The President re-truthed a story with a thumnail image of the symbol used by the Nazis to target gay people in concentration camps.

There was a substation explosion on Texas Tech's campus.

Poland's President Andrzej Duda said NATO should shift its defense infrastructure eastwards.

• Ukraine is on the verge of losing its final town in Kursk, the Russian region it invaded in August.
• Moscow has pushed hard into Kursk in recent weeks, and Putin just visited the region himself.
• Kyiv's loss of its northern pocket comes as the US seeks to get Russia to accept a temporary cease-fire.

Eight months after launching its surprise attack on Russian soil, Ukraine's foothold in Kursk appears to be on its last legs.

As of Wednesday, the town of Sudzha — about five miles from Ukraine's border — remains Kyiv's final significant position in the Russian region.

Ukrainian officials have been painting a bleak picture of its defense.

Roman Kostenko, the secretary of the defense committee in Ukraine's parliament, told local reporters in a Wednesday briefing that Russian troops have entered the town and are trying to cut off Ukrainian supply lines.

"There is information that the Russians have entered a certain part. Fighting continues. The Russians control a certain area there, which is across the river," Kostenko said.

Still, he added that he hadn't received word of a full withdrawal, a decision that Kyiv has also not confirmed.

But the language used by Ukraine's top officials indicates that at least a partial pullback is already underway.

Ukraine's chief commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on Wednesday evening that he had ordered Ukrainian troops to move to "more advantageous lines" if necessary.

Sudzha has been "almost completely destroyed" by Russian air strikes, Syrski added.

Both he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have said Kyiv's priority in Kursk now is to "preserve the lives" of Ukrainian troops.

"The Russians are applying maximum pressure on our soldiers," Zelenskyy told reporters on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Russian military bloggers have been posting footage of the fighting in Sudzha, appearing to show Moscow's advance reaching the town's administrative buildings.

The Kremlin's push comes as Russian leader Vladimir Putin visited Kursk for the first time since Ukraine breached the region.

Dressed in military fatigues, he told his troops on Wednesday to clear out the remnants of Ukraine's troops in Kursk, according to state media.

With Ukraine's position in Kursk now dire, it's ousted Dmytro Krasylnykov, the commander of its northern operations.

National broadcaster Suspilne reported that Krasylnikov said an order for his replacement was signed on March 7. Oleksiy Shandar, who was deputy commander of Ukraine's airborne assault forces, is set to take over.

An advantage held for months, now on the verge of collapse

Ukraine launched its surprise Kursk offensive in early August, widely interpreted as a bold effort to both draw Russian resources away from the hard-hit eastern front and to create a bargaining chip for cease-fire negotiations.

Within days, Kyiv's forces seized some 500 square miles of Russian territory and threatened to encroach upon Kursk city itself.

But Moscow's troops rushed to contain the advance, eventually cutting down Ukraine's pocket there to just the land around Sudzha.

If the Kremlin fully retakes Kursk, it would come as President Donald Trump's administration tries to get Russia to accept a temporary cease-fire, which Ukraine has already agreed to.

"We'll take this offer now to the Russians, and we hope that they'll say yes, that they'll say yes to peace," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday. "The ball is now in their court."

Earlier this month, tensions with Washington also prompted the US to roll back some of its intel and weapons support for Ukraine. Shortly after the decision was made, officials in Kyiv told Business Insider's Jake Epstein that the loss of intel hampered Ukraine's ability to defend against Russian missile attacks.

The Washington Post also reported that the move had prevented Ukraine from precisely targeting Russian positions with advanced American artillery systems.

After Kyiv accepted the cease-fire terms, the US said on Monday that it had resumed sharing intel with Ukraine.

• Michelle Obama says her husband Barack Obama's punctuality used to get on her nerves.
• "Barack, you know, he had to adjust to what 'on time' was for me," Obama said on her "IMO" podcast.
• The former first lady previously said she had a bad impression of him when he was late for their first meeting.

Marriage isn't easy — even Michelle Obama used to have a major pet peeve with her husband Barack Obama.

