The Forest Service is defending its plan to relocate its headquarters to Utah and shutter most of its research facilities, as part of a major agency reorganization, and intends to proceed with these plans with or without approval from Congress.

Last month, the Agriculture Department announced that the Forest Service would move its headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah. In addition, the agency should shut down 57 of its 77 research facilities, as well as all nine of its regional offices.

Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz told members of the House Appropriations Committee that about 500 employees would have to relocate under the headquarters reorganization plan — about 1.5% of the agency’s 30,000 workforce.

The Senate approved a short-term renewal until April 30 of a controversial surveillance program used by U.S. spy agencies, following a chaotic, post-midnight scramble in the House to keep the authority from expiring.

The measure cleared the Senate by voice vote, without a formal roll call, as Congress raced to meet a Monday deadline. It now heads to President Donald Trump, who had pushed for a clean 18-month extension, for his signature.

President Donald Trump’s army of lawyers may be the largest of any Oval Office occupant in history. Aside from the attorneys who work for the office of the president, he has retained a veritable phalanx of personal attorneys over the years to represent him in court. That kind of legal firepower doesn’t come cheap. But according to recent Federal Election Commission filings, the funding stream Trump has been using to pay out millions to law firms is running very, very low on cash.

A US judge has halted construction of the above ground portion of President Donald Trump's White House ballroom project, but has allowed plans for an underground bunker to proceed.

Judge Richard Leon wrote in his ruling on Thursday that Congress must approve the project, adding that Trump appeared to be trying to side-step a previous court order by reclassifying the ballroom plans as vital for national security.

"National security is not a blank cheque to proceed with otherwise unlawful activity," the judge wrote.

Todd Lyons, the acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is planning to leave the agency, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has confirmed.

ICE has faced increased scrutiny for its role at the center of Trump's mass deportation initiative.

https://www.courthousenews.com/tiffany-doe-affidavit/

Defense Department employees have become the latest to lose their protections provided under collective bargaining agreements, according to union officials and an internal DoD memo obtained by Federal News Network.

In an April 9 memo to senior Pentagon leadership, combatant commanders and defense agency directors, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the termination of collective bargaining agreements within 24 hours, with limited exceptions for certain categories of employees.

House Democrats filed six articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth on Wednesday, accusing the defense secretary of “high crimes and misdemeanors”, in reference to the attack on Iran without congressional authorization and deadly strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats, among other official acts.

• March strike on a school in Iran that left at least 175 individuals dead, including children, according to a New York Times report.
• Boat strikes in the Caribbean. The military has repeatedly sought to frame individuals on the vessels as “narco-terrorists”.
• National security through “careless and improper conduct”, citing an episode where classified information was shared on Signal in 2025.

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered John Eastman disbarred and his name stricken from the state roll of attorneys. It caps a yearslong effort by the state bar to strip Eastman of his law license after he developed a legal strategy to have then-Vice President Mike Pence interfere with the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

A judge for the State Bar Court of California in 2024 recommended that he lose his California law license. Eastman argued he was being punished for simply giving legal advice.

George Cardona, chief trial counsel for the State Bar of California, said Wednesday’s decision follows clear evidence that Eastman “advanced false claims about the 2020 presidential election to mislead courts, public officials, and the American public.”

6 months without attention.

Way to go South Korea

On the 15th, Criminal Division 1 single-judge panel Judge Park Ji-won of the Seoul Western District Court sentenced Somali, who was charged with interfering with business and distributing fabricated sexual videos under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes, to six months in prison and 20 days of detention, and ordered a five-year employment restriction at institutions related to children, teenagers, and people with disabilities.

https://biz.chosun.com/en/en-society/2026/04/15/A6LLOQYES5CBFGH3C42SHX3RSI/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Somali#cite_note-72