A senior official at USAID instructed the agency’s remaining staff to convene at the agency’s now-former headquarters in Washington on Tuesday for an “all day” group effort to destroy documents stored there, many of which contain sensitive information.
The materials earmarked for destruction include contents of the agency’s “classified safes and personnel documents” at the Ronald Reagan Building, said an email sent by USAID’s acting executive director, Erica Carr, and obtained by POLITICO.
“Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” the email said. Carr instructed staff to label the burn bags with the words “SECRET” and “USAID/B/IO/” (agency shorthand for “bureau or independent office”) in dark Sharpie.
The email didn’t provide any reason for the document destruction. The building is being emptied out after mass layoffs, which may have disrupted routine document destruction timetables. Customs and Border Protection is planning to move into the USAID facility, having rented 390,000 square feet of office space in the building last month.
The effort also underscores the tumultuous way in which the Trump administration is dismantling an agency that once managed a $40 billion annual budget and had more than 10,000 staff around the world.
Efforts by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency last month to access secure computer systems at USAID — including information about employees’ security clearances — triggered an uproar at the agency that prompted the administration to place two of the agency’s security staff on administrative leave. A DOGE spokesperson subsequently said that there was no improper access to classified material.
The State Department didn’t respond to a request for comment on the document purge.
A former USAID staffer confirmed the veracity of the email and described the destruction of agency documents as unprecedented.
“I’ve never seen something like this — en masse. Everyone with a safe is supposed to keep it up to date and destroy documents when they no longer need to be stored. Sometimes security will check your safe and tell you if you have to clean out old material,” said the former staffer, who was granted anonymity due to fear of possible reprisals by the Trump administration.
USAID has been at the epicenter of Trump and tech mogul Elon Musk’s visions of a smaller federal workforce. Most of USAID’s personnel have been laid off or placed on administrative leave. USAID staffers are battling the changes in courts, with mixed results.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced this week that more than 80 percent of USAID’s programs have been canceled, and the remaining ones will be administered by the State Department.
New bus link changes are set to start later this month – adding new connections between the city, South Ribble and Chorley. The change will take place on 31 March […]
<p><img width="900" height="440" src="https://www.naijanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Jimoh-Ibrahim.jpg" class="attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" fetchpriority="high" srcset="https://www.naijanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Jimoh-Ibrahim.jpg 900w, https://www.naijanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Jimoh-Ibrahim-300x147.jpg 300w, https://www.naijanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Jimoh-Ibrahim-768x375.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" /></p>
<h2>The lawmaker representing Ondo South senatorial district, <a href="https://www.naijanews.com/topic/jimoh-ibrahim/">Jimoh Ibrahim</a>, has declared his intention to contest in the governorship election in Ondo State.</h2>
<p>Ibrahim who noted that he is ready to contest, said the death of a former governor of the state, Rotimi Akeredolu, will enhance his chances of becoming the next governor.</p>
<p>The lawmaker, on Thursday, expressed optimism that there would be no imposition of a candidate from the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress and the Presidency.</p>
<p>Ibrahim, who spoke in Akure, the state capital, said President Bola Tinubu would allow a free and fair primary to enable the best candidate to emerge.</p>
<p>He said,<em> “I’m declaring my intention to run for the governorship election of Ondo State. Among the contestants, I am the oldest. I have contested election twice in my lifetime, one of which I contested for governorship position in 2003, and none of these contestants was on that ballot.</em></p>
<p><em>“The President will never say that we should go and work for the incumbent governor. He can only appeal that maybe he prefers one person if you can prefer him and if you cannot, go and do your election. So the President cannot say that I have taken this person so all of you should go and sit down. Even Buhari who is very clueless about anything can never do that.”</em></p>
<p>The APC governorship aspirant also noted that the death of former Governor Rotimi Akeredolu would not affect his chances but would rather increase the chance of winning the primary and the main election.</p>
<p>He further stated, <em>“Maybe the death of Aketi has enhanced my chances because Aketi is a human being, he can be subjectively objective at the last minute. But now that he is no more, that possibility is written off completely. So whoever is there, wants to run for governor will meet me at the field.</em></p>
<p><em>“So Aketi’s death doesn’t affect my chances at all, but it would rather enhance my chances to win the governorship position of this state. So we are working seriously to win this election."</em></p>
<p>He noted that economy and security were part of his cardinal programmes for the state, saying there was a need to empower the state Security Network Agency also known as Amotekun with modern technology to enable it to combat criminals effectively.</p>
<p>Ibrahim said, <em>“My programmes are very straightforward, we are to create moral efficiency and moral knowledge and make the body more efficient. We must also map Ondo State borders for a security network and then ensure that we will never have any cases of kidnapping, by making Amotekun a classic unique security outfit that will come with a good strategy to challenge any security issues in our state.</em></p>
<p><em>“So one of the areas we are looking at is to ensure that everybody in Ondo state can go to sleep with their eyes closed and that’s top most of our priority. Mapping every systems, the tactical operations of Amotekun have to come more distinct into technology, I want an Amotekun that is Information Technology informed because I have PhD in war."</em></p>
<p>As the primary of the political parties in the state is drawing nearer, many aspirants of the APC have shown their interest in the contest.</p>
