• Petroleum-based food dyes die: Yesterday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary announced that petroleum-based food dyes would soon be phased out of America’s food supply. The dyes on the list for phase-out include some of the most prolific ones in Americans’ food, particularly foods targeting children, such as breakfast cereals, candy, snacks, beverages, and vitamins. Kennedy noted, “Four years from now, we’re going to have most of these products off the market, or you will know about them when you’re at the grocery store.” Over the last 50 years, Americans’ consumption of synthetic dyes has increased by fivefold, and research has begun linking some of these artificial dyes to negative health issues, including cancer.

• Judge demands more evidence on Garcia: On Tuesday, Judge Paula Xinis said that the Trump administration has shown “willful and intentional noncompliance” with her order to provide information to attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the recently deported “Maryland man.” She chided government lawyers over their invoking of privilege claims, calling it a “willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations.” The issue has to do with the Trump administration objecting to the scope of Xinis’s order to return Garcia to the U.S. Of contention is that the Supreme Court upheld Xinis’s order to “facilitate” the return of Garcia. She charges that the Trump administration has mischaracterized SCOTUS’s order, while the government argues that it is effectively at the mercy of El Salvador, which now has custody of Garcia and is refusing to release him.

• State Dept. offices shuttered: Secretary of State Marco Rubio has a clear goal of slashing the size of his department and redirecting its focus. The latest phase in Rubio’s reforms is the shuttering of 132 of the State Department’s 734 offices, a 17% reduction. Furthermore, Rubio has given undersecretaries 30 days to cut individual departments’ personnel by 15%. In announcing these changes, Rubio posted on X: “We are reversing decades of bloat and bureaucracy at the State Department. These sweeping changes will empower our talented diplomats to put America and Americans first.” In a statement, Rubio also explained that the department’s “sprawling bureaucracy created a system more beholden to radical political ideology than advancing America’s core national interests.”

• Judge saves America’s propaganda arm: The interest of the American taxpayer in having a government that spends tax dollars wisely and doesn’t run a deficit never seems to come up in these court cases. Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, ruled Tuesday that the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) must restore Voice of America and rehire the employees placed on leave. According to Lamberth, the Trump administration was interfering with VOA’s ability to serve as a “consistently reliable and authoritative” news source “and without regard to the harm inflicted on employees, contractors, journalists, and media consumers around the world.” Whether the reporting is reliable and authoritative depends on whether you sit on the left side of the aisle. One wonders how those employees and consumers worldwide achieved such representation within the American government.

• “Baby bonuses”: Americans aren’t having enough babies. This problem has afflicted developed nations across the globe, and Donald Trump wants to do something about it. On Tuesday, the White House floated that Trump was considering a plan to give new mothers $5,000 per delivery. “Sounds like a good idea to me,” Trump quipped when a reporter asked about it. In 2023, the U.S. hit a new low in births with under 3.6 million babies born, and the number of children per American family is just under two. However, trying to incentivize more births via cash payouts has failed nearly everywhere it has been tried. Furthermore, incentivizing having children for financial gain does not make for good parents or healthy families. The bigger issue is abortion. If we weren’t killing our babies before they were born, we wouldn’t find ourselves in this predicament.

• Minnesota Tesla vandal walks: Dylan Adams, a Minnesota state fiscal policy analyst, was caught on camera keying six Teslas, attempting to draw a swastika on one, and causing $21,000 in damages. The Minneapolis Police Department identified, investigated, and arrested Adams and presented a case file to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. A spokesman for the county noted that officials prioritize restitution for the victims and holding Adams accountable, but then in the same breath explained that the county will be filing a pre-charge diversion, which will let Adams keep his job to pay restitution. The spokesman explained that, in some obscure way, not bringing this case to court reduces the likelihood of repeat offenses. Throwing Adams in prison for a few years seems like a surefire way to stop repeat offenses.

• Tesla feels the pain of the Left’s demonization: It was utterly predictable from the moment that he jumped out onto that rally stage with Donald Trump that leftists’ love affair with Elon Musk would turn to hatred. Since then, they’ve demonized him in every way, and at least one of their campaigns — the lawless destruction and vandalism of Teslas — is bearing fruit. Driving a Tesla in public these days is almost taking your life in your own hands. Perhaps that’s why Tesla earnings are down 9% companywide and nearly 20% in automotive revenue. Tesla stocks have also dropped by 50% since late December. To address the issue, Musk announced that he would reprioritize Tesla starting next month. He still plans to spend a day or more each week working on DOGE, but his main focus will return to Tesla.

• Klaus Schwab leaves WEF after 55 years: Klaus Schwab, the departing leader of the World Economic Forum (WEF), is an interesting dividing line between those who closely follow globalist schemes and those who are victims of those schemes. For those who know, Schwab is little short of a James Bond villain. For most who haven’t followed his work, he’s completely unknown and just one of “them.” His departure after 55 years marks the end of an era, but probably not a change in policy for the WEF. His temporary replacement is Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, the former CEO of Nestlé. Brabeck-Letmathe once made headlines for declaring that water is not a human right. The fact that Schwab is now under investigation for financial misconduct indicates this was an ouster of a figurehead, not a change of heart for the WEF.

Headlines

• Rubio skips Ukraine ceasefire talks after Kyiv rejects Crimea concession (Newsweek)

• JD Vance threatens to abandon Russia, Ukraine peace negotiations with Trump’s “final offer” on the table (NY Post)

• Trump says he has no plans to fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell (Center Square)

• White House considers slashing China tariffs to deescalate trade war (WSJ)

• Trump admin axes Biden-era climate office John Kerry used to assault fossil fuels (Washington Free Beacon)

• Jury rules New York Times did not libel Sarah Palin in defamation case (Fox News)

• Satire: MS-13 added to LGBTQ acronym (Babylon Bee)

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