Abby Phillip

President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would tighten rules that award visas to skilled foreign workers and directs the federal government to enforce rules that bar foreign contractors from bidding on federal projects. The order is a first effort to promote a “Buy American, Hire American” agenda, a key promise President Trump made during the campaign.

The executive order directs federal agencies to crack down on fraud and abuse in the H-1B visa program, which is heavily used by technology companies. And it directs the federal government to fully enforce federal guidelines prioritizing the use of American firms and goods in federal projects. Both changes are aimed at discouraging the use of foreign labor, which the administration says displaces American workers and reduces wages. It also aims to give a boost to US steel mills and steelworkers.

Hours before delivering his first joint address to both houses of Congress, President Doanld Trump offered a candid assessment of the job his administration has done in explaining his policies to the American people. Asked to grade his job performance thus far in his presidency, Trump offered high marks for his accomplishments, but he gave himself a “C” for messaging, conceding that he has not been able to properly explain what he's done. "In terms of messaging, I would give myself a C or a C plus,” Trump said. “In terms of achievement, I think I'd give myself an A. Because I think I've done great things, but I don't think I have — I and my people, I don't think we've explained it well enough to the American public.”

Former President George W. Bush rarely weighs in on current political events, but on Feb 27 he offered some of his most pointed critiques of President Donald Trump's statements and policies. “I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy,” Bush said. “We need an independent media to hold people like me to account." "Power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive and it's important for the media to call to account people who abuse power, whether it be here or elsewhere,” he added. Bush noted that during his presidency, he sought to persuade people like Russian President Vladimir Putin to respect a free press. “It's kind of hard to tell others to have an independent free press when we're not willing to have one ourselves,” Bush said.

President-elect Donald Trump named former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani as an informal adviser on cybersecurity. Giuliani, who heads a cybersecurity consulting firm Giuliani Partners, will serve as an adviser on finding solutions to cyber-incursions in the private sector and to advise the government on possible responses.

Giuliani, an early Trump supporter, was a top candidate for secretary of state in the Trump administration but was passed over for former ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson. “This is a rapidly evolving field both as to intrusions and solutions and it is critically important to get timely information from all sources,” the transition team said. “Mr. Giuliani was asked to initiate this process because of his long and very successful government career in law enforcement and his now sixteen years of work providing security solutions in the private sector.” According to the transition, Trump will solicit “anecdotal information” from private-sector executives on the challenges and solutions to cybersecurity challenges.

A Wikipedia administrator has blocked anonymous edits from a congressional IP address for 10 days because of "disruptive" edits being made by someone located in the House of Representatives.

These otherwise anonymous edits were brought to light recently by the Twitter account @Congressedits which was set up to automatically tweet changes to Wikipedia pages made from within the Capitol.

The Wikipedia community was notified of the block, according to Katherine Maher, chief communications officer for the Wikimedia Foundation. Maher said the "temporary, 10-day block on the IP address associated with the US Congress [was] due to disruptive editing originating from that address."