During Wednesday's premiere episode of her podcast "IMO," which she cohosts with her brother Craig Robinson, the former first lady spoke about one of her husband's habits that used to get on her nerves.

"Barack, you know, he had to adjust to what 'on time' was for me," Obama told Robinson.

"Because he was on that island time," Robinson interjected, referring to the former president's Hawaiian roots.

Obama said it bothered her that her husband would often only start getting ready when it was time to leave for their appointments.

"You know, I've got this husband who's like, when it's time to leave, it's 3, he's getting up and going to the bathroom. And I was like, dude, dude, a 3 o'clock departure means you've done all that, you know? It's like, don't start looking for your glasses, you know, at the 3 o'clock departure," she said.

However, he tries to keep himself in check these days, she said.

"But he's improved over 30 years of marriage," she said. She added that her daughters, Malia and Sasha, know to be early if they are doing anything with her.

In 2014, using public data posted on the White House website, The Washington Post reported that the former president was over 35 hours late to his scheduled engagements that year.

In a 2018 interview, Obama shared that she had a bad impression of Barack Obama when they met at a Chicago law firm in 1989 because he was late for their first meeting.

"I was like, is he trifling? The black man's going to be late on the first day? I was like, 'Um,'" Obama told ABC News' Robin Roberts.

Punctuality is often touted as a key to success.

One such business leader who believes in punctuality is Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group.

"If you want to be more productive, then start at the start: get there on time," Branson wrote on LinkedIn in 2015. Not only is it a show of respect to others, it is also a way to effectively manage his day, he said.

"Of course, everything doesn't always go to plan. It isn't always possible to be on time, but it is always possible to try. When I find myself running late, I will often quite literally resort to running," Branson wrote.

Representatives for the Obamas did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular hours.

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is now in the custody of the International Criminal Court following his arrest in Manila in connection with his deadly war on drugs during his presidency, the ICC confirmed Wednesday.

The big picture: The ICC Office of the Prosecutor alleged in a statement "there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Duterte bears criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of murder" for the drugs crackdown.

---

• The ICC began its investigation in 2021 after thousands of people were killed in police drug operations in the Philippines.

Zoom in: Duterte is alleged to have committed the crimes from November 2011 through March 2019 "as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population," per the statement.

• The Office of the Prosecutor alleges that Duterte, as founder and head of the "Davao Death Squad," then mayor of Davao City and subsequently as the president of the Philippines, "is criminally responsible for the crime against humanity."
• The Office of the Prosecutor called the transfer of Duterte to the Netherlands, where he could face trial in the Hague, "a crucial step in our continuous work to ensure accountability for the victims of the most serious crimes under ICC jurisdiction."

What they're saying: Sara Duterte, the elder daughter of the former Philippines' and current vice president of the Southeast Asian nation, in a media statement called his being taken to the Hague "oppression and persecution."

What's next: The office is making preparations toward Duterte's initial appearance and subsequent judicial proceedings that will determine whether he stands trial.

Flashback: "I assume full responsibility," Duterte says of drug war

Stuck on today's "Wordle" brainteaser? Newsweek has provided all the help you need to maintain, or start, your winning streak.

Perplexed by today's "Connections" word puzzle game? Have no fear, Newsweek has all the clues you need.

A Texas megachurch founder and former spiritual adviser to President Trump was indicted in Oklahoma Wednesday for alleged child sexual abuse crimes dating back to the 1980s.

The big picture: Robert Preston Morris, 63, who founded the Gateway Church in the Dallas suburb of Southlake, faces five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child, according to the indictment.

---

Details: Morris is accused of committing the offenses on a girl from when she was 12 until she was 14.

• Prosecutors allege the offenses began in December 1982 when Morris was a traveling evangelist visiting the accuser's family in Hominy, Okla., and continued for the next four years, per a statement from the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office.
• An attorney for Morris, who resigned from his role as senior pastor last June following child molestation allegations, declined to comment to local media.

Zoom out: Morris founded the Gateway Church in 2000 and it now has an estimated 100,000 attendees.

