revised

The Trump administration moved again Wednesday to make it harder to gain U.S. citizenship, announcing a slate of changes to the core civics test that immigrants must pass to be naturalized.

The changes would expand the number of questions immigrants need to be prepared to answer, and increase the number of questions they must answer correctly in order to pass.

The changes, announced as pending in the Federal Register, would largely revert the test to a similarly longer and harder version that was introduced in 2020 during President Trump’s first term, but was swiftly rolled back under President Biden in 2021.

The shift follows other Trump administration changes to the process by which U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials determine whether prospective citizens are qualified, including enhanced assessments of their “moral character” and whether they ascribe to any “anti-American” beliefs, and intense checks into their community ties and social media networks.

It also comes amid a broader crackdown on undocumented immigration, and what Trump has said will be the largest “mass deportation” in U.S. history. That effort has been heavily centered in the Los Angeles region, to the consternation of many Democratic leaders and immigration advocacy organizations.

The new naturalization test, like the short-lived 2020 version, would draw from 128 possible questions and require prospective citizens to answer 12 out of 20 questions correctly in order to pass. Under the current test, which dates to 2008, there are 100 possible questions, and prospective citizens must answer six out of 10 correctly.

Trump administration officials said the new test “will better assess an alien’s understanding of U.S. history, government, and English language,” and is part of a “multi-step overhaul” of the citizenship process that will ensure traditional American culture and values are protected.

“We are doing everything in our power to make sure that anyone who is offered the privilege of becoming an American citizen fulfills their obligation to their new country,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

Immigration advocates cast the change as an attempt by the administration to further impede the legal pathway to citizenship for hardworking immigrants already deeply rooted in the U.S. They say it is part of a broader, authoritarian campaign by Trump and his administration to vet potential new citizens and other legal immigrants for conservative ideology and loyalty to him — all while the administration aggressively targets people for deportation based on little more than the color of their skin and the work that they do.

“The Trump administration lauding the privileges of becoming a U.S. citizen — while making it harder to obtain it — rings hollow when you consider that it is also arguing before the Supreme Court that law enforcement can racially profile Latines,” said Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock, senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center. “All this does is make it harder for longtime residents who contribute to this country every day to finally achieve the permanent protections that only U.S. citizenship can offer.”

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled in a case challenging immigration raids in California that immigration agents may stop and detain people they suspect are in the U.S. illegally based on little more than the color of their skin, their speaking Spanish and their working in fields or locations with large immigrant workforces.

Last month, USCIS announced that it was ramping up its vetting of immigrants’ social media activity and looking for “anti-American ideologies or activities,” including “antisemitic ideologies.” That announcement followed months of enforcement against pro-Palestinian student activists and other U.S. visa and green card holders that raised alarms among constitutional scholars and free speech advocates.

Trump administration officials have rejected such concerns, and others about raids sweeping up people without criminal records and racial profiling being used to target them, as part of a misguided effort by liberals and progressives to protect even dangerous, undocumented immigrants for political reasons.

In announcing the latest change to the naturalization test, Homeland Security said it would make the test more difficult, and in the process ensure that “only those who are truly committed to the American way of life are admitted as citizens.”

The department also lauded its recent moves to more deeply vet prospective citizens, saying the new process “includes reinstating neighborhood interviews of potential new citizens, considering whether aliens have made positive contributions to their communities, determining good moral character, and verifying they have never unlawfully registered to vote or unlawfully attempted to vote in an American election.”

In rolling back the first Trump administration’s test — which is very similar to the newly proposed one — USCIS officials under the Biden administration said that it “may inadvertently create potential barriers to the naturalization process.”

By contrast, the agency under Biden said the 2008 test — the one Trump is now replacing again — was “thoroughly developed over a multi-year period with the input of more than 150 organizations, which included English as a second language experts, educators, and historians, and was piloted before its implementation.”

