First Thing: Trump signs order to dismantle Department of Education

Executive order denounced as unconstitutional. Plus, Musk’s daughter says his gesture ‘definitely Nazi salute’

Good morning.

Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that instructs the US education secretary, Linda McMahon, to start dismantling the Department of Education, seemingly attempting to circumvent Congress’s approval to formally close a federal department.

The progressive wing of the House Democratic caucus denounced Trump’s order as an unconstitutional attempt to evade seeking congressional approval in order to implement his political agenda.

The bulk of the education department’s budget is made up of federal grant and loan programs, including the $18.4bn Title I program that provides funding to low-income K-12 schools and the $15.5bn Idea program that helps cover the education costs for students with disabilities.

The White House said those programs, as well as federal student loan payments, would not be affected by the order. It was not immediately clear what spending cuts the administration would be able to achieve without cutting those initiatives.

• How has the department already been affected by Trump’s state-shrinking efforts? The move comes after steps to undercut the department’s authority by instituting a round of layoffs that has reduced its workforce by nearly half and cancelled dozens of grants and contracts.

Israeli strikes on Gaza add to soaring child death toll

At least 91 people were killed yesterday and many more injured in a third day of Israeli strikes across Gaza, according to medical officials in the Palestinian territory who said a high proportion of the dead were women and children.

The timing of the strikes appears to have increased the proportion of women and children among the victims, with many sleeping when the missiles struck overnight or very early in the morning. Among those pulled alive from rubble on Thursday was a month-old girl, but her parents and brother were killed.

A first wave of airstrikes on Tuesday shattered a two-month pause in hostilities and killed more than 400, according to the health ministry in Gaza, in one of the bloodiest days of the 18-month conflict. The dead included 183 children and 94 women, Palestinian officials said.

• Meanwhile, what’s happening in Israel? Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to call for a new ceasefire in Gaza and to protest against what they say is an attack on the country’s democracy by the rightwing governing coalition of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Elon Musk’s daughter says his gesture was ‘definitely a Nazi salute’

Vivian Jenna Wilson, Elon Musk’s eldest child, has spoken out publicly about her father, saying he “definitely [did] a Nazi salute” in January and he was part of a White House that was “cartoonishly evil”.

Speaking to Teen Vogue, Wilson, 20, said what her father was doing in the federal government was “fucking cringe”.

“The Nazi salute shit was insane. Honey, we’re going to call a fig a fig, and we’re going to call a Nazi salute what it was,” Wilson said. “That shit was definitely a Nazi salute.”

Meanwhile, Musk’s company X has sued India’s government over a content removal law the social media platform describes as censorship.

• What else did Wilson say? She spoke out against attacks on the transgender community by her father and Trump, for instance with executive orders banning trans people from the military and from participating in women’s sports. “As a trans woman, I am terrified of losing access to guaranteed medical care,” Wilson said.

In other news …

• A clinic in New Mexico cast doubt on when Betsy Arakawa died, claiming the classical pianist rang them on 12 February – the day after police say she died.

• The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, warned the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, he’ll face “severe consequences” for breaching any Ukraine peace deal.

• A district judge barred the Trump administration from deporting an Indian academic from Georgetown University, after he was accused of ties to Hamas.

• The Sudan’s army has recaptured the presidential palace in the capital, Khartoum, in a highly symbolic battlefield victory over the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the Sudanese civil war.

Stat of the day: Glacier meltdown risks food and water supply of 2bn people, says UN

Retreating glaciers threaten the food and water supply of 2 billion people around the world, a Unesco report has warned, amid “unprecedented” rates of melting. Two-thirds of all irrigated agriculture in the world is likely to be affected, driven by the climate crisis.

Don’t miss this: Has the US targeted Venezuelans for their body art?

The Trump administration claims tattoos prove membership of the Tren de Aragua gang, and has seemingly used the so-called evidence to deport scores of Venezuelans to El Salvador. But relatives describe the tattoos as tributes to God, family and the soccer club Real Madrid.

Climate check: Evidence of microplastic buildup in bird lungs

Researchers analysed the lungs of birds from 51 species, in China, and found microplastics in every bird. “The result that surprised me the most was the widespread contamination in all species that we sampled, regardless of body size, habitat preference and feeding habits,” said Shane DuBay, an assistant professor at the the University of Texas at Arlington, who was part of the research team.

Last Thing: Big stars, little shine – is anyone actually watching Apple TV+ shows?

Apple TV+ is losing $1bn annually, according to the news site the Information. The second most-watched show on the service is currently Ted Lasso, a dormant sitcom that hasn’t put out a new episode in almost two years. But if Apple starts making hits – properly marketed shows that people actually want to watch – all this could change in a heartbeat, writes Stuart Heritage. “After all, how hard could it be to find the next Severance?”

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