President Trump ordered the removal of pronouns from the email signatures for multiple federal agencies by 5 p.m. today. This is to comply with the executive order removing DEI from all government programs. According to ABC News, employees at multiple federal agencies were ordered to remove pronouns from their email signatures by Friday afternoon, according to […] The post Government Pronouns Will Be Gone by 5 p.m. appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

The Department of Defense ended a Biden-era policy that paid for women in the military to travel for abortions if they were in a state with pro-life laws in place. The DOD rescinded the abortion travel policy on Wednesday, citing an executive order from President Donald Trump to make sure there was no taxpayer funding for abortion. The Biden policy paid for the travel, lodging, and food expenses of a woman seeking an abortion if she was stationed in a state banning abortion. The DOD has not disclosed how frequently the policy was used, though it was in place for over two years and enacted shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who put a hold on military promotions en masse for nearly a year due to the policy, celebrated the news. “For the past two years, I have been sounding the alarm about the Pentagon’s illegal and immoral practice of using taxpayer dollars to fund abortions,” he said. “I took a lot of heat when I stood alone for nearly a year in holding senior Pentagon promotions over this —  but as of today, it was all worth it. The Biden administration treated taxpayers like their own personal Piggy bank that they could use to bankroll their woke agenda.” “Under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s leadership, the Pentagon will once again be focused on lethality, not pushing a political agenda,” he added. “Thank God common sense has been restored to our military under President Trump’s leadership.” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth thanked Tuberville on social media for his efforts to fight the policy. Thank you for your leadership, Coach. https://t.co/hoEMpsVd0j — Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) January 31, 2025 The decision was widely criticized by Democrats, including Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), who called the move from the Pentagon “abhorrent.”  “It runs contrary to a core goal of the Department of Defense — to ensure the health and well-being of all our service members so that our force remains ready at all times to protect Americans and keep this nation safe,” she said. The announcement came after Trump signed an executive order last week mandating compliance with the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer dollars from going to abortion, saying that the Biden “administration disregarded this established, commonsense policy by embedding forced taxpayer funding of elective abortions in a wide variety of Federal programs.”

Keith Seigel, the first American to be released in the latest phase of the hostage deal is set to return home on Saturday. Thirty-five-year-old Yarden Bibas and 54-year-old French-Israel citizen Ofer Kalderon will also be released. Bibas’s wife, Shiri, 33, and two children, Ariel 5 and Kfir 2, are on the list of hostages, though Hamas claims they have been killed. Only men over the age of 50 or in poor health will be released in the first phase of the deal. An American citizen, Sagui Dekel-Chen, is also expected to be released during the first phase of the deal. The fate of the remaining hostages, including five Americans, will be determined later in following phases Seigel, 65, is a dual Israel-U.S. citizen who moved from North Carolina to Israel in 1980 was abducted from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where Hamas murdered, burned, and kidnapped Israeli civilians.  Siegel had his ribs broken during the attack, according to the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Emily Damari, who was released earlier this month offered to switch places with Siegel because of his poor health, reported The Jerusalem Post. Siegel and his wife, Aviva, were abducted by terrorists who drove them to Gaza in their own car. Aviva was freed during the previous ceasefire in November 2023 after 51 days. The couple’s niece previously said that Hamas reassured Aviva her husband would be released a day or two after her. The father of four and grandfather of five appeared in a Hamas propaganda video in April where he cried and said he missed his family and told them not to worry.  Siegel, an occupational therapist, is interested in nature, yoga and meditation, according to his niece. A vegetarian, his family describes him as a calm man and peacemaker. He reportedly learned Arabic to communicate with the Arab workers at his kibbutz. Siegel was unable to say goodbye to his mother, Gladys, who passed away last year in North Carolina at age 97. The family chose to shield her of the news of her son’s captivity before she died, according to AJC. “My grandmother passed away yesterday morning,” Siegel’s daughter wrote on social media in December. “My father’s mother is gone, and he couldn’t say goodbye to her because he’s been held captive by Hamas for over a year. Dad won’t be able to stand with us at the cemetery tomorrow or say goodbye to the woman who raised and loved him his entire life.” The hostages that have been released so far in the first phase of the deal include Israelis Arbel Yehoud, Gadi Mozes, Agam Berger, Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy, Liri Albag, Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher, and Emily Damari and Thai citizens: Thenna Pongsak, Sathian Suwannakham, Sriaoun Watchara, Seathao Bannawat, and Rumnao Surasak. Each hostage was exchanged for multiple Palestinian prisoners, including those convicted of terrorism.

The Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, a “Star Wars”-themed hotel and immersive experience at Disney World, is reportedly being turned into an office building after closing following only 18 months of operation. The highly anticipated concept experience opened on March 1, 2022, and closed the following September due to lack of bookings. The Wrap talked to an insider who said the building will now house employees who are part of Walt Disney Imagineering, a section of the company responsible for theme park attractions, retail locations, and cruise ships. Originally, Galactic Starcruiser was billed as a two-night immersive experience, with many fans referring to it as the “Star Wars hotel.”  Starcruiser guests became part of the storyline and took part in themed meals, bars, entertainment, games, and interactive missions. They stayed in fully decked out cabins that looked like they were positioned in outer space. A one-night stay cost $1,200 per night per guest, according to Parade, a price tag which even hardcore fans were reluctant to pay. Before it closed, a Disney parks enthusiast named Jenny Nicholson made a four hour long YouTube video about why the hotel flopped, citing price as a major concern. She also took issue with the planned itinerary, which was always two days and two nights, leaving guests no options for making their own choices. She noted how other themed Disney spaces were a lot different and comparatively cheaper. Her video was massively popular, attracting 11 million views on the platform. Nicholson complained, among other things, that she spent more than $6,000 for a two-person stay and had a tiny room. She also mentioned being seated behind a pole during a dinner show, which left her unable to see the alien singer Gaya. This update on the building comes after fan speculation that the existing structure, which was built to resemble a ship from the films, would be reimagined as a restaurant or some other type of less expensive fan experience. But the source said that after testing that idea, it was found to be too difficult to access from other areas of the theme park, making the idea a nonstarter. Disney took a tax writedown on Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, The Wrap noted in August 2023. This meant they couldn’t use the building for anything for a period of time. The outlet said their sources put the cost of Galactic Starcruiser at more than $1 billion, but Disney claimed that figure was much lower.

The House of Representatives Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Friday asked the largest union of federal employees to produce documents showing its communications with the Biden administration that resulted in union contracts designed to bind President Donald Trump throughout his term. The letter, first obtained by The Daily Wire, comes as Trump is expected to sign an order lifting union contracts that were signed in the final days of the Biden presidency, setting a precedent that such contracts should not be entered into in the final month of any president’s term. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA), the DOGE subcommittee chair, wrote the American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley that the panel was investigating the “use—and abuse—of the federal collective bargaining process.” The Department of Education signed a contract locking in telework on January 27, 2025, just three days before Trump took office. Biden Education Department officials signed the contract even though they admitted that the union had hamstrung the Biden administration’s own desire to bring the workforce back into the office, with COVID years in the past. “Nearly all of ED’s 4,245 employees are telework eligible and they only spend 43.4 percent of their working hours in the office. Further, 2,341 ED employees are completely remote, never showing up to the office. When the Biden-Harris Administration attempted to increase the federal workforce’s in-person work, ED struggled to bring its employees back to the office, citing CBA [collective bargaining agreement] negotiations as the ‘largest barrier the agency faces to completing execution,'” the letter said. “On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order requiring the ‘heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch … to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis.’ CBAs entered into by the outgoing Administration with AFGE should not undermine President Trump’s ability to bring the federal workforce back to the office to better serve the American people,” it continued. The letter demanded that AFGE produce all contracts signed in 2024 or January 2025, and all correspondence with the Biden administration about them. “This process was used extensively toward the end of the Biden-Harris Administration to negotiate collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) intended primarily, not to manage the workforce under its own watch, but to constrain the ability of President Donald Trump to do so. The Biden-Harris Administration’s CBAs unduly infringe on President Trump’s ability to exercise his broad authority to oversee the federal workforce and ensure the laws of the land are faithfully executed,” Greene said in a statement. Union contracts were designed as adversarial documents negotiated between management and labor, but there is evidence that in the Biden administration, both sides were representing government employees, with no one defending the interests of taxpayers and recipients of services. They were not willing to run the agencies under the constraints of the contracts, but instead signed them on the way out the door, binding the Trump administration. Biden’s Social Security Commissioner, Martin O’Malley, notoriously signed a five-year contract locking in telework on November 27. The memo from Trump, which he is expected to sign as soon as Friday afternoon, is rumored to cover contracts signed in the last 30 days of a presidency, so it is unclear whether that agreement would be lifted. The Daily Wire revealed that O’Malley flew to Florida to drink and party with the Social Security union, then signed the five-year telework contract hours before resigning his job to run for the Democratic National Committee, where the favor to unions could help his chances. A slew of other agencies signed contracts with AFGE in the waning months of Biden’s presidency, The Daily Wire found. For example, on December 18, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission signed a five-year contract that says employees can come into the office as little as two days a week. “The employer, in consultation with the union, shall maintain a Telework Program in every EEOC Office… All EEOC positions are eligible for some amount of telework,” it says. On December 3, 2024, the National Park Services signed a contract with two unions representing Washington, D.C.-based employees that would also, coincidentally, run through the entirety of the Trump administration. One of the unions said to expect “virtually all NPS positions” to be “eligible for telework,” with no requirement to come in more than once a week. Related: Union That Wants Feds To Work From Home Brings Staff Back To Office To Fight Trump

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