• Inflation rate slows: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest inflation numbers this morning, showing that prices rose at a 2.4% annual rate in January compared with the year prior. The good news is that the inflation came in lower than economists had anticipated, though, unfortunately, it remains stubbornly above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. In January, certain food items saw price increases, led by coffee, which rose 18% from last year, followed by beef, which rose 17%. Overall, grocery prices increased by 2.9% from the year prior.

• Another partial government shutdown expected: Democrats are defunding ICE! Or so they think. In fact, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act secured funding for ICE. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader John Thune explained, “It seems like Dems are defining ‘progress’ as ‘agree to all of our demands.’” Democrat demands for DHS are quite reasonable, explains the Leftmedia, echoing Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer. All they want is for ICE agents to remove their masks — opening them up for targeted harassment from masked protesters — for agents to wear bodycams, which is in progress, and for ICE to be barred from a litany of locations full of illegals like “medical facilities” and “childcare facilities.” Since Democrats won’t accept anything short of ending immigration enforcement, a bill is unlikely to pass before funding lapses on Friday night, leading to a partial shutdown.

• Making Obama a poster boy for voter ID: In an effort to hoodwink Americans into believing the lie that voter ID laws are “racist,” Democrats called on Barack Obama to pitch their public opposition to the Republicans’ SAVE Act, which would require an ID to vote. On Wednesday, Obama posted on X, “Republicans are still trying to pass the SAVE Act — a bill that would make it harder to vote and disenfranchise millions of Americans.” He urged voters to tell lawmakers to vote against the bill. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded, “You know how badly the Democrats are panicking when they bring out Obama to spread lies about voter ID. The fact is that nearly 90% of voters support.” To expose the Democrats’ hypocrisy, she posted an image of Obama from 2012, where he is showing a driver’s license at a polling station prior to casting his vote.

• Judge Boasberg placates TDA: U.S. District Judge James Boasberg isn’t content with letting one wife-beating MS-13 gang member back on the streets; now he wants to import and unleash 137 more gangsters. For some reason, the phrase “enemy of the people” springs to mind. Boasberg actually cited his own importation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from this same El Salvadoran prison as precedent for his decision. He has ordered the federal government to submit a status report by March 13. The Department of Justice is expected to appeal this decision, as it has nearly every decision by this activist judge.

• Self-deportations rise: In 2025, 28% of completed immigration removal cases among detainees ended in voluntary departure, a new record. That number rose to 38% in December. Just 30% of rulings on a bond for release went in favor of illegal immigrants, down from 59% in 2024. From 2022 to 2024, over half of asylum requests were granted each month, but that has since plummeted to 29%. The Leftmedia, of course, is desperate to spin these facts as a bad thing, so they intermix actual reporting on these numbers with a sob story about an illegal who was denied asylum under Barack Obama giving up hope and voluntarily self-deporting last year. CBS explained that her family lost their asylum case over a decade ago, yet she thought she was abiding by the law and was shocked to be detained as an illegal immigrant.

• Stop auto start/stop: One of the most hated elements included on automobiles over the last decade is the auto stop/start “feature.” Thankfully, this week, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced, “As I traveled across all 50 states this past year, I heard from countless Americans who not only dislike the start-stop feature but passionately advocated for this mechanism to be a thing of the past. Not only do many people find start-stop annoying, but it kills the battery of your car without any significant benefit to the environment. The Trump EPA is proudly fixing this stupid feature at Trump Speed.” This is part of the EPA’s repealing of the Obama-era “endangerment” finding, which the EPA claimed gave it authority to regulate non-pollutant greenhouse gas emissions.

• Gallup nixes presidential approval: Gallup has announced it will stop tracking presidential approval ratings, more than 80 years since it began doing so. The polling giant explained that it remains committed to “long-term, methodologically sound research” and that the change represents “an evolution” in its research practices. Vagaries aside, there is no clear reason for the company to end what many considered the gold standard of presidential approval measurements.

• FTC warns Apple against suppressing conservative news: Following the Federal Trade Commission’s “comprehensive review” of Apple Inc.‘s Apple News app, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson sent a letter to the tech company’s CEO, Tim Cook, warning him “to take corrective actions swiftly” as the company looked to be in violation of the FTC Act. The FTC’s review found that Apple News “has systematically promoted news articles from left-wing news outlets and suppressed news articles from more conservative publications.” Of 620 top stories featured on the app in January, “not a single one was from a right-leaning media outlet.” Those media outlets Apple News favored included The Washington Post, NBC News, Associated Press, The New York Times, NPR, Politico, and USA Today. In the letter, Ferguson also observed that, “based on the perceived ideological or political viewpoint of the article or publication,” Apple was likely violating its own terms of service.

• Canada proposes expanding MAiD to newborns: Unsurprisingly, Canada’s government-run medical system has embraced eugenics. A decade ago, Canada introduced its Medical Assistance in Dying program as a “humanitarian” way for those with terminal illnesses to end their suffering by killing themselves. Over the years, it was expanded to veterans, the mentally ill, teenagers, and the poor. Hurtling down the slippery slope, the Canadians are now looking at extending the program to disabled newborns. The Quebec College of Physicians recently said that “medical assistance in dying may be an appropriate treatment for babies suffering from extreme pain” and that “parents should have the opportunity to obtain this care for their infant.” Killing is not “care.” When you have a socialized healthcare system, it becomes more about what the government can afford and less about the value of human life.

Headlines

• U.S. smuggled thousands of Starlink terminals into Iran after protest crackdown (WSJ)

• Washington, DC, has spilled 250 millions gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac (Not the Bee)

• Two Pakistani nationals indicted in $10 million Medicare fraud scheme (Washington Examiner)

• Nicki Minaj urges fans to call on senators to pass SAVE Act (Washington Times)

The Executive News Summary is compiled daily by Jordan Candler, Thomas Gallatin, Sterling Henry, and Sophie Starkova. For the archive, click here.