• Trump appointed Morris to his evangelical advisory committee and named him as a spiritual adviser in 2016 when the Republican leader was a presidential candidate.
• Morris hosted Trump at Gateway Church during a 2020 roundtable event. A spokesperson for Trump emphasized to the New York Times after the allegations emerged last year that the pastor had no role in his re-election campaign.

What they're saying: "There can be no tolerance for those who sexually prey on children," said Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond in a statement. "This case is all the more despicable because the alleged perpetrator was a pastor who exploited his position.

• A Gateway Church spokesperson said in a media statement it's "aware of the actions being taken by the legal authorities in Oklahoma and are grateful for the work of the justice system in holding abusers accountable for their actions."
• It added the church was continuing to pray for Morris' accuser "and her family, for the members and staff of Gateway Church, and for all of those impacted by this terrible situation."

Go deeper: Southlake and Argyle churches seek new pastors

• A federal judge ordered Elon Musk and DOGE to produce records and answer questions about their work.
• Musk and DOGE have been given three weeks to comply with the order.
• Musk's government efficiency commission has been hit with nearly two dozen lawsuits.

A federal judge ordered Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to hand over documents and answer questions about their plans to trim federal agencies.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan said in her order on Wednesday that Musk and DOGE have to comply with the discovery request in three weeks.

Under the order, Musk and DOGE must turn over records relating to their plans to cull federal agencies, terminate federal employees, and cancel federal contracts. The discovery requests do not apply to President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order establishing DOGE on January 20, the day he took office.

Last month, 14 Democratic state attorneys general filed a federal lawsuit against Trump, Musk, and DOGE. In their lawsuit, the attorneys general asked the court to "restore constitutional order" and stop Musk "from issuing orders to any person in the Executive Branch outside of DOGE."

"Mr. Musk does not occupy an office of the United States and has not had his nomination for an office confirmed by the Senate. His officer-level actions are thus unconstitutional," the lawsuit argued.

Chutkan denied that request in a ruling issued on February 18, writing that she could not issue a temporary restraining order against Musk and DOGE "without clear evidence of imminent, irreparable harm" to the states.

Nonetheless, Chutkan acknowledged in her ruling that the attorneys general did "legitimately call into question what appears to be the unchecked authority of an unelected individual and an entity that was not created by Congress and over which it has no oversight."

Musk and DOGE have been hit with nearly two dozen lawsuits since the start of Trump's second term. DOGE's attempts to slash spending by laying off thousands of federal workers and shuttering foreign aid programs have sparked fear and confusion across the government.

This isn't the first time Musk and DOGE have been ordered to turn over records of their work.

On Monday, District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered Musk and DOGE to release some of its records to comply with three Freedom of Information Act requests from a watchdog nonprofit.

In his ruling, Cooper wrote that DOGE was operating with "unusual secrecy" and the "public would be irreparably harmed by an indefinite delay" in responding to the FOIA requests.

When asked about Cooper's ruling, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice told Business Insider on Tuesday that Musk and DOGE "are saving historic amounts of taxpayer money from being spent on unserious bureaucratic pet projects."

"This Department has already been fighting in court to vigorously defend President Trump's agenda and will continue to do so, especially when it comes to waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars," the spokesperson added.

Representatives for DOGE and the DOJ did not respond to requests for comment from BI.

President Trump's approval rating with Hispanics during his second term has dropped 11 points in one week, polls find.

• About 48% of Tesla's market capitalization was wiped out in a matter of months.
• The decline comes amid sagging sales and concerns around leadership, namely its CEO Elon Musk.
• JPMorgan analysts said they couldn't find "anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry."

Tesla has lost so much value in such a short period of time that JPMorgan analysts said they couldn't think of another comparable moment in automotive history.

"We struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly," they wrote, adding that the closest example was when Japanese and Korean car brands lost sales amid "diplomatic disputes" with China in 2012 and 2017, respectively.

The JPMorgan analysts wrote in a note on Wednesday that those historical cases were "confined to a single market, whereas the decline in Tesla sales in 2025 is not specific to any one nation or geography."

JPMorgan analysts cut their price target on Tesla by about 41% from $230.58 to $135, lowering guidance on vehicle deliveries for the first quarter of 2025 to about 355,000 — an 8% year-over-year decrease from the first quarter of 2024.

