Category Archives: Trump administration

Harmeet Dhillon: DoJ lawyer a top contender for Trump’s retribution mission

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Pugilistic presence has laid waste to civil rights decision – her take-no-prisoners approach has alarmed legal experts but earned president’s plaudits

When Donald Trump abruptly fired Pam Bondi earlier this month, he made it clear that an unmistakable priority for the justice department would be using the nation’s top law enforcement agency to seek retribution against his political rivals.

For months, Trump pressured Bondi to move ahead with prosecutions against James Comey, Letitia James, Adam Schiff and other rivals, even publicly venting his frustration with Bondi in October. The justice department eventually did secure indictments against Comey and James, but the cases later collapsed. Trump fired Bondi on 2 April, reportedly because he was angered by the department’s lack of progress in prosecuting enemies. Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, has since said Trump has the “right” to direct investigations at the justice department.

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Trump announces reforms to accelerate access to psychedelic drug treatments

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President signed executive order directing FDA to expedite review of psychedelic drugs including ibogaine

Donald Trump on Saturday announced reforms intended to speed up access to medical research and treatment based on psychedelic drugs.

The president signed an executive order directing the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expedite review of drugs such as ibogaine, which US military veteran groups have said can help treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Middle East crisis live: Iran warns it will close strait of Hormuz if US blockade continues

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Iranian parliamentary speaker also says passage through waterway will depend on Iranian authorisation and accuses Donald Trump of multiple falsehoods

A convoy of tankers was seen departing the Gulf and transiting the strait of Hormuz on Saturday, vessel-tracking data showed.

The group comprised four liquefied petroleum gas carriers and several oil product and chemical tankers, with more tankers following from the Gulf, according to MarineTraffic data cited by Reuters.

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Department of Justice investigating Eric Swalwell amid sexual assault allegations

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Democratic representative from California has suspended gubernatorial campaign and resigned from Congress

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has opened an investigation into Eric Swalwell following his resignation from Congress, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The news of a federal investigation comes days after the Democratic representative from California stepped down due to multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.

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Trump nominates Erica Schwartz, ex-deputy surgeon general, as CDC director

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Schwartz was deputy surgeon general under Trump’s first administration and is a rear admiral in the US Coast Guard

Donald Trump has selected Erica Schwartz to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), bringing to an end a months-long search for a permanent head of the troubled public health agency.

Trump revealed his choice on Truth Social, saying: “I am pleased to announce the new leadership of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is my Honor to nominate the incredibly talented Dr Erica Schwartz, MD, JD, MPH, as my Director of the CDC,” he wrote. “She is a STAR!”

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RFK Jr accused of ‘dangerous conspiracy theories’ at heated budget hearing

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Trump ally grilled by lawmakers over ‘terrible decisions’ on vaccines, public health and funding cuts to key programs

Vaccines and public health dominated a frequently contentious hearing with Robert F Kennedy Jr on Thursday before the US House ways and means committee.

Kennedy, the health secretary and a longtime vaccine opponent, has overseen sweeping changes to routine vaccination recommendations and has promoted misinformation even amid the biggest measles outbreak in decades.

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US launches fifth strike on alleged Pacific drug boat in a week, killing three

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Wednesday’s strike brings the total of those killed in US military strikes on alleged drug boats to at least 177

Three people were killed in a US strike on another alleged drug-trafficking boat, the fifth such deadly attack in as many days, military officials have announced.

US southern command said it conducted “a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations” in the eastern Pacific, without naming the alleged group, in an X post.

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Georgia man charged over attacks that killed DHS worker and another woman

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Killings of Lauren Bullis and woman not yet identified in ‘random’ Monday attacks draw attention of Trump officials

An Atlanta man has been charged in a string of attacks over a matter of hours that left two women dead and a man in critical condition, drawing the Trump administration’s attention after one of the victims was identified as a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employee who was walking her dog.

The killing of the DHS worker, Lauren Bullis, and shootings of the two other victims on Monday led the homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin to issue a statement raising concerns that the 26-year-old suspect, British native Olaolukitan Adon Abel, was granted US citizenship in 2022.

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South Africa names apartheid-era negotiator as ambassador to US

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Appointment of Roelf Meyer seen as attempt to improve relations amid false US accusations of ‘white genocide’

South Africa has appointed a former apartheid government chief negotiator during the talks that ended white rule in the 1990s as ambassador to the US, in what is seen as an attempt to improve the deeply strained diplomatic relationship between the two countries.

Roelf Meyer replaces Ebrahim Rasool, who was expelled in March 2025 after he criticised the Trump administration.

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Trump warns US-UK trade deal ‘can always be changed’ with relations in ‘sad state’

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President says he gave Britain ‘better deal than I had to’ but ally was ‘not there when we needed them’ on Iran

Donald Trump has threatened to row back on the trade deal the US signed with the UK last year, in his latest salvo against the British government over sharp differences about the US’s approach to the Middle East.

The US president said the economic deal struck with the UK, which cut some of his tariffs on cars, aluminium and steel, was “better than I had to” and that it could “always be changed”.

