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President Donald Trump has signed an executive order meant to expand access to and reduce costs of in vitro fertilization and issued a presidential memorandum calling for “radical transparency requirements” from the government, which he suggested could reduce wasteful spending. On the campaign trail, Trump called for universal coverage of IVF treatment after his Supreme Court nominees helped to overturn Roe v. Wade, leading to a wave of restrictions in Republican-led states, including some that have threatened access to IVF by trying to define life as beginning at conception.Trump, who was at his Florida residence and club, Mar-a-Lago, on Tuesday, also signed another executive order as well as a presidential memorandum. The second executive order outlined the oversight functions of the Office of Management and Budget, while the memo requires the government to detail the “waste, fraud and abuse” that’s found as the Department of Government Efficiency, overseen by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, looks to cut government spending.DOGE has often fallen short of the administration’s promises of transparency. Musk has taken questions from journalists only once since becoming Trump’s most powerful adviser, and he’s claimed it’s illegal to name people who are working for him. Sometimes DOGE staff members have demanded access to sensitive government databases with little explanation.Trump took more than 30 minutes of questions Tuesday on a range of topics and bashed the Biden administration throughout, highlighting issues such as its handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, Venezuela policy, and Russia’s war in Ukraine.Trump said he thought he had a “good chance” to end Russia’s war in Ukraine but bristled at suggestions that the U.S. and Russia had begun negotiations to end fighting without Ukraine playing a role. He even seemed to suggest that Ukraine was to blame for a war that began only after Russia invaded that country.“Today I heard, ‘Well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years,” Trump said of Ukraine’s leaders. “You should have never started it.”In anticipation of questions about his administration’s efforts to slash federal spending, the president said he wrote down examples of government programs around the world which he then listed off at length. They included funding to promote voter turnout in India and social cohesion initiatives in Maliall of which Trump suggested collectively amounted to fraud.Asked about the White House’s arguing in a court filing that Musk wasn’t the head of Trump’s government efficiency efforts, Trump said: “You could call him an employee, you could call him a consultant, you could call him whatever you want. But he’s a patriot.”Trump said he thinks “women and families, husbands, are very appreciative” of his executive order on IVF, which offers a possible solution when a woman has trouble getting pregnant. The procedure involves retrieving her eggs and combining them in a lab dish with a man’s sperm to create a fertilized embryo, which is then transferred into the woman’s uterus in an attempt to create a pregnancy. IVF is done in cycles, and more than one may be required.Barbara Collura, president and CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, said that what the White House put out “looks extremely promising.”“The biggest barriers for people to building their families are the out-of-pocket costs, the lack of insurance coverage for this care,” she said.Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat, said: “Donald Trump’s executive order does nothing to expand access to IVF. In fact, he’s the reason IVF is at risk in the first place.”Duckworth said if Trump is going to follow through on his campaign promise to provide free IVF, he can start by supporting her legislation that would require insurance plans to cover IVF.Trump, who spent the morning at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, spoke to reporters hours before his first joint TV interview with Musk aired in prime time on Fox News Channel. The president acknowledged during it that “inflation is back,” but noted that he’d only been in office a few weeks and insisted “I had nothing to do” with prices that remain stubbornly high.Trump mentioned during that same interview that Musk is “probably not that happy” with things like tax breaks for electric vehicles likely not being included in tax legislation now being discussed in Congress, but he said Musk didn’t seek special treatment for Tesla.“I haven’t asked the president for anything, ever,” Musk added. Asked about potential conflicts of interest between Musk’s governmental efforts and his businesses and how they will be handled, Trump said, “He won’t be involved” and Musk said he’d recuse himself.Musk has drawn criticism from Democrats in Congress and others for the methods he and his team at DOGE are using to cut spending, including foreign aid, and eliminate jobs across the bureaucracy.The joint interview follows Musk’s appearance with Trump in the Oval Office last week, when both defended Musk’s approach to federal cost-cutting.Also Tuesday night, an awards program was held at Mar-a-Lago by America’s Future. That’s a conservative group led by Mike Flynn, who briefly served as national security adviser in the Republican president’s first term. The program aims to preserve individual rights and promote American values and traditions, according to its website. The event honored one member each from the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Space Force.The event included a poolside reception, musical performances and dinner in Mar-a-Lago’s Grand Ballroom. The lineup included such names as Russell Brand, Ted Nugent, and Mike Tyson.Trump made an appearance at the event, according to video posted on social media Tuesday night, addressing the crowd on the patio as he stood near Tyson, Flynn and Nugent and declaring, “This is very, very friendly territory.”Trump praised the men, including Flynn, who was one of the leading proponents of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The president called him “the real deal” and indicated he wanted to bring Flynn into his administration, saying he offered him “about 10 jobs.”