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First Thing: Blacklists naming ‘woke’ federal workers were funded by Project 2025 thinktank

The American Accountability Foundation publishes pictures of federal workers it wants fired online. Plus, Spain scorns Israeli claim that it should take in Palestinians for opposing its war in Gaza
A person's hand on a laptop keyboard
A recent list includes mostly people of color with roles in government health alleged to have some tie to diversity initiatives. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Clea Skopeliti

Good morning.

A rightwing group behind a series of “blacklists” of federal government employees it wants the Trump administration to fire has been funded by the Heritage Foundation, the thinktank behind Project 2025.

The American Accountability Foundation received $100,000 for its first watchlist, focusing on the Department of Homeland Security, which posts photos of specific federal workers and their social media on X, causing their union to decry it for intimidating staff.

Recent lists include one called the “DEI Watch List”, mostly made up of people of color in government health roles and alleged to have some tie to diversity initiatives, while another targeted education workers. These have not been funded by Heritage, the foundation said.

  • What relation did the Trump campaign have with Project 2025? Before the election, it said it would not hire from it – but it has since staffed the government with people with ties to the project.

Israel says states which opposed its actions in Gaza should take Palestinians
Displaced Palestinian people make their way back to their homes in northern Gaza on 27 January
Displaced Palestinian people make their way back to their homes in northern Gaza on 27 January. Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

Countries which opposed Israel’s military operations in Gaza and have recognised a Palestinian state should be responsible for accepting Palestinian refugees, the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, has said, as he backed Donald Trump’s comments calling on those in Gaza to leave their land.

“I welcome president Trump’s bold plan, Gaza residents should be allowed the freedom to leave and emigrate, as is the norm around the world,” Israel’s Channel 12 quoted Katz as saying.

Katz ordered the army on Thursday to prepare a plan to allow the “voluntary departure” of residents from Gaza, Israeli media reported.

Asked about who would take in the 2.2 million Palestinians living in Gaza, he said it should be “countries like Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others which have levelled accusations and false claims against Israel over its actions in Gaza”. China was also among the nations to categorically reject Trump’s plan.

  • How have they reacted? Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, rejected the idea. “Gazans’ land is Gaza and Gaza must be part of the future Palestinian state,” he said.

Trump bans trans athletes from women’s sports
The order establishes stricter mandates on sports and gender policy.
The order establishes stricter mandates on sports and gender policy. Photograph: Mike Blake/REUTERS

Donald Trump has banned transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports, in the latest of a series of executive orders to restrict the trans rights.

The order, entitled Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports, directs federal agencies to interpret federal Title IX rules as the prohibition of transgender girls and women from participating in female sports categories.

It calls for immediate enforcement nationwide, and threatens to end funding for any school that allows trans girls or women to compete in female categories. The order, which follows another to define sex as “only male or female” based on reproductive cells and a third banning gender-affirmative care for under-19s, is likely to face legal challenges.

  • How many athletes does this directly affect? A very small number. The president of the National Collegiate Athletics Association said in December that he knew of fewer than 10 trans athletes among the 520,000 competing at 1,100 member schools.

In other news …
Voters check their names on voting lists outside a polling station in Delhi on 5 February
Voters check their names on voting lists outside a polling station in Delhi on 5 February. Photograph: Rajat Gupta/EPA

  • Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party is likely to win Delhi state elections for the first time in 27 years, according to voter exit polls.

  • Argentina will leave the World Health Organization, the country’s president, Javier Milei, has announced,following Donald Trump’s move.

  • US immigration enforcement is manipulating Google search results to make old deportation operations appear recent, an immigration lawyer has alleged.

Stat of the day: One in five UK adults ‘have diabetes or pre-diabetes’
A nurse administers a finger prick test to measure a patient's blood glucose level
Left untreated, pre-diabetes can develop into type 2 diabetes, but it can be reversed with lifestyle changes such as healthy eating and exercise. Photograph: Alamy

One in five UK adults has diabetes or pre-diabetes, according to “alarming” new statistics that underline rising obesity rates. Of the 12.2 million people affected, 4.6 million have diagnosed diabetes, 1.3 million live with undiagnosed diabetes, and 6.3 million have pre-diabetes. The US figures are higher still, with around one in three adults affected, according to the latest figures available: about 38 million American adults have diabetes and nearly 100 million have pre-diabetes.

Don’t miss this: ‘How often do you see Palestinian stories in fiction?’
Mahdi Fleifel filming Aram Sabbah (Reda) and Mahmood Bakri (Chatila) in To a Land Unknown.
Mahdi Fleifel filming Aram Sabbah (Reda) and Mahmood Bakri (Chatila) in To a Land Unknown. Photograph: Mahdi Fleifel

Mahdi Fleifel’s first feature film, To a Land Unknown, follows two Palestinian refugees stuck in Athens as they try to make their way to Germany. With no papers, they decide to steal money for fake passports, while one of the pair struggles with heroin addiction. Fleifel discusses why drama is key to the way history is remembered: “How often do you see Palestinian stories in fiction? Usually, we’re reduced to documentary material,” says Fleifel, despite their stories so often being “stranger than fiction”.

Climate check: Trump’s EPA to prioritize AI, fossil fuels and the auto industry
A composite image of a robot and human hand, and a car exhaust pipe
One of the five ‘pillars’ is a promise to make the US the AI capital of the world. Composite: Getty Images

Under Donald Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken a new direction, with its “five pillars” changed to prioritize boosting “American energy dominance”, greenlighting new oil and gas projects, ensuring a “comeback of the auto industry” and a transforming the US into “the AI capital of the world”. Just one goal remains in traditional EPA territory, referring to “clean land, air and water”.

Last Thing: Was Elvis a telepathic demigod with a talent for astral projection?
‘He moved his hands over the guy’s back and the pain was almost gone’ … Presley.
‘He moved his hands over the guy’s back and the pain was almost gone’ … Presley. Composite: Guardian Design; Steve Morley/Rederns; Jose A Bernat Bacete/Getty Images

This may strike you as a strange question but go on, humor me: do you consider Elvis Presley to have had a talent for weather manipulation, astral projection and healing powers? It’s a question taken (at least) somewhat seriously by a new biography of the King and his spiritual life. The Occult Elvis… includes some (literally) incredible details, such as that Presley experienced telepathic visions with aliens as a child, and one even featured a future version of himself in a white jumpsuit.

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