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Secretary Yellen meets with Chinese Premier Li in Beijing: "We have put our bilateral relationship on more stable footing"
CBSN
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Chinese Premier Li Qiang sounded a hopeful note on bilateral relations at the start of their Sunday meeting in Beijing.
The U.S.-China relationship can only move forward with direct and open communication, Yellen told Li, after arriving in the Chinese capital from the southern city of Guangzhou.
"The meeting was frank and productive and builds on progress made by President Biden and President Xi at the Woodside Summit last November to deepen bilateral discussions," a readout from the Treasury Department said, adding that Yellen discussed a level playing field for both American and Chinese workers and business as well as the impacts of Chinese industrial overcapacity on American workers and firms.
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More than 2 million federal employees face a looming deadline: By midnight on Thursday, they must decide whether to accept a "deferred resignation" offer from the Trump administration. If workers accept, according to a White House plan, they would continue getting paid through September but would be excused from reporting for duty. But if they opt to keep their jobs, they could get fired.
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More employees of the Environmental Protection Agency were informed Wednesday that their jobs appear in doubt. Senior leadership at the EPA held an all-staff meeting to tell individuals that President Trump's executive order, "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing," which was responsible for the closure of the agency's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office, will likely lead to the shuttering of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights as well.
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In her first hours as attorney general, Pam Bondi issued a broad slate of directives that included a Justice Department review of the prosecutions of President Trump, a reorientation of department work to focus on harsher punishments, actions punishing so-called "sanctuary" cities and an end to diversity initiatives at the department.