<p>Some of them, apart from Jimoh Ibrahim, include the incumbent governor, Mr Lucky Aiyedatiwa, a former Commissioner for Finance, Mr Wale Akinterinwa, a former Member of the House of Representatives Mr Mayowa Akinfolarin, the former Secretary to the State Government, Mrs Oladunni Odu (who is only the female among the aspirants), a former governorship aspirant of the APC, Chief Olusola Oke, Dr Paul Akintelure, Brig-Gen Olamide Ohunyeye (retd), among others.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://www.naijanews.com/2024/02/08/akeredolus-death-will-enhance-my-chances-of-becoming-ondo-governor-jimoh-ibrahim/">Akeredolu’s Death Will Enhance My Chances Of Becoming Ondo Governor – Jimoh Ibrahim</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.naijanews.com">Naija News</a>.</p>
<img src="https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-loaded/v1/EwCvuj_SiBXyD1RXHZ9zBHn9ye8UNv30" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Supreme Court revives excessive force suit against officer in deadly Houston-area traffic stop" title="Supreme Court revives excessive force suit against officer in deadly Houston-area traffic stop"> <p>The Supreme Court on Thursday revived a lawsuit filed by the mother of a Texas man who was shot and killed during a traffic stop by a police officer on a highway outside Houston. </p> <p>Roberto Felix of the Harris County Constable’s Office pulled Ashtian Barnes, who was Black, over because his girlfriend’s rental car, which he was driving to pick up her daughter from day care, had unpaid tolls. When Barnes began to drive away, with the driver’s door still open, Felix jumped on the running board and fired twice on Barnes, killing him at the scene. </p> <p>Barnes’ mother, Janice Hughes Barnes, filed a civil rights lawsuit, but her suit was dismissed when a lower court found that the officer had not used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Eight years after her son’s death, she then brought the case to the Supreme Court. </p> <span id="more-528581"></span> <p>The question before the justices was whether a federal appeals court had used the correct test to determine whether Felix had violated Barnes’s constitutional rights by using excessive force against him. In <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-1239_onjq.pdf">a unanimous decision</a> written by Justice Elena Kagan, the Supreme Court concluded that it had not, and the justices sent the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit for another look. </p> <p>The case dates back to 2016, when Felix stopped the Toyota Corolla that Barnes was driving because he had received a radio alert that the car had unpaid toll violations. When asked for his license and proof of insurance, Barnes said that he did not have his license with him, and that his girlfriend had rented the car. </p> <p>Felix told Barnes to get out of the car. Barnes opened the door but then turned the car back on, prompting Felix to jump onto the car’s doorsill as the car began to move forward. Felix fired two shots into the car and Barnes stopped the car, as <a href="https://www.click2houston.com/news/2016/09/01/dashcam-footage-shows-fatal-shooting-of-ashtian-barnes/">recorded by dashcam footage</a>. Barnes died on the scene. </p> <p>Janice Barnes, Ashtian’s mother, went to federal court, where she alleged that Felix had violated her son’s right under the Fourth Amendment to be free of excessive force. </p> <p>The lower courts threw out her claim. Under the Fourth Amendment, the question is whether the force that Felix used was reasonable. But when an officer uses deadly force, the court of appeals explained, courts use a test known as the “moment of threat” doctrine, which looks only at whether the officer “was ‘in danger at the moment of the threat that resulted in his use of deadly force.’” Anything that happened in the moments leading up to that time, the court of appeals emphasized, were “not relevant.” </p> <p>In Barnes’s case, the court of appeals reasoned, the “moment of the threat” was the two-second period when Felix was standing on the doorsill of the Corolla while it was moving forward – a period in which, the court of appeals concluded, Felix could have reasonably believed that his life was in danger. </p> <p>Judge Patrick Higginbotham wrote separately in that decision to express concern over the 5th Circuit’s use of the moment-of-threat doctrine and its reliance on analysis of the “precise moment” of deadly force. “A routine traffic stop has again ended in the death of an unarmed black man,” he wrote. </p> <p>Janice Barnes came to the Supreme Court, which on Thursday threw out the 5th Circuit’s decision. In a nine-page opinion, Kagan explained that a court’s “inquiry into the reasonableness of police force requires analyzing the ‘totality of the circumstances,’” which can in turn involve a highly fact-bound analysis. But, she stressed, such an inquiry “has no time limit,” and – the 5th Circuit’s suggestion to the contrary notwithstanding – courts can consider the facts and events leading up to the use of force, because they “may bear on how a reasonable officer would have understood and responded to later ones.” “A court deciding a use-of-force case,” she concluded, “cannot review the totality of the circumstances if it has put on chronological blinders.” </p> <p>Indeed, Kagan observed, it is so clear that the 5th Circuit’s rule is wrong that even Felix himself does not dispute it. Instead, he simply argues that the 5th Circuit does allow courts to consider the broader facts and circumstances. But even if that is generally true, Kagan wrote, “the decisions below applied a rule about timing,” looking “only to a two-second snippet of the encounter.” </p> <p>Kagan also emphasized that the justices were not weighing in on whether or who courts should consider, as part of their reasonableness analysis, the extent to which a police officer may have contributed to the dangerous situation leading to the use of force. “The courts below never confronted the issue,” she said, “precisely because their inquiry was so time-bound.” </p> <p>The justices therefore sent the case back to the lower courts “for them now to consider the reasonableness of the shooting, using the lengthier timeframe we have prescribed.” </p> <p>Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Amy Coney Barrett, to note the dangers of traffic stops for police officers. When assessing whether the use of force against a fleeing driver was reasonable, he suggested, courts should consider not only whether the underlying traffic violation creates a risk for broader public safety but also whether the driver’s decision to flee the traffic stop does so. A Fourth Amendment analysis, Kavanaugh wrote, should take into account “the suspect’s attempt ‘to evade’ the officer” and “the extraordinary dangers and risks facing police officers and the community at large.”</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/05/supreme-court-revives-excessive-force-suit-against-officer-in-deadly-houston-area-traffic-stop/">Supreme Court revives excessive force suit against officer in deadly Houston-area traffic stop</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com">SCOTUSblog</a>.</p>
