The House on Thursday officially rebuked Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, whom Republican Speaker Mike Johnson ejected from the chamber Tuesday night for standing and heckling President Donald Trump during Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress.

A resolution of censure passed 224-198, with 10 Democrats joining Republicans in support of the punishment. Green and Rep. Shomari Figures, a first-term Democrat from Alabama, both voted “present.”

But when Green stepped into the well of the House to receive his official scolding for a “breach of proper conduct,” the floor devolved into a scene of chaos. The Texas Democrat led a crowd of his colleagues in singing the gospel anthem “We Shall Overcome” as he raised his voice and finished reading out the censure.

Johnson was forced to call a brief recess as Republicans and Democrats lingered on the floor, shouting at each other. It was another dramatic moment after Green’s outburst Tuesday night, reflecting a determination among some Democrats to aggressively resist Trump, even as others in the party urge a more staid and sober strategy for pushing back.

“The decorum that you expect from me, you have to expect from the president,” Green said later in a fiery speech from the House floor.

Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., said Democrats were upset because they believe the rules of decorum in the chamber are not being equally enforced.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., confirmed the tenor of the exchange.

“In terms of rules of decorum, they’re often violated by our Republican colleagues and the response is not punitive,” Pressley said.

Rep. Dan Newhouse, the resolution’s sponsor, said the censure effort was a “necessary, but difficult step.”

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., noted that Republicans were silent when members of their conference interrupted Democratic President Joe Biden’s speech last year.

“Nobody apologized for interrupting Joe Biden time and again,” McGovern said. “You talk about lack of decorum. Go back and look at the tapes, and there was silence from the other side.”

State Dept., to close a dozen consulates

Senior State Department officials have drawn up plans to close a dozen consulates overseas by this summer and are considering shutting down many more missions, U.S. officials say.

The department also plans to lay off many local citizens who work for its hundreds of missions. Those workers make up two-thirds of the agency’s workforce, and in many countries, they form the foundation of U.S. diplomats’ knowledge of their environments.

The shrinking is part of both President Donald Trump’s larger slashing of the federal government and his “America first” foreign policy, in which the United States ends or curtails once-important ways of exercising global influence, including through democracy, human rights and aid work.

The moves come at a time when China has overtaken the United States in number of global diplomatic posts. China has forged strong ties across nations, especially in Asia and Africa, and exerts greater power in international organizations.

Judge: Labor board member fired illegally

A federal judge ruled Thursday that President Donald Trump acted illegally when he fired a member of an independent labor agency, and the judge ordered that she be allowed to remain on the job.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., found Trump did not have the authority to remove Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board.

“An American president is not a king — not even an ‘elected’ one — and his power to remove federal officers and honest civil servants like plaintiff is not absolute,” Howell wrote.

She acknowledged the administration’s argument that the Supreme Court may be inclined to overturn a 90-year-old decision restricting the president’s power to remove members of independent agencies. But the judge said that until and unless the high court acts, current law clearly supports keeping Wilcox in her role.

Wilcox sued Trump after he fired her and the agency’s general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, on Jan. 27.

CIA to fire junior officers after review

The Central Intelligence Agency will fire an undisclosed number of junior officers as President Donald Trump’s efforts to downsize and reshape the federal government reverberate through America’s intelligence community.

The agency will review personnel hired within the past two years, an agency spokesperson said Thursday, and those officers with behavioral issues or who are deemed a poor fit for intelligence work will be laid off. The spokesperson said not everyone proves to be able to handle the pressures of the job.

The cuts are part of sweeping staffing reductions at agencies across the federal government made by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk. Some agencies, like the U.S. Agency for International Development, have been largely dismantled. While intelligence agencies have been spared the deepest cuts, they haven’t been immune.

In February the CIA offered buyouts to some employees. The typically secretive agency has not said how many employees accepted the offer.

FDA nominee vows to stick to the science

President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Food and Drug Administration largely sidestepped questions Thursday from senators about how he would handle numerous pressing issues before the agency, including recent layoffs, a canceled vaccine meeting and the continued availability of the abortion pill.

Dr. Marty Makary — a surgeon, author and researcher — lauded the FDA’s “gold-standard science” in testimony before the Senate’s health committee, which will vote on whether to advance his nomination. A professor at Johns Hopkins University, Makary is known for his contrarian views and previously called the FDA “broken,” and “mired in politics and red tape” while working as a commentator for Fox News.

He repeatedly assured Republican and Democratic senators he would follow the “scientific process” at FDA. But he wouldn’t commit to specific actions on a host of hot-button issues, including the abortion pill mifepristone, which has been ensnared in politics since a 2021 decision by FDA making it available by mail.

“I have no preconceived plans on mifepristone policy except to take a hard look at the data and to meet with the professional career scientists at the FDA who have reviewed the data,” Makary told Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who chairs the committee.

Trump order would create bitcoin reserve

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday establishing a government reserve of bitcoin, a key marker in the cryptocurrency’s journey towards possible mainstream acceptance.

Under Trump’s new order, the U.S. government will retain the estimated 200,000 bitcoin it’s already seized in criminal and civil proceedings, according to Trump’s “crypto czar” David Sacks.

Sacks said the order allows for the Treasury and Commerce departments “to develop budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin.”

— From news services