Aug. 28 (UPI) — The U.S. gross domestic product was revised slightly upward, according to the second estimate released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Thursday.

The GDP, which is a measure of all goods and services produced in the American economy, rose to an annualized rate of 3.3% from April to June instead of its earlier estimate of 3%, the BEA said.

The new estimate still shows a sharp rebound from the first quarter, which was down 0.5%.

Consumer spending was revised up to a 1.6% annualized rate in the latest estimate, up from the 1.4% previously reported. Spending is about two-thirds of the U.S. economy.

“With the initial brunt of the tariff shock behind us and the economy losing momentum, we expect to see sub-1% GDP growth in the second half of the year,” said Oren Klachkin, financial markets economist at Nationwide, in an analyst note Thursday, CNN reported. “A weakening labor market and modestly higher tariff-induced inflation will constrain activity through year-end.”

The change in real GDP mostly reflects upward revisions to investment and consumer spending that were partly offset by a downward revision to government spending and an upward revision to imports, the BEA said.

Real final sales to private domestic purchasers, which is the sum of consumer spending and gross private fixed investment, increased 1.9% in the second quarter, revised up 0.7% from the previous estimate.

The price index for gross domestic purchases rose 1.8% in the second quarter, revised down 0.1% from the previous estimate. The personal consumption expenditures price index increased 2%, revised down 0.1% from the earlier estimate. Excluding food and energy prices, the PCE price index rose 2.5%, the same as estimated.

A key annual United States government report on global human rights abuses has drastically shifted focus, with references removed to abuses based on sexual orientation, and poor conditions downplayed in ally nations while taking aim at those who have clashed with President Donald Trump.

Released on Tuesday, the 2024 State Department Human Rights Report, was issued months late as Trump appointees altered an earlier draft dramatically to bring it in line with America First values, according to government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The report introduced new categories such as “Life”, and “Liberty,” and “Security of the Person.”

The department referred to its new report as “streamlined” and focused on remaining “aligned to the administration’s executive orders”.

While the 2023 report contains a lengthy introduction with numerous appendices and citations, the newest report has a single introductory page that stresses a desire to “minimize the amount of statistical data in the report”. An NPR analysis found individual country reports are, on average, one-third the length of the previous year’s.

There is no mention of discrimination against women, members of the LGBTQ community, or on the basis of race in the latest report introduction.

Instead, the report sounds an alarm about the erosion of freedom of speech in Europe and ramped up criticism of Brazil and South Africa, both of which Washington has clashed with over a host of issues.

Any criticism of governments for their treatment of LGBTQ rights, which appeared in Biden administration editions of the report, appears to have been omitted.

The report’s section on Israel is much shorter than last year’s edition and contains no mention of the severe humanitarian crisis or death toll in Gaza. Some 61,000 people have died, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as a result of Israel’s military operations in response to an attack by the Palestinian group Hamas in October 2023.

While last year’s report underscored numerous acts of anti-Semitism in Hungary, noting that a local survey found half the population were “moderately or strongly anti-Semitic”, the new report says the close Trump ally has “made combating anti-Semitism a top priority, publicly emphasizing its welcoming and open environment for Jews”.

The report claims “no credible reports of significant human rights abuses” in El Salvador – where Trump has gained help from President Nayib Bukele, whose country is receiving $6m from the US to house migrant deportees in a high-security mega-prison.

Rights group Amnesty International said in a statement that the report “purposefully fail[ed]” to capture rights abuses in a number of countries.

This year’s Human Rights Report from the U.S. State Department reveals a disturbing effort by the Trump administration to purposefully fail to fully capture the alarming and growing attacks on human rights in certain countries around the globe.

— Amnesty International USA (@amnestyusa) August 12, 2025

This year’s Human Rights Report from the US Department of State shows a visible effort by the Trump administration to purposefully fail to fully capture the alarming and growing attacks on human rights in certain countries around the globe.

