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. 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. 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. 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.

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.

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.

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”.

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”.