Between December and Wednesday after trading hours, Tesla lost nearly 49% of its market cap, seeing its peak value of $1.54 trillion from the end of last year fall to about $777 billion.

This steep drop comes as Tesla experiences a global decline in sales and branding issues stemming from its chief executive's politics.

For a moment, Elon Musk's big bet on Donald Trump seemed to pay off. Tesla was the only EV company to see its stock surge after the president's electoral victory in November. The underlying assumption appeared to be that Musk's company could benefit if the Tesla CEO had the ear of the new administration and guided the White House's efforts to slash government spending. 

Now, that assumption is being challenged in some analysts' latest guidance, which notes a possible headwind in demand due to Musk's work with the Trump administration.

"Mr. Musk's work with the Department of Government Efficiency has proven controversial domestically, and while as many members of the political right may be pleased as those on the left are displeased, the effect on Tesla sales seems nevertheless negative," JPMorgan analysts wrote.

In recent weeks, Tesla showrooms across the US have seen protests and a string of vandalism incidents. President Trump has rushed to Tesla's defense and said he'd consider labeling the perpetrators domestic terrorists.

Outside brand reputation, some analysts are also concerned that Musk's focus on political affairs is again distracting the CEO from his core businesses.

"After all, the simultaneous decline in both Tesla pricing and unit volume expectations did coincide with his takeover of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter," JPMorgan analysts noted.

Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note on Monday that Tesla shares have fallen due to "sales data, negative brand sentiment, and market de-grossing" but still see a buying opportunity for the company.

"Today, with the stock down 50%, our investor conversations are focused on management distraction, brand degradation, and lost auto sales," analysts said.

A spokesperson for Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

Despite the company's losses, Tesla remains the most valuable car company in the world.

Second to Tesla is legacy automaker Toyota, which has a $292 billion market cap.

Morgan Stanley analysts noted several "catalysts" in the company's pipeline, including Tesla's robotaxi, expected to hit Austin roads later this summer, and another demonstration of Optimus, the humanoid robot anticipated before the end of the year.

However, expectations for Tesla's delivery timelines may have to be tempered, given that the CEO has a history of missing his own. deadlines.

• D-Wave on Wednesday announced it had achieved quantum supremacy with its annealing chip.
• Quantum stocks spiked after the news, which suggests quantum machines can outperform classical tech.
• Wednesday's gains helped the industry rebound from a dip spurred by skepticism from Jensen Huang.

Quantum stocks spiked on Wednesday after Canadian company D-Wave said it had achieved the elusive industry benchmark of "quantum supremacy," suggesting its specialized annealing chip can outperform classical computers in certain tasks.

"It's the holy grail for quantum computing. It's what everybody aspires to and is the reason there's so much confusion around quantum supremacy versus quantum advantage versus quantum utility because supremacy — true supremacy — hadn't been achieved yet," Alan Barrett, D-Wave's CEO, told Business Insider. "And so the industry was coming up with terms that were easier to achieve, but this is that demonstration of true supremacy, and we're very excited."

The corresponding market surge — which saw D-Wave's stock spike over 8% by market close and sent other quantum companies like IonQ up over 16% — helped the industry recover from a dip following recent skepticism from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

In January, Huang suggested the industry is at least 20 years away from quantum computing being "very useful," sending quantum stocks tumbling.

While D-Wave's announcement didn't fully claw back the losses that followed Huang's remarks, it sent a jolt through the market and made waves in the industry surrounding the burgeoning technology.

Quantum computing is rapidly evolving, with Big Tech players like IBM and Google racing to scale up the devices enough to be commercially useful. While advancement has long been slowed by deeply technical problems involving error correction and scalability, researchers say cracking the code to unlock quantum computing's potential could help discover new drugs, develop new chemical compounds, or break encryption methods, among other outcomes.

That is why D-Wave's announcement, which follows new quantum chip debuts from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, is such a big deal. The Canadian company says its annealing quantum computer outperformed one of the world's most powerful classical supercomputers when solving complex simulation calculations related to magnetic materials discovery.