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US military says it killed four more people in a boat strike in the eastern Pacific

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Strike marks third deadly attack on vessels in region in four days, and the killing of 174 people since September

The US military said it killed four more people in a boat strike in the eastern Pacific ocean on Tuesday, marking the third deadly attack on vessels in the region in four days.

The US Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced the killings in a social media post, claiming, without providing evidence, that the men killed were “narco-terrorists”.

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Mark Carney secures majority government in Canada after special election win

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Carney’s Liberals will now be able to pass legislation without the support of opposition parties – and govern until 2029

The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, has secured a parliamentary majority for his Liberal government, CBC News reported. The victory will help him push through a legislative agenda he says is needed for an increasingly divided geopolitical world.

Three special elections were held on Monday in Ontario and Quebec, with two in districts – known as ridings – that have long voted Liberal.

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Middle East crisis live: Hezbollah urges Lebanon to pull out of talks with Israel; blockade of strait of Hormuz begins

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Hezbollah says it will not abide by agreements that result from the Lebanon-Israel talks in the US; Trump claims Iran wants to make a deal

Pakistan has reportedly proposed hosting a second round of talks between the United States and Iran in Islamabad in the coming days, before the end of the ceasefire, the Associated Press has reported.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter with the press, said the proposal would depend on whether the parties request a different location.

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US military says it killed two people in another boat strike in eastern Pacific

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Dispatch of vessel strike, like most of military’s statements on strikes conducted in area, did not provide evidence

The US military said it killed two people in a strike on a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Monday, claiming the targets were involved in “narco-trafficking operations”.

The announcement, like most of the military’s statements on the dozens of strikes it has conducted in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea, did not provide evidence to support its claims that the targets were engaged in narco-trafficking.

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Brazil’s former spy chief who fled country arrested by ICE agents in US

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Alexandre Ramagem fled country after he was sentenced to 16 years for his role in plotting military coup in Brazil

When Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison for an attempted coup, six other members of his cabinet were also found guilty and all began serving their sentences – except for one.

Days before the verdict, Alexandre Ramagem, Bolsonaro’s former spy chief, fled by car to Guyana and boarded a flight to the United States, where he has remained ever since.

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Orbán’s defeat holds lessons for US: ‘Autocrats may rise, but are not invincible’

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Stunning loss of rightwing populist in Hungary carries symbolic significance for opponents of Donald Trump

For US Democrats seeking rays of light in the dark landscape of Donald Trump’s authoritarian onslaught, illumination has arrived from the unlikely source of Budapest.

Viktor Orbán’s stunning defeat in Hungary’s general election – ending 16 years of unbroken rule for his governing Fidesz party – carries symbolic and psychological significance for American politics out of all proportion to the central European country’s modest size and distance from the US.

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Planeloads of negotiators and too little time: US and Iran’s 21 hours of talks

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The two sides turned up to test one another’s resolve. It was probably unrealistic to expect a dispute that has taken up years of discussion to be settled in one marathon session

It was if the two delegations in the Iran-US peace talks in Islamabad hoped that the sheer number of negotiators flown into Pakistan could overcome the handicap of having only a finite number of hours in which to settle a 20-year dispute over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, now overlaid by complex new issues such as future control of the strait of Hormuz and US compensation for its attack on Iran.

Iran sent two planeloads of negotiators. They included many members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), present to ensure that no gains made in the field were relinquished at the diplomatic table. Diplomats fanned out across political, legal, security, economic and military files. One Iranian-drafted technical explanation on nuclear facility safety ran to more than 100 pages.

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US state department revokes green cards of three Iranian nationals it links to regime

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Three arrested by federal agents had family ties to Iranian military general, regime spokesperson or security chief

United States federal agents arrested three Iranian nationals – including the son of a revolutionary at the center of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis – after the US state department terminated their green cards, the department announced on Saturday.

State department officials revoked the green card status of Seyed Eissa Hashemi, whose mother was an Iranian revolutionary who served as the spokesperson for Iran’s regime during the hostage crisis that defined the late Jimmy Carter’s presidency. The state department also revoked the green card – or legal permanent resident – statuses of Hashemi’s wife and son.

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Is Iran Trump’s Suez crisis, or just a passing thunderstorm?

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Britain’s standing in the world was never the same after its assault on Egypt in 1956. Now the US risks repeating history in the Middle East

Donald Trump’s addiction to framing every event in the most apocalyptic terms is what allows conservative commentators such as Mark Levin to praise him as “a once-in-a-century president”.

But Trump cannot play out his entire presidency on a reckless high wire without eventually falling off – potentially taking America with him into a steep decline into the unknown.

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Four men deported by US to Eswatini have right to see lawyer, court rules

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The men, sent to the southern African country in July, have been denied in-person counsel for nine months

Four men deported by the US to Eswatini and denied in-person legal counsel for nine months while detained in a maximum security prison have the right to see a local lawyer, Eswatini’s supreme court ruled.

The men, from Cambodia, Cuba, Vietnam and Yemen, were sent to the small southern African country, formerly known as Swaziland, in July despite having no connection to the country, as part of Donald Trump’s administration’s efforts to ramp up deportations.

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