House Republicans pass bill to avoid shutdown; Education Department to slash jobs

Distilleries in the heart of America’s bourbon industry are finding themselves in the crosshairs of a brewing trade war between the United States and Canada.

Alcohol made in the United States is being removed from store shelves in Canada in retaliation for the Trump administration’s tariffs on its products.

It’s leading to canceled shipment orders and stalled liquor agreements with potential trading partners, some Kentucky bourbon businesses say.

The family-owned Michter’s Distillery in Louisville has already lost $115,000 in canceled bourbon shipment orders to Canada, its largest foreign market, as liquor stores in most Canadian provinces have been asked to remove products from their shelves.

Read the full story here.

Democrats won a Minnesota state House special election tonight, The Associated Press projected, restoring a tie in the chamber and ending to a monthslong power struggle in the Legislature.

The win in the reliably Democratic 40B state House district, in the northern suburbs of St. Paul, means that control of the chamber will be tied, with Democrats and Republicans each holding 67 seats — and that a power-sharing arrangement the two parties reached in February is likely to continue.

According to the AP’s projection, Democrat David Gottfried defeated Republican Paul Wikstrom in the special election.

The special election was scheduled after a state court ruled that the Democrat who’d won the race in the district in November, Curtis Johnson, had failed to meet residency requirements and couldn’t be seated. (Johnson defeated Wikstrom in November.) Johnson’s exit had given Republicans a temporary one-seat majority in the House.

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A House hearing ended abruptly today after an exchange between a Republican and a Democratic committee member over the GOP chair’s misgendering Rep. Sarah McBride.

At the hearing hosted by the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Europe, Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, recognized McBride, D-Del., to speak and misgendered her in the process. McBride is the first openly trans member of Congress.

“I now recognize the representative from Delaware, Mr. McBride.”

Without missing a beat, McBride responded by thanking Self and referring to him as “madam chair.”

Read the full story here.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Trump’s economic policies are the right way to go even if they lead to a recession in the United States.

"It's worth it," he said when he was asked about the possibility of a recession.

Lutnick called the administration's trade and economic policies the “most important thing America has ever had” in an interview with CBS News that aired tonight.

More than 5,000 probationary employees at the Agriculture Department who were fired last month will be reinstated as of tomorrow with back pay.

"The Department will work quickly to develop a phased plan for return-to-duty, and while those plans materialize, all probationary employees will be paid," the Agriculture Department said in a statement.

The Merit Systems Protection Board ordered the department to reinstate terminated probationary employees for at least the next 45 days while a challenge to the possibly unlawful firings plays out.

Probationary employees are recent hires or people who have been promoted to new positions.

The House this evening narrowly passed a continuing resolution to fund the government through Sept. 30 and avert a shutdown.

The resolution passed in a 217-213 vote.

Rep. Thomas Massie, of Kentucky, was the only Republican to vote against the bill, while Rep. Jared Golden, of Maine, was the only Democrat to vote for it.

The measure now heads to the Senate.

The Education Department announced a drastic reduction in its workforce today, saying it’s preparing to cut about half of its staff.

About 1,300 career employees will receive termination notices and will be given an opportunity to return to office to turn in government property and clean out desks tomorrow, two officials said.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement that the layoffs reflect the department’s “commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers.”

Around 3,000 people work in the Washington headquarters, and roughly 1,000 are in 10 regional offices — making Education one of the smallest Cabinet-level federal departments. Its $268 billion appropriations last year represented 4% of the federal budget.

Read the full story here.

The federal agency that has provided state and local election officials with free cybersecurity aid in recent years still hasn’t decided how much, if any, it will continue to fund.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which began providing free cybersecurity tools and guidance after the 2016 election, began an audit of the aid in February, according to an internal memo previously reported by NBC News. The news has worried election officials that they won’t have the same security help they have had in previous elections.

Though CISA set a self-imposed deadline of last Thursday, its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, told state election officials in a letter dated Friday and obtained by NBC News today that it is still “undertaking an internal review of all election security related funding, products, services, and positions.”

A DHS spokesperson told NBC News that the agency will not make a full report of its election security assessment public.

Trump alluded to underlying tensions with certain top corporate executives at an event with the Business Roundtable today.

“I have a lot of friends in the audience, a couple that I don’t like particularly much, but for the most part very good," Trump said to laughs when he sat down with the group's chairman, Chuck Robbins, the chair and CEO of Cisco Systems.

The Business Roundtable, which consists of more than 200 of the top corporate CEOs, is one of the most powerful business lobbying groups in Washington. Trump has had tension with many of the CEOs in the group over the years.