The company says its quantum computer performed a magnetic materials simulation in just minutes — one that would take a classical supercomputer built with GPU clusters nearly one million years and more than the world's annual electricity consumption to solve.

Quantum annealing vs. gate-based approaches

D-Wave's approach is not without its skeptics. The research paper published by the company's researchers in the journal Science stopped short of describing its findings as "quantum supremacy," instead using the milder term "quantum advantage" to outline its findings.

Eric Chitambar, a researcher of quantum information science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said D-Wave's annealing approach has drawbacks — like narrower practical applications and reduced fault tolerance, meaning it's not likely to produce a full-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer.

The narrow scope of the annealing method's potential applications is why the other major players in the quantum space have invested heavily in a gate-based approach. This approach relies on quantum logic gates as the foundation of quantum circuits, similar to how classical logic gates operate for conventional circuits. It has the potential for broader applications despite slower progress in development than the annealing approach.

"But even if they don't have something that is going to be a universal, scalable quantum computer, that doesn't mean there isn't value there," Chitambar said of D-Wave's announcement.

Harley Johnson, the chief executive for Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, told Business Insider that certain types of computers are better at solving specific problems. D-Wave's announcement is a prime example of a narrowly tailored machine proving its utility.

But now that quantum computing is moving beyond proving its commercial value, Johnson said, it's time to focus on maximizing the return on the massive investment that has brought the quantum industry this far.

"The thinking about quantum advantage, or quantum supremacy, needs to take into account the additional information about economic advantage," Johnson said. "What does it cost me to get to a solution on a conventional computer versus on a quantum computer? Can I solve it more cheaply than I could solve it on a conventional computer? I think that's the next really important way to think about quantum advantage."

• Meta won an emergency arbitration decision regarding the book "Careless People."
• The decision, in part, bars Sarah Wynn-Williams from promoting the book.
• A Meta spokesperson said the "false and defamatory book should never have been published."

Meta just scored a win against a new memoir written by a former Facebook executive.

"Careless People," which was published Tuesday, was written by Sarah Wynn-Williams, who worked at Facebook from 2011 to 2017.

Meta on Wednesday shared an emergency arbitrator's decision that bars the author from promoting the book. Her memoir has already generated headlines, including a positive review in The New York Times.

The ruling was issued by the International Centre for Dispute Resolution, which is the international division of the American Arbitration Association.

The arbitrator wrote that the decision bars Wynn-Williams from making disparaging comments about Meta or from further publishing the book to the extent she has control over it.

"This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn Williams' false and defamatory book should never have been published," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to Business Insider.

At the time of writing, the book was still available for purchase from retailers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Wynn-Williams and the publisher, Macmillan, did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider outside regular business hours.

The book includes vivid descriptions of the leadership styles and behaviors of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, then-chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, and other top leaders.

Wynn-Williams, a former New Zealand diplomat and international lawyer, was a global public policy director at Meta and detailed having close contact with Meta's top brass.

In one part of the book, the writer described how 200 Meta women employees formed a secret Facebook group in 2017 called "Feminist Fight Club." She also included several descriptions of being personally harassed by her superiors.

The writer also detailed Zuckerberg's awkward interactions with world leaders including former US president Barack Obama and China's leader, Xi Jinping.

The author recalled Xi using a 'a human Chinese wall' of soldiers at the 2016 APEC summit in Lima, Peru, to avoid interacting with Zuckerberg. Another section explains an incident when Zuckerberg said he didn't want to talk to then-New Zealand Prime Minister John Key in front of Key.

Meta spokesman Andy Stone called the book "a mix of old claims and false accusations about our executives" and said Wynn-Williams was fired for poor performance and behavior.

Former New England Patriots and Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Mac Jones is now headed to the San Francisco 49ers to back up Brock Purdy.

President Trump's tariffs that targeted Canada, Mexico and China before being expanded to all steel and aluminum imports have not only triggered trade wars, they're also leading to a "Boycott USA" global consumer backlash against U.S. goods.

The big picture: "Boycott USA" has spiked on Google in the past seven days, with four EU countries and Canada topping the search list and multiple countries have large Facebook groups dedicated to boycotting U.S. products.

