President Donald Trump has revoked government security protection for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his top aide, Brian Hook, who have faced threats from Iran since they took hard-line stances on the Islamic Republic during Trump’s first administration.

A congressional staffer and a person familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss personal security details, confirmed the change, but neither could offer an explanation. They said that Pompeo and Hook were told of the loss of protection on Wednesday and that it took effect at 11 p.m. that night.

It’s another sign of steps Trump is taking just days into his return to the White House to target those he has perceived as adversaries.

A day earlier, Trump, a Republican, revoked the security clearance and Secret Service protection from John Bolton, who was fired as Trump’s national security adviser during his first term. Bolton later wrote a book whose publication the White House unsuccessfully sought to block on grounds that it disclosed national security information. Bolton, who has been targeted for assassination by Iran, said in a statement that he was disappointed but not surprised by the decision.

Trump also revoked security clearances for dozens of former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter saying the Hunter Biden laptop saga bore the hallmarks of a “Russian information operation.”

Trump sets sights on FEMA’s work

President Donald Trump is preparing to reshape the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has been on the frontlines of responding to recent wildfires in California and last year’s hurricane in North Carolina.

He spoke at length about the issue with congressional Republican leaders on Tuesday, discussing whether the agency known as FEMA should continue providing assistance to states in the same way, according to a person familiar with the conversation and granted anonymity to discuss it.

Conservatives have previously suggested reducing the amount that states are reimbursed for preventing and responding to disasters like floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and more.

Trump was critical of the agency this week in an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News, saying “FEMA has not done their job for the last four years” and “FEMA is getting in the way of everything.”

The Republican president plans to visit North Carolina, which was devastated by Hurricane Helene in September, and California, which is reeling from some of the most destructive fires in its history, on Friday for his first trip since taking office on Monday.

North Carolina has been a focal point for Republican criticism of FEMA, some of it rooted in misinformation. For example, conservatives claimed on social media that hurricane victims were only receiving $750 in relief even if they suffered devastating losses, but the payments were only meant to be a stopgap for emergency expenses until additional assistance could be distributed.

Rising hostility led to concerns that FEMA workers could be targeted by militia members.

Trump limits prisons on transgender inmates

President Donald Trump has ordered federal prisons to house inmates who are transgender women in men’s facilities and halt medical treatments related to gender transition.

The move was part of a wide-ranging executive order issued by Trump on his first day in office meant to limit government recognition of an individual’s gender to their sex at birth.

The directive on prisoners also applies to immigration detainees and is among the more concrete parts of the order. Trump set some restrictions on housing and health care for transgender prisoners in his previous term, but the new order was more far-reaching.

The Women’s Liberation Front, which defines women based on sex at birth and advocates single-sex prisons, called the directive “a major victory.”

Advocates on behalf of transgender people and inmates criticized the order, saying it would put them in danger.

Trump pardoning anti-abortion activists

President Donald Trump announced Thursday he would pardon anti-abortion activists convicted of blockading abortion clinic entrances.

Trump called it “a great honor to sign this.”

“They should not have been prosecuted,” he said as he signed pardons for “peaceful pro-life protesters.”

The people pardoned were involved in the October 2020 invasion and blockade of a Washington clinic.

Lauren Handy was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for leading the blockade by directing blockaders to link themselves together with locks and chains to block the clinic’s doors. A nurse sprained her ankle when one person pushed her while entering the clinic, and a woman was accosted by another blockader while having labor pains, prosecutors said. Police found five fetuses in Handy’s home after she was indicted.

Trump pardoned Handy and her nine co-defendants: Jonathan Darnel of Virginia; Jay Smith, John Hinshaw and William Goodman, all of New York; Joan Bell of New Jersey; Paulette Harlow and Jean Marshall, both of Massachusetts; Heather Idoni of Michigan; and Herb Geraghty of Pennsylvania.

Trump revokes ‘barriers’ on previous AI guidance

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on artificial intelligence Thursday that will revoke past government policies his order says “act as barriers to American AI innovation.”

To maintain global leadership in AI technology, “we must develop AI systems that are free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas,” Trump’s order says.

The new order doesn’t name which existing policies are hindering AI development but sets out to track down and review “all policies, directives, regulations, orders, and other actions taken” as a result of former President Joe Biden’s sweeping AI executive order of 2023, which Trump rescinded Monday. Any of those Biden-era actions must be suspended if they don’t fit Trump’s new directive that AI should “promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.”

Last year, the Biden administration issued a policy directive that said federal agencies must show their artificial intelligence tools aren’t harming the public, or stop using them. Trump’s order directs the White House to revise and reissue those directives, which affect how agencies acquire AI tools and use them.

Trump orders release of assassination files

President Donald Trump has ordered the release of thousands of classified governmental documents about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which has fueled conspiracy theories for decades.

The executive order Trump signed Thursday also aims to declassify the remaining federal records relating to the assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The order is among a flurry of executive actions Trump has quickly taken the first week of his second term.

Speaking to reporters, Trump said, “everything will be revealed.”

Trump had promised during his reelection campaign to make public the last batches of still-classified documents surrounding President Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, which has transfixed people for decades. Trump made a similar pledge during his first term, but ultimately bent to appeals from the CIA and FBI to withhold some documents.

Senate confirms Ratcliffe as CIA director

The Senate on Thursday confirmed John Ratcliffe as CIA director, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead America’s premier spy agency and his second nominee to win Senate approval.

Ratcliffe was director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term and is the first person to have held that position and the top post at the CIA. The Texas Republican is a former federal prosecutor who emerged as a fierce Trump defender while serving as a congressman during Trump’s first impeachment.

The vote was 74-25, with many Democrats voting no.

At his Senate hearing last week, Ratcliffe said the CIA must do better when it comes to using technology such as artificial intelligence to confront adversaries including Russia and China. He said the United States needed to improve its intelligence capabilities while also ensuring the protection of Americans’ civil rights.

Former Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was confirmed earlier this week as secretary of state, the first member of Trump’s Cabinet.

— News service reports