On Monday, rights group coalition the Council for Global Equality sued (PDF) the State Department to release report documents, alleging the department had potentially manipulated its latest human rights report.

For decades, the State Department’s congressionally mandated Human Rights Report has been used as a blueprint of reference for global rights advocacy.

This year’s report was prepared following a major revamp of the department, which included the firing of hundreds of people, many from the agency’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, which takes the lead in writing the report.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in April, wrote an opinion piece that said the bureau had become a platform for “left-wing activists,” saying the Trump administration would reorient the bureau to focus on “Western values”.

Taking aim at Brazil and South Africa

In Brazil, where the Trump administration has clashed with the government, the State Department found the human rights situation had declined, after the 2023 report found no significant changes. This year’s report took aim at the courts, stating they took action undermining freedom of speech and disproportionately suppressing the speech of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, among others.

Bolsonaro is on trial before the Supreme Court on charges he conspired with allies to violently overturn his 2022 electoral loss to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Trump has referred to the case as a “witch hunt” and called it grounds for a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian goods.

In South Africa, whose government the Trump administration has accused of racial discrimination towards Afrikaners, this year’s report said the human rights situation significantly worsened. It stated that “South Africa took a substantially worrying step towards land expropriation of Afrikaners and further abuses against racial minorities in the country.”

In last year’s report, the State Department found no significant changes in the human rights situation in South Africa.

Trump, earlier this year, issued an executive order that called for the US to resettle Afrikaners, describing them as victims of “violence against racially disfavored landowners,” allegations that echoed far-right claims but which have been contested by South Africa’s government.

State waste officials have taken another stab at rules implementing a landmark plastic waste law, more than two months after Gov. Gavin Newsom torpedoed their initial proposal.

CalRecycle, the state agency that oversees waste management, recently proposed a new set of draft regulations to implement SB 54, the 2022 law designed to reduce California’s single-use plastic waste. The law was designed to shift the financial onus of waste reduction from the state’s people, towns and cities to the companies and corporations that make the polluting products. It was also intended to reduce the amount of single use plastics that end up in California’s waste stream.

The draft regulations proposed last week largely mirror the ones introduced earlier this year, which set the rules, guidelines and parameters of the program — but with some minor and major tweaks.

The new ones clarify producer obligations and reporting timelines, said organizations representing packaging and plastics companies, such as the Circular Action Alliance and the California Chamber of Commerce.

But they also include a broad set of exemptions for a wide variety of single-use plastics — including any product that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has jurisdiction over, which includes all packaging related to produce, meat, dairy products, dog food, toothpaste, condoms, shampoo and cereal boxes, among other products.

The rules also leave open the possibility of using chemical or alternative recycling as a method for dealing with plastics that can’t be recycled via mechanical means, said people representing environmental, recycling and waste hauling companies and organizations.

California’s Attorney General, Rob Bonta, filed a suit against ExxonMobil last year that, in part, accuses the oil giant of deceptive claims regarding chemical recycling, which the company disputes.

Critics say the introduction of these exemptions and the opening for polluting recycling technologies will undermine and kneecap a law that just three years ago Newsom’s office described as “nation-leading” and “the most significant overhaul of the state’s plastic and packaging policy in history.”

The “gaping hole that the new exemptions have blown” into the bill make it unworkable, practically unfundable, and antithetical to its original purpose of reducing plastic waste, said Heidi Sanborn, director of the National Stewardship Action Council.

Last March, after nearly three years of negotiations among various corporate, environmental, waste, recycling and health stakeholders, CalRecycle drafted a set of finalized regulations designed to implement the single-use plastic producer responsibility program under SB 54.

But as the deadline for implementation approached, industries that would be affected by the regulations including plastic producers and packaging companies — represented by the California Chamber of Commerce and the Circular Action Alliance — began lobbying the governor, complaining the regulations were poorly developed and might ultimately increase costs for California taxpayers.

Newsom allowed the regulations to expire and told CalRecycle it needed to start the process over.