---

Zoom in: One of the biggest regions for this pushback is Denmark, where Trump's talk of taking over its semi-autonomous territory Greenland has provoked anger.

• The Danish "Boycott goods from the U.S." Facebook page has nearly 73,000 members and Denmark had the second-highest search number of searches for "Boycott USA" this week after Luxembourg.
• In neighboring Sweden, the fourth-biggest "Boycott USA" search region on Google, a Facebook page that says using a U.S. platform is "the best weapon" in the drive against U.S. goods has nearly 80,000 members.
• France ranked at no.3 on Google for "Boycott USA" searches. The country's "BOYCOTT USA: Buy French and European!" Facebook page has more than 20,000 members.

Canada is another top backlash spot due to Trump making the closest ally of the U.S. a top tariff target and his desire to make the North American country the 51st state, ranking at no.5 on Google for "Boycott USA" searches.

• Several Facebook groups have emerged amid a drive for Canadian-made products and "Canada is not for sale" hats have taken off, with Ontario Premier Doug Ford among those wearing the headwear.
• Ford announced several measures against the tariffs, including canceling a $100-million contract with Musk's Starlink.
• The CEO of Jack Daniels' parent company said the Liquor Control Board of Ontario's decision to remove U.S.-made spirits from the province's shelves was "worse than a tariff."
• A survey of 3,310 respondents last month found 85% of Canadians plan to replace U.S. products or have already done so in the face of Trump's tariff threats. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 1.5 percentage points.
• The U.S. Travel Association warned of the impacts of tariffs, saying a 10% drop in Canadian travel could cause "$2.1 billion in lost spending and 14,000 job losses." The number of Canadians taking road trips to the U.S. fell 23% last month compared to the previous year, per Statistics Canada.

Zoom out: Analysts have expressed concern that Tesla's plummeting sales may be linked to CEO Elon Musk's closeness to Trump as a mega-donor and in his role as senior adviser to the president, working with the administration's federal cost-cutting team DOGE — though it's too early to assess whether this is having a direct impact on the EV company.

• Trump said on Truth Social this week "Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla."
• There was a very public boycott in classic music, from German violinist Christian Tetzlaff — who told the New York Times he was canceling a spring tour of the U.S. in protest at Trump's policies. A White House spokesperson told the NYT in response: "America first."

Meanwhile, Norwegian fuel firm Haltbakk Bunkers said it would no longer be a supplier due to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's treatment at the White House.

• CEO Gunnar Gran told Norwegian newspaper VG the company's action was "symbolic" because it doesn't have a fixed contract with the Navy.
• Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment in the evening.

Go deeper: How Trump's tariffs will impact everyday Americans

Editor's note: This article has been updated with more details on Ontario's response and a screenshot of a post by provincial Premier Doug Ford.

President Trump is planning an unusual visit to the Justice Department on Friday to speak about his administration's plans on "restoring law and order," Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Trump's appearance will be the latest illustration of how he's taken a direct interest in the work of the DOJ, which he has stacked with allies while purging dozens of people who were deemed disloyal.

---

• Those dismissed from the department since Trump took office included officials who worked on the department's two criminal prosecutions of Trump between his presidencies.

Zoom out: Trump, who also had two state criminal indictments filed against him after leaving office, spent much of the 2024 campaign railing against what he called the "weaponization" of the justice system.

• After winning the 2024 election, Trump nominated Pam Bondi to be attorney general and Kash Patel to be FBI director, both of them longtime loyalists. Todd Blanche, one of Trump's personal attorneys, was named deputy attorney general.
• Trump last month said he had ordered the firings of U.S. attorneys appointed by his predecessor, Joe Biden. "We must 'clean house' IMMEDIATELY, and restore confidence. America's Golden Age must have a fair Justice System," Trump posted on Truth Social.

Most presidents historically have maintained at least the appearance of a Justice Department that operated independently of their political concerns.

