FEMA staffing cuts ordered by the Trump administration were unlawful, Judge Susan Illston ruled, finding DHS violated federal law by slashing disaster response jobs.

Waffle House Teleporter Gregg Phillips Is Still on the Trump Administration's Payroll In June, a FEMA official infamous for claiming to have teleported to a Waffle House was reportedly ousted. He's still employed by the government, though--and meeting with a Trump fixer. Gregg Phillips, an election denier who once claimed he teleported to a Waffle House, says he is still working in the Trump administration, after he was reportedly removed from his influential role overseeing the Federal Emergency Management Agency's emergency response efforts in June. While it remains unclear what Phillips has been working on in the administration since stepping away as head of the Office of Response and Recovery, on Sunday he wrote on Truth Social, "I have been in the admin since last year. I'll be leaving soon to rejoin the fight."

FEMA's'Shadow Administrator' Was Paid by a DOGE Member's Startup for Months Details from recent court filings show that DOGE's influence within government--and potential conflicts of interest--extend further than previously known. An outside contractor once described as the "shadow administrator" of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was actually working, for at least part of her time in government, for a company owned by a member of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, according to recent court filings. The filings show that from fall 2025 to spring of this year, Kara Voorhies, a special government employee and contractor whose work at FEMA has drawn scrutiny from Congress as well as the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, was subcontracted by a company owned by Kyle Schutt, a DOGE operative whose own company was contracting with DHS. The documents were filed in a lawsuit contesting President Donald Trump's vast cuts to the federal workforce. Previous filings have indicated that for several months, authority over some of the spending operations of FEMA, a constituent agency of DHS, was seemingly illegally influenced by Voorhies.

The Department of Homeland Security is announcing a new artificial intelligence road map that includes multiple programs to better train immigration officers, plan for hazards and tackle child exploitation and fentanyl smuggling -- as the use of the technology grows within the federal government. The agency announced on Monday three pilot programs that will use AI in three agencies: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The New York Times reported that the programs will be launched in partnership with OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic -- an American AI startup. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is expected to face a House impeachment vote. ICE's Homeland Security Investigation (HSI), which primarily deals with transnational crime, will develop a system to improve summaries that investigators rely on.

As Hurricane Harvey ripped through Texas and neighboring gulf states in August 2017, leaving a record-breaking 30 million gallons of quickly-dirtied water in its wake, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, more commonly known as FEMA, moved into position. Among the personnel from federal agencies as varied as the Department of Health and Human Services and the Coast Guard were numerous Urban Search and Rescue teams--experts in finding people in the midst of a large-scale crisis, whether they're stranded on a roof, or trapped deep beneath the rubble. They're equipped with listening devices, heat detection equipment, and, most importantly, some loyal sniffers. "We use the dogs [as] locating tools," says Scott Mateyaschuk of the New York Police Department's K9 unit. "The dogs will locate live human scent under structural collapse."