Daniel Villaseñor, a spokesman for the governor, said Newsom was concerned about the program’s potential costs for small businesses and families, which a state analysis estimated could run an extra $300 per year per household.

He said the new draft regulations “are a step in the right direction” and they ensure “California’s bold recycling law can achieve its goal of cutting plastic pollution,” said Villaseñor in a statement.

John Myers, a spokesman for the California Chamber of Commerce, whose members include the American Chemistry Council, Western Plastics Assn. and the Flexible Packaging Assn., said the chamber was still reviewing the changes.

CalRecycle is holding a workshop next Tuesday to discuss the draft regulations. Once CalRecycle decides to finalize the regulations, which experts say could happen at any time, it moves into a 45 day official rule making period during which time the regulations are reviewed by the Office of Administrative Law. If it’s considered legally sound and the governor is happy, it becomes official.

The law, which was authored by Sen. Ben Allen (D- Santa Monica) and signed by Newsom in 2022, requires that by 2032, 100% of single-use packaging and plastic foodware produced or sold in the state must be recyclable or compostable, that 65% of it can be recycled, and that the total volume is reduced by 25%.

The law was written to address the mounting issue of plastic pollution in the environment and the growing number of studies showing the ubiquity of microplastic pollution in the human body — such as in the brain, blood, heart tissue, testicles, lungs and various other organs.

According to one state analysis, 2.9 million tons of single-use plastic and 171.4 billion single-use plastic components were sold, offered for sale, or distributed during 2023 in California.

Most of these single-use plastic packaging products cannot be recycled, and as they break-down in the environment — never fully-decomposing — they contribute to the growing burden of microplastics in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the soil that nourishes our crops.

The law falls into a category of extended producer responsibility laws that now regulate the handling of paint, carpeting, batteries and textiles in California — requiring producers to see their products throughout their entire life cycle, taking financial responsibility for their products’ end of life.

Theoretically such programs, which have been adopted in other states, including Washington, Oregon and Colorado, spur technological innovation and potentially create circular economies — where products are designed to be reused, recycled or composted.

Sanborn said the new exemptions not only potentially turn the law “into a joke,” but will also dry up the program’s funding and instead put the financial burden on the consumer and the few packaging and single-use plastic manufacturers that aren’t included in the exemptions.

“If you want to bring the cost down, you’ve got to have a fair and level playing field where all the businesses are paying in and running the program. The more exemptions you give, the less funding there is, and the less fair it is,” she said.

In addition, because of the way residential and commercial packaging waste is collected, “it’s all going to get thrown away together, so now you have less funding” to deal with the same amount of waste, but for which only a small number of companies will be accountable for sorting out their material and making sure it gets disposed of properly.

Others were equally miffed, including Allen, the bill’s author, who said in a statement that while there are some improvements in the new regulations, there are “several provisions that appear to conflict with law,” including the widespread exemptions and the allowance of polluting recycling technologies.

“If the purpose of the law is to reduce single-use plastic ad plastic pollution,” said Anja Braden from the Ocean Conservancy, these new regulations aren’t going to do it — they are “inconsistent with the law and fully undermine its purpose and goal.”

She also said the exemptions preclude technological innovation, dampening incentives for companies to explore new recyclable and compostable packaging materials.

Nick Lapis with Californians Against Waste, said his organization was “really disappointed to see the administration caving to industry on some core parts of this program,” and also noted his read suggests many of the changes don’t comply with the law.

Next Tuesday, the public will have an opportunity to express their concerns at a rulemaking workshop in Sacramento.

However, Sanborn fears there will be little time or appetite from the agency or the governor’s office to make substantial changes to the new regulations.

“They’re basically already cooked,” said Sanborn, noting CalRecycle had already accepted public comments during previous rounds and iterations.

“California should be the leader at holding the bar up in this space,” she said. “I’m afraid this has dropped the bar very low.”