• Trump accused Biden of using the DOJ to target him, but Biden said he made a point of not getting involved in Trump's felony cases. Biden didn't stop the department from prosecuting his son Hunter on gun and tax charges — but pardoned Hunter during the final weeks of his presidency.
• Trump has long been fixated on the DOJ. During his first term, he fired then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom he blasted for recusing himself from overseeing a special counsel's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
• During the final days of his term, Trump clashed with then-Attorney General Bill Barr after Barr said the department had found no evidence of significant fraud in the 2020 election.

Bondi and Patel are expected to be present for Trump's visit on Friday, according to a person familiar with the plans.

What they're saying: "President Trump will visit the Department of Justice to give remarks on restoring law and order, removing violent criminals from our communities, and ending the weaponization of justice against Americans for their political leanings," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios in a statement.

• "President Trump's historic visit to the Department of Justice will signify another promise made and kept."

House Democrats are mounting a sudden push for a last-minute vote on an alternative to House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-La.) bill to avert a federal government shutdown.

Why it matters: The effort dovetails with pressure some in the party are placing on key Senate Democrats to reject Johnson's 6-month stopgap bill and force Republicans to the table.

---

• The bill passed the House despite all but one House Democrat voting against it — but Republicans will need support from at least eight Senate Democrats for it to pass the upper chamber. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is already a "no" on the bill.
• "Our message to the Senate is ... stand with us," Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), the House minority whip, said at House Democrats' retreat on Wednesday.

Driving the news: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Clark and Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said Wednesday in a joint statement they would "strongly support" a four-week stopgap bill.

• "House Republicans should get back to Washington immediately so that we can take up a short-term measure, pass it on a bipartisan basis and avoid a Trump-inspired government shutdown," they said.
• House Democrats have demanded that any longer-term spending measure include language that constrains DOGE's ability to cut congressionally authorized spending.

State of play: Senate Democrats left a closed-door meeting Wednesday signaling that they will not provide the votes for the bill to overcome the chamber's 60-vote filibuster threshold.

• Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told reporters that Democrats are pressing for opportunities to amend the bill.
• "There are not the votes right now to pass it," he said.

What we're hearing: House Democrats have been advised to keep their schedules flexible in case they are called on short notice to vote on a replacement measure, multiple Democratic lawmakers told Axios.

• Said one person familiar with the matter: "Most House Democrats remain in the DC-area, and all have been advised to keep their schedules flexible so they can be present to vote on short notice."
• Many House Democrats are at their caucus' annual retreat in Leesburg, Virginia — roughly an hour drive to Capitol Hill.
• House Democrats' messaging arm is advising members to say on social media that they are willing to return to Capitol Hill this week to vote, according to guidance viewed by Axios.

Axios' Hans Nichols contributed reporting for this story.

The Trump Medicare innovation center plans to cancel a half dozen trials to change the way health providers are paid by the end of the year as it aligns itself with the goals of the Make America Healthy Again movement, multiple people familiar with the plans told Axios.

The big picture: Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation leadership said they want to focus on models that are likely to meet criteria for expansion and that promote the goals of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s public health agenda, said a person with knowledge who was granted anonymity to speak freely.

---

What they're saying: CMMI "is committed to testing — and eventually scaling — innovative payment models that meet the statutory goals of reducing program spending while maintaining or improving quality of care," a CMS spokesperson said.

• The center has completed a data-driven review of models based on their statutory mandate and identified some that will conclude as scheduled and others that should be terminated, the spokesperson said.
• CMS estimated the changes will save taxpayers almost $750 million, though it did not specify how.

State of play: The innovation center will end two payment models focused on alternative ways to pay for primary care — Making Care Primary and Primary Care First — and an experiment to encourage at-home dialysis and kidney transplants known as End-Stage Renal Disease Treatment Choices.

• "Primary care remains a foundational component of the Center's strategy," CMMI wrote in a fact sheet on Wednesday.
• "The early termination ... does not signal a retreat from the center's support of primary care providers, but rather a need to focus on different approaches that are consistent with the CMS Innovation Center's statutory mandate and produce savings."
• CMMI will also end the Maryland Total Cost of Care Model one year early. The model builds on an alternative payment structure Maryland has used for over a decade now in which hospitals in the state get a fixed amount of revenue from payers each year.
• Maryland has already been chosen to participate in a broader total cost of care model known as AHEAD starting in 2026. CMMI plans to continue that model, a source familiar told Axios.

