek to place a referendum on separating Alberta \u2014 the conservative-leaning province often referred to as the Texas of Canada \u2014 from the rest of the country on the ballot this year. They said a fourth meeting with Trump administration officials in Washington, D.C., is tentatively planned in the coming weeks to further discuss a transition process should their effort prove successful.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor those of us who are very much in support of Alberta becoming a sovereign country, it\u2019s heartening to us at each of the three meetings that we\u2019ve had with the U.S. administration to be informed that the entire U.S. administration is supportive of Alberta becoming a sovereign country,\u201d Dennis Modry, a co-founder of the Alberta Prosperity Project, said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Read the full story here.<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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2h ago \/ 7:28 AM EST<\/p>\n

Trump administration working to expand effort to strip citizenship from foreign-born Americans<\/h2>\n
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The Trump administration is dramatically expanding an effort to revoke U.S. citizenship from foreign-born Americans as it works to curb immigration, according to two people familiar with the plans.<\/p>\n

Over the past several months, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency within Homeland Security that\u2019s responsible for legal immigration, has been sending experts to its offices around the country or reassigning staff to focus on whether some citizens processed through those offices could now be denaturalized, these people said.<\/p>\n

The goal of the emphasis on naturalized citizens is to supply the office of immigration litigation with between 100 to 200 possible cases per month, one of the people familiar with the plans said.\u00a0Such cases have typically been very rare<\/a>, involving people who concealed criminal history or previous human rights violations during their application process. The\u00a0quota that was first reported<\/a>\u00a0by The New York Times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By comparison, throughout the four years of President Donald Trump\u2019s first term, the administration formally filed a total of 102 such cases, according to the Justice Department.<\/p>\n

Read the full story here.<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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2h ago \/ 7:28 AM EST<\/p>\n

Top immigration officials to testify before the Senate<\/h2>\n
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Top Trump immigration enforcement officials will testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this morning. <\/p>\n

Lawmakers will question Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE; Rodney Scott, the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection; and Joseph Edlow, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. <\/p>\n

The three men testified before House lawmakers earlier this week, where they faced questions about the Trump administration’s aggressive and deadly immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota and elsewhere. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

9m ago \/ 9:05 AM EST Kennedy Center head warns of \u2018skeletal\u2019 staff during two-year renovation As the Trump administration prepares to close the Kennedy Center for a two-year renovation, the head of Washington\u2019s performing arts center has warned its staff about impending cuts that will leave \u201cskeletal teams.\u201d In a Tuesday memo obtained by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}