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In the news today: Republican senators pushed a $340 billion budget framework to passage early Friday; a legal fight is brewing over a 90-year-old Supreme Court decision called Humphrey’s Executor; and glaciers are shrinking faster than ever, a new study reveals. Also, Syrians look to restore their Roman ruins.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaks at the Capitol on Wednesday. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

POLITICS

Senate Republicans approve budget framework after all-night vote

Republican senators pushed a $340 billion budget framework to passage early Friday, chugging through an all-night session and Democratic opposition in a step toward unleashing money the Trump administration says it needs for mass deportations and border security that top their agenda. Read more.

Why this matters:

• Republicans used their majority power to muscle the package to approval on a largely party-line vote, 52-48, with all Democrats and one Republican senator – Rand Paul of Kentucky – opposing it. 
  
  

• The package that senators are pushing forward is what Republicans view as a down payment on Trump’s agenda, part of a broader effort that will eventually include legislation to extend some $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and other priorities. The package would allow up to $175 billion to be spent on border security, including money for mass deportation operations and building the U.S.-Mexico border wall, in addition to a $150 billion boost to the Pentagon and about $20 billion for the Coast Guard.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

• Democrats channel their outrage over DOGE, Ukraine and more in marathon Senate session

   

• Federal judge will consider further blocking Trump administration from freezing funds

   

• IRS layoffs could hurt revenue collection and foil efforts to go after rich tax dodgers, experts say

   

• Huge cuts in National Institutes of Health research funding go before a federal judge
  
  

• Kids’ disability rights cases stalled as Trump began to overhaul Education Department

   

• Trump administration halts legal aid for migrant children, leaving some to navigate courts alone

   

• In the Trump administration, nearly every major department is an immigration agency

   

• Trump administration throws out protections from deportation for roughly half a million Haitians
  
  

• Mexico to reform constitution in wake of US terrorism designations

   

• Ukrainians rally around their president after Trump seeks to denigrate him
  
  

• The US sanctions a Rwanda official and a rebel spokesperson over violence in Congo

   

• How Trump’s mass layoffs raise the risk of wildfires in the US West, according to fired workers

   

• Trump administration takes aim at $4B in funding for California high-speed rail

   

• Dr. Mehmet Oz holds millions from companies that he’d wield power over if confirmed, report shows
  
  

• Tiger Woods joins another White House meeting as PGA Tour moves closer to Saudi deal

POLITICS

What is Humphrey’s Executor? A look at the 90-year-old Supreme Court decision Trump is targeting

A month into President Donald Trump’s second term, lawyers for the Republican administration seem intent on provoking a legal fight to overturn a 90-year-old Supreme Court decision known as Humphrey’s Executor that has been critical to the development of the modern U.S. government. Read more.

What to know:

• Humphrey’s Executor ushered in an era of powerful independent federal agencies charged with regulating labor relations, employment discrimination, the airwaves and much else. The unanimous 1935 Supreme Court ruling established that presidents cannot fire the appointed leaders of federal agencies without cause.
  
  

• Conservative legal theorists have argued that the Constitution vests immense power in the president and that all federal agencies that are part of the executive branch answer to the president. That includes his ability to fire their leaders at will. The current Supreme Court has at times agreed.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

• Musk waves a chainsaw and charms conservatives talking up Trump’s cost-cutting efforts
  
  
• Why a full federal takeover of DC would require an act of Congress

CLIMATE

Glaciers are shrinking faster than ever, with 7 trillion tons lost since 2000

Climate change is accelerating the melting of the world’s mountain glaciers, according to a massive new study that found them shrinking more than twice as fast as in the early 2000s. Read more.

Why this matters:

• Glaciers in Alaska are melting at the fastest rate of any of the 19 regions studied, losing about 67 billion tons of ice a year, producing the biggest net ice loss, the study found.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

• An encroaching desert threatens to swallow homes and history
  
  
• More rodents are infesting cities as scientists say warmer temperatures mean more rat babies
  
  
• Forget saving the planet. Clean energy interests sharpen a different message: Money and jobs

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IN OTHER NEWS

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A CHANGE OF PACE

An aerial view of a section of the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria, Jan. 25. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Experts call for the restoration of Syria's Roman ruins, including the ancient city of Palmyra
Once-thriving Syrian landmarks like the ancient city of Palmyra and the medieval Crusader castle of Crac des Chevaliers remain scarred by years of conflict, but local tourists are returning to the sites, and conservationists hope their historical and cultural significance will eventually draw international visitors back.

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