Read Online  |  April 29, 2025  |  E-Paper

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President Donald Trump arrives to speak during a trade announcement event in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 2, 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Upon returning to the White House, President Donald Trump rolled out a raft of executive actions and sweeping policy changes, making his first 100 days among the most consequential starts to a presidential term in modern U.S. history.

Serving as the 47th president, Trump is picking up where he left off, revisiting key priorities from his first term that were delayed by the Russia investigation, derailed by nationwide Black Lives Matter riots, or sidelined during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The president has refocused with unprecedented intensityon the staple issues that have defined his Make America Great Again agenda: securing the border, countering China’s unfair trade practices, and increasing domestic energy production.

On all three fronts, Trump has taken actions many didn’t see coming, including a broad tariff strategy that targeted all global trading partners, or paying El Salvador to house illegal immigrant gang members.

Trump shattered President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s recordof 99 executive orders in his first 100 days, potentially positioning himself as one of the most influential presidents in reshaping Washington.

Supporters have hailed Trump’s first 100 days back in the Oval Office as a restoration of American values and strength while opponents condemn what they see as overreach and chaos.

Trump has raced to build momentum on both domestic and foreign fronts, recognizing that without early progress, the window for advancing key items on his agenda could close quickly.

As the president marks 100 days into his second term, here’s a look at his major actions so far.

More on the first 100 days:

Truckers prepare to pick up shipping containers from the Port of Long Beach, Calif., on March 28, 2025. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on April 28 requiring all commercial vehicle operators in the United States to be qualified and proficient English speakers.

“There’s a lot of communication problems between truckers on the road,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on April 28. “We’re going to ensure that our truckers, who are the backbone of our economy, are all able to speak English.”

The order seeks to make English proficiency a “non-negotiable safety requirement” for professional drivers, “as they should be able to read and understand traffic signs; communicate with traffic safety officers, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station personnel; and provide and receive feedback and directions in English,” a fact sheet from the White House read.

Trump’s order directs Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to rescind agency guidance “that watered down the law requiring English proficiency.” It also seeks to ensure that drivers without proficiency are placed out of service.

Existing federal law requiring that commercial drivers read and speak English has “not been enforced,” according to the White House.

The order mandates “revising out-of-service criteria to ensure drivers violating English proficiency rules are placed out-of-service, enhancing roadway safety,” according to the White House. (More)

More Politics:

Huge power outages hit Spain and Portugal, leaving millions of homes and businesses without power on Monday.

Traffic was thrown into chaos across the Iberian Peninsula, flights were grounded, and some hospitals canceled routine procedures as authorities raced to restore power.

The precise cause of the outages remains unknown.

When Did the Power Go Down?

Spanish public broadcaster RTVE said a major power outage hit several regions just after midday local time, leaving its newsroom, Spain’s parliament in Madrid, and subway stations across the country without power.

A graph on Spain’s electricity network website showing demand across the country indicated a massive decline around 12:15 p.m. from 27,500 megawatts to nearly 15,000 megawatts.

In Portugal, the outage hit the capital, Lisbon, and surrounding areas, as well as northern and southern parts of the country.

What Has Been the Response?

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez convened a meeting of Spain’s National Security Council and visited Red Eléctrica, the company that runs the national grid.

Giving an update to the Spanish people on the evening of April 28, Sánchez said there was still no conclusive information yet on the cause of the blackout.

Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said he has spoken to Sanchez several times and expected power to be restored by the end of the day on April 28.

The Portuguese cabinet held an emergency meeting at Montenegro’s residence, with the government in Lisbon saying the outage appeared to have resulted from problems outside Portugal.

“It looks like it was a problem with the distribution network, apparently in Spain. It’s still being ascertained,” Cabinet Minister Leitão Amaro told national news agency Lusa. (More)

More World News:

📷 Photo of the Day: Construction scaffolding is seen on the facade of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on April 28, 2025. The House and Senate return to session on Monday, following a two-week Congressional recess for Easter and Passover. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

Our photography editors comb through the best images in the world every day. See their picks for today here ➞ Heavy Rainfall in India, Blackout in Spain, and Scotland’s Dog of the Year

🎤 Interview: Joe Polish, founder of Genius Network, interviews Jan Jekielek about the hidden battles happening right now—battles for freedom, truth, and humanity itself. (Watch)

✍️ Opinion: A Closer Look at the Consumer Survey by Jeffrey A. Tucker

🎙️ Podcast: China Watch host Terri Wu analyzes President Trump’s China policy during the first 100 days of his second term in office. This time, instead of reacting to China’s moves, the president is changing the game board. (Listen)

🎵 Music: Vaughan Williams – Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis (Listen)

A compilation photo of Jewish Czech author and songwriter Ilse Herlinger with her lute (Kingston Ostrava Scroll Group/Jewish Museum, Prague) and her debut book, which featured her own anthology of original folk stories, 1928.

“It is, after all, amazing, how much my bit of music making helps. … When I come and sit down with my guitar, my table is immediately surrounded and there is singing.”

In April 1941, Jewish Czech writer and musician Ilse Weber wrote those words in a letter sent to her son, Hanus, from Theresienstadt, a Nazi ghetto in Terezin, Czechoslovakia. The camp and its prisoners were often used by the Nazis for propagandistic purposes in an attempt to discredit those highlighting the grim living conditions of concentration camps and ghettos.

In the early years of World War II, Ilse volunteered at the concentration camp children’s infirmary, putting her love of words and music to help care for children whose families had been deported to the ghetto after Hitler’s rise to power and the establishment of Nazi Germany.

Though it has been 80 years since the Holocaust, the music created by Jewish artists imprisoned in concentration camps remains a healing light emerging from one of the world’s darkest periods. Ilse’s poems and songs are an integral part of this important and illuminating history.

After the war, Ilse’s husband remarked on the surprising amount of music and poetry she created while imprisoned at the camp. He said, “Theresienstadt was the peak of Ilse’s career as a writer … with her songs and poems, she gave people new hope for a better tomorrow.”

During a 2018 performance in Jerusalem honoring the music of concentration camp victims, vocalist Aviva Bar-On sang one of Ilse’s songs, “When I Was Lying Down.” Bar-On was one of the children Ilse took care of while at Theresienstadt. At the event, she shared that thanks in part to Ilse’s musical gifts, “the musical life of the camp was very rich.” (More)

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Thanks for reading.

Have a wonderful day.

—Ivan Pentchoukov, Madalina Hubert, and Kenzi Li.

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