More GOP states drop federal pandemic unemployment benefits early
CNN
Five more Republican governors are joining their peers in terminating federal pandemic unemployment benefits early, citing workforce shortages in their states.
Jobless residents in Missouri, Iowa, Idaho, Tennessee and Wyoming join those in several other states who will soon lose the $300 weekly federal boost to their state benefits, though Congress has made it available until early September to those in states that continue to participate. The moves will also end the federal expansion of jobless benefits to freelancers, independent contractors, certain people affected by the virus and those who have run out of their regular state benefits. "While these benefits provided supplementary financial assistance during the height of Covid-19, they were intended to be temporary, and their continuation has instead worsened the workforce issues we are facing," said Gov. Mike Parsons of Missouri, which has an unemployment rate of 4.2%. Benefits there will cease on June 12. "It's time that we end these programs that have ultimately incentivized people to stay out of the workforce."The CIA has sent the White House an unclassified email listing all new hires that have been with the agency for two years or less in an effort to comply with an executive order to downsize the federal workforce, according to three sources familiar with the matter – a deeply unorthodox move that could potentially expose the identities of those officers to foreign government hackers.
Trump administration officials are hurrying to catch up to the president’s audacious and improbable plan for the United States to take ownership of Gaza and redevelop it into a “Middle Eastern Riviera,” trying to wrap their heads around an idea that some hope might be so outlandish it forces other nations to step in with their own proposals for the Palestinian enclave.