CMMI will also not continue with two projects that had been announced but not yet started. One would offer $2 generic drugs to Medicare beneficiaries. A second aimed to incentivize drug manufacturers to complete confirmatory trials of accelerated approval drugs.

• The center said Wednesday that it is also considering options to reduce the size or make other changes to a model aimed at integrating care for children.
• An experiment to redesign care delivery in Vermont and one aimed at improving care for pregnant and postpartum Medicaid beneficiaries with opioid use disorder are already slated to conclude at the end of 2025.

Between the lines: CMMI said in a fact sheet that it has determined its other models can continue, either as-is or with modifications.

Context: The innovation center was created through the Affordable Care Act to test different ways to provide and reimburse for health services. It runs limited-time pilots aimed at improving patient care and lowering costs, with a goal of adapting successful policies for Medicare and Medicaid as a whole.

• The center currently operates 23 models. CMMI gets $10 billion in mandatory funding each decade to develop, test and evaluate different experiments.

Some of the models set for cancellation have not yet shown to improve care or decrease costs.

• The model aimed at improving renal disease care has not affected health outcomes or Medicare spending, per its latest evaluation.
• Primary Care First, which tests performance-based payment for advanced primary care services, has had "minimal effects on hospitalizations and Medicare expenditures," according to its most recent evaluation, though the report says that's to be expected at the model's current stage.

Yes, but: The Maryland Total Cost of Care Model saved a net $689 million for Medicare in its first three years and reduced hospital admissions.

Reality check: It's common for a new administration to end or modify some Medicare payment projects early in its term.

• But the back-and-forth can make it hard for providers to fully invest in participating in these payment experiments.

What we're watching: The innovation center plans to announce a new strategy "based on guiding principles to make Americans healthier by preventing disease through evidence-based practices, empowering people with information to make better decisions, and driving choice and competition," the CMS spokesperson said.

President Trump is facing increasing headwinds from everyday Americans when it comes to his economic policies, which have sent markets tumbling and sparked worries of a recession.

Why it matters: Trump's re-election campaign hinged on lowering prices, but voters are beginning to notice his policies — from a trade war with the U.S.' closes trading partners to mass deportations — are expected to do the opposite.

---

The latest: A New CNN/SSRS poll out Wednesday found that only 45% of 1,206 Americans surveyed approved of Trump's job as president so far, with 54% disapproving. The margin of error is +/- 3.3 percentage points.

• Even more bruising, 56% of voters disapproved of Trump's handling of the economy — higher than at any point during his first term, per CNN.
• 61% of people surveyed said they disapproved of Trump's handling of tariffs, while 52% said they disapproved of his handling of the federal budget.

Zoom in: A new Emerson College poll of 1,000 registered voters out Tuesday found Trump's disapproval rating at 45%, two points higher than it was just a week before, when the same poll was conducted. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.

• Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement that the poll results showed Trump's "initial 'honeymoon phase' seems to be coming to an end.'"
• Trump's "true challenge will be how voters perceive their financial future," he added, noting that voters who "disapprove of his handling of the economy, believe tariffs will hurt economic growth, and are skeptical of his cryptocurrency policy."

The big picture: The ramifications of Trump's policies are already rippling outwards and impacting businesses and communities.

• The National Federation of Independent Business's uncertainty index for small businesses rose to it's second-highest reading ever last month since the 1980s, and many small businesses report raising prices, MarketWatch reported.
• In fact, a slew of small business owners have spoken out about the detrimental impacts Trump's tariffs will have on their ability to maintain their businesses.
• Delta, Southwest and American airlines all warned this week that their first-quarter revenue or earnings forecasts will fall below expectations due to weaker consumer demand.

Our thought bubble, from Axios' Ben Berkowitz: Investors are beginning to realize the first-term "Trump put" — the notion that he'd change policy if markets reacted negatively — isn't in evidence this time around.

• There's a greater willingness by his team to let whatever happens happen, which is an adjustment to past Trump economic practice that's coming as a shock to some people.

Go deeper: The Trump bump becomes a Trump slump