“Anytime you want to come in, you know that, Mike, OK?” Trump said.Flynn resigned from the first Trump administration less than a month after Trump’s inauguration. He was charged in 2017 with lying to the FBI about conversations he had with the Russians on Trump’s behalf. He twice pleaded guilty, but Trump pardoned him in the final weeks of his presidency. Price reported from New York. Associated Press writers Will Weissert and Chris Megerian in Washington and Laura Ungar in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this report. Follow the AP’s coverage of President Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump. Darlene Superville and Michelle L. Price, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Airbnb is suing the City of New Orleans for requiring the company and short-term rental platforms ensure properties they market are in compliance with city laws.“What we’re looking at now due to Airbnb’s lawsuit is that they do not want to be regulated,” City Council President J.P. Morrell said in a late afternoon Tuesday statement.Airbnb said its lawsuit comes “after exhausting all available paths toward sensible solutions.”For years, New Orleans leaders have struggled with how to manage the influx of illegal short-term rentals catering to the millions of visitors who flock to The Big Easy annually while managing a lack of affordable housing.A federal court struck down a 2019 New Orleans policy barring short-term rentals at properties owned by out-of-state residents. The city responded by adopting new regulations in 2023 mandating Airbnb owners live on site and limiting short-term rentals to one per block, but enforcing these rules proved difficult and illegal properties were easily able to resurface on Airbnb, city leaders say. A federal appeals court is currently reviewing these policies.Last year, the city council adopted regulations set to go into effect in June requiring Airbnb and other companies verify that all New Orleans properties listed on their platform have permits from the city. Morrell called the policy a “game-changer” that would “gut the ability to illegally list fake permits and Airbnbs.”Airbnb said it should not be tasked with implementing the city’s policies. The company has pushed back against other cities’ efforts to regulate it, including suing New York and San Francisco. Airbnb decries the city’s regulatory ‘regime’ In its lawsuit filed in federal court last week, Airbnb said it has no responsibility for the actions of its hosts, citing the same law that protects social media companies from liability for users’ posts. And the company denied that it had any obligation to verify listings were in compliance with city regulations, which it described as a “highly punitive enforcement regime.”“It is the government’s job to enforce its laws, not Airbnb’s,” the lawsuit said. It described the city’s regulationsincluding in some cases requiring a lottery for permitsas a violation of homeowners’ rights.Airbnb also protested having to turn over “confidential, sensitive, and private data” such as taxes and fees it collected and the number of bookings per property in monthly reports submitted to the city.A “typical host” in New Orleans earned $16,000 in 2023 and “hosting strengthens local economies and contributes to the cultural richness New Orleans is known for,” the lawsuit states. An abundance of illegal Airbnb listings There are currently about 1,350 non-commercial short-term rental properties with legal licenses, according to City of New Orleans data.But there are more than 7,000 active Airbnb listings in New Orleans revealing thousands of illegal short-term rentals, said Angela Owczarek, an affordable housing advocate with the Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative.New Orleans is experiencing an affordable housing crisis mirroring many cities around the country, said Monique Blossom, director of policy at the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center.The city had a deficit of 47,000 housing units that someone making at or below the city’s median income could afford, according to a 2022 report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The city has a population of less than 400,000 residents based on U.S. Census data.