Trump selects Mike Waltz as national security adviser, sources say

LONDON: Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales, on Tuesday visited a women’s prison to meet ex-offenders and those still serving, as she continues her return to public duties having completed her cancer treatment.
Catherine visited HMP Styal in northwest England to meet offenders who had used the services of a charity-run mother and baby unit.
“It is great that you are looking at the mother’s wellbeing as well. The best thing for baby is to have a mother whose emotional needs and wellbeing is met as well,” she told staff at the unit.
Former inmate Sam told the princess that parental support was better in jail than outside.
“I only left six weeks ago and I am just getting rolling with everything again. I have said so many times that I just wish I could take this (prison) nursery and put it in my hometown,” she said.
Catherine, 43, who is mother to Prince George 11, Princess Charlotte, nine, and six-year-old Prince Louis, has only recently begun a gradual return to royal duties after a shock cancer diagnosis last year.
It was the princess’s fifth public engagement in just over two weeks.

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order on Tuesday that would continue downsizing the federal workforce, including strict limits on hiring.
The Associated Press reviewed a White House fact sheet on the order, which is intended to advance Elon Musk ‘s work slashing spending with his Department of Government Efficiency.
It said that “agencies will undertake plans for large-scale reductions in force and determine which agency components (or agencies themselves) may be eliminated or combined because their functions aren’t required by law.”
It also said that agencies should “hire no more than one employee for every four employees that depart from federal service.” There are plans for exceptions when it comes to immigration, law enforcement and public safety.
Trump and Musk are pushing federal workers to resign in return for financial incentives, although their plan is currently on hold while a judge reviews its legality. The deferred resignation program, commonly described as a buyout, would allow employees to quit and still get paid until Sept. 30. Administration officials said more than 65,000 workers have taken the offer.
Hundreds of people gathered for a rally Tuesday across the street from the US Capitol in support of federal workers.
Janet Connelly, a graphic designer with the Department of Energy, said she’s fed up with emails from the Office of Personnel Management encouraging people to take the deferred resignation program.
She tried to use her spam settings to filter out the emails but to no avail. Connelly said she has no plans to take the offer.
“From the get-go, I didn’t trust it,” she said.
Connelly said she thinks of her work as trying to do an important service for the American public.
“It’s too easy to vilify us,” she said.
Others have said fear and uncertainty have swept through the federal workforce.
“They’re worried about their jobs. They’re worried about their families. They’re also worried about their work and the communities they serve,” said Helen Bottcher, a former Environmental Protection Agency employee and current union leader in Seattle.
Bottcher participated in a press conference hosted by Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington.
Murray said workers “deserve better than to be threatened, intimidated and pushed out the door by Elon Musk and Donald Trump.” She also said that “we actually need these people to stay in their jobs or things are going to start breaking.”