“Airbnbs and short-term rentals play into that, taking residential units off the market and saving them for tourists instead of having them available for the families that want to live and work in New Orleans or who are already here,” Blossom said.Airbnb said in a statement that the city’s short-term rental regulations do not address the issues underlying its housing challenges, such as high insurance costs.Morrell, the city council president, suggested the lawsuit meant the city should ban Airbnb. “If we cannot regulate short term rentals, there will not be any,” he said.Another councilmember, Oliver Thomas, said the city should first wait to see how pending litigation plays out. Other councilmembers and a City spokesperson did not provide comment. Skyrocketing costs for some Airbnb owners Airbnb’s lawsuit includes several other plaintiffs who are short-term rental property owners in New Orleans, including longtime Airbnb hosts Bret Bodin, 64, and Brad Newell, 47, who bought a home together in the historic Treme neighborhood in 2013.Renting out the property’s attached guesthouse and loft on Airbnb appealed to them because they could still have friends and family visit, Newell said.With skyrocketing insurance, utilities, and inflation, the couple have become more dependent on Airbnb and say they struggled because the city’s regulations limited them to only renting out one of their guest spaces.“What started off as kind of side-income turned into essential income,” Newell said. “We’re all getting hit with unexpected rising costs, and we’re just trying to keep up.” Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Brook on the social platform X: @jack_brook96. Jack Brook, Associated Press/Report for America
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E-Commerce
The U.S. Justice Department’s senior ethics official resigned on Tuesday, after President Donald Trump’s administration pulled him off his duties and assigned him to a new sanctuary cities working group, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. The official, Bradley Weinsheimer, decided to accept the government’s deferred resignation offer rather than accept the reassignment, the latest in a string of nonpolitical career Justice Department officials who have resisted efforts that they say politicize investigations. Dozens of career Justice Department officialswho normally remain in office from one administration to the nextin cities including Washington and New York have been fired, reassigned or quit since Trump took office on January 20, after he vowed to rapidly shake up a department that he says was used against him during his years out of power. Last week, seven people resigned in protest, including two top officials who oversee the most politically sensitive investigations, after acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered them to drop criminal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Weinsheimer, a 34-year department veteran who was named to his current role as associate deputy attorney general during Trump’s first term, provided ethics counsel to department officials related to conflicts of interest, including on decisions related to when they should be recused from working on particular cases. He also reviewed disciplinary recommendations by the Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates attorney misconduct, and referrals for discipline or prosecution from the Office of the Inspector General. Weinsheimer did not return a request for comment. When Reuters tried to reach him in the evening on Tuesday, his government email responded with an auto-generated message saying he was “on administrative leave pursuant to the deferred resignation program.” On January 27, around the same time Weinsheimer was reassigned, Bove delegated all ethics-related decisions to two political appointees. One of them, Kendra Wharton, previously worked alongside Bove and Todd Blanche, the president’s nominee to serve as deputy attorney general, to help defend Trump against criminal charges in New York alleging he falsified records to cover up hush money paid to a porn star. The other, Bove’s chief of staff Jordan Fox, graduated law school in 2021, according to her LinkedIn profile. “Bradley is the senior career ethics official at the Justice Department and provides advice to people across the country and in the building on really important and weighty matters,” said Joyce Vance, the former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, noting that the job he performed was apolitical. She said the reassignment of ethical decision-making to two political appointees is troubling, adding: “This is evidence that the Justice Department is being weaponized.” Chad Gilmartin, a spokesman for the Justice Department, rejected any criticism of the move by Bove to delegate the ethics decision-making to Wharton and Fox. “Kendra has a decade of experience as a criminal defense lawyer, which is exactly the mindset we want in such a role,” he said. He added that Fox “is a highly respected attorney.” Attorney General Pam Bondi, Blanche and Bove, who will serve as principal associate deputy attorney general once Blanche is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, all previously served as defense attorneys for Trump. The White House has previously argued that the Department of Justice was weaponized against Trump when it pursued charges against him for retaining classified documents and subverting the 2020 election. The department dropped both cases after Trump won the November 2024 election, citing a longstanding policy against prosecuting a sitting president. On Bondi’s first day as Attorney General, she issued a directive creating a new “weaponization working group” that would be tasked with reviewing two criminal cases brought against Trump by former Special Counsel Jack Smith for retaining classified documents and trying to subvert the 2020 presidential election, as well as Trump’s conviction in New York. Sarah N. Lynch, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
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