Category Archives: US Politics

Marco Rubio announces sweeping reorganisation of US state department

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Secretary of state says overhaul of department will close a number of overseas missions and reduce staff

The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has proposed a sweeping reorganisation of the US state department as part of what he called an effort to reform it amid criticism from the Trump White House over the execution of US diplomacy.

If approved, the reorganisation would cut more than 700 positions and eliminate 132 of 734 offices, according to state department officials. But those officials also stressed that the plan, which was suddenly announced on Tuesday, remained a proposal and would not lead to immediate layoffs or cuts.

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Kristi Noem says purse – and $3,000 in cash – stolen from DC restaurant

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Passport, driver’s license and keys also reportedly taken but not clear if theft was random or if Trump ally was targeted

A purse belonging to Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, that contained $3,000 in cash, her passport, driver’s license and her apartment keys was stolen while she ate dinner at a restaurant in downtown Washington on Sunday night.

The secretary revealed the theft to reporters at the White House Easter egg roll on Monday. Noem said the incident remained unresolved.

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Trump says Hegseth is ‘doing a great job’ despite reports of second Signal chat

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US president dismisses criticism of defense secretary sharing information on strikes in Yemen to his family

Donald Trump offered public support for defense secretary Pete Hegseth a day after it emerged that Hegseth had shared information about US strikes in Yemen last month in a second Signal group chat that included family, his personal lawyer and several top Pentagon aides.

“He’s doing a great job. Ask the Houthis how he’s doing,” Trump said dismissively, referring to the rebel group in Yemen targeted by those missile strikes, on the sidelines of the White House Easter egg roll event on Monday.

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Senator says trip to El Salvador was to support Kilmar Ábrego García’s due process

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Chris Van Hollen says ‘if we deny constitutional rights of this one man, it threatens constitutional rights of everyone’

Senator Chris Van Hollen, who travelled to El Salvador last week to meet Kilmar Ábrego García, the man at the center of a wrongful deportation dispute, said on Sunday that his trip was to support Ábrego García’s right to due process because if that was denied then everyone’s constitutional rights were threatened in the US.

The White House has claimed Ábrego García was a member of the MS-13 gang though he has not been charged with any gang related crimes and the supreme court has ordered his return to the US be facilitated.

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Trump draft order calls for drastic restructure of state department

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If enacted changes would be one of the biggest reorganizations of department since its founding in 1789

A draft Trump administration executive order circulating among US diplomats proposes a radical restructuring of the US state department, including drastic reductions to sub-Saharan operations, envoys and bureaus relating to climate, refugees, human rights, democracy and gender equality.

The changes, if enacted, would be one of the biggest reorganizations of the department since its founding in 1789, according to Bloomberg, which had seen a copy of the 16-page draft, which first reported on the draft.

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Indonesian student detained by Ice after US secretly revokes his visa

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Aditya Wahyu Harsono, father of infant with special needs, surprised at work despite valid visa through June 2026

An Indonesian father of an infant with special needs, who was detained by federal agents at his hospital workplace in Minnesota after his student visa was secretly revoked, will remain in custody after an immigration judge ruled Thursday that his case can proceed.

Judge Sarah Mazzie denied a motion to dismiss the case against Aditya Wahyu Harsono on humanitarian grounds, according to his attorney. Harsono, 33, was arrested four days after his visa was revoked without notice. He is scheduled for another hearing on 1 May.

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Barbara Lee, trailblazing former US Congress member, elected Oakland mayor

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Lee defeated a moderate backed by outside groups working to push the Bay Area’s progressive politics to the center

Barbara Lee, a trailblazing former member of Congress, has been elected as the next mayor of Oakland, California, after fending off an insurgent challenge from the center at a critical moment for the Bay Area city.

Lee defeated the former city council member Loren Taylor after nine rounds of ranked-choice voting gave her more than 52% of the vote to Taylor’s 47%, according to the Alameda county registrar of voters.

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JD Vance had ‘exchange of opinions’ with senior cardinal, Vatican says

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US vice-president, who is a Catholic convert, discusses immigration and international wars with secretary of state

The US vice-president, JD Vance, had “an exchange of opinions” with the Vatican’s secretary of state over current international conflicts and immigration when they met on Saturday, the Vatican has said.

The Vatican issued a statement after Vance, a Catholic convert, met Cardinal Pietro Parolin and the foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher. There was no indication he met Pope Francis, who has resumed some official duties during his recovery from pneumonia.

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ACLU urges US supreme court to block ‘imminent’ deportations of Venezuelans

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Emergency filing says group of men could be deported on Friday or Saturday without court-ordered judicial review

The American Civil Liberties Union asked the US supreme court to block what the group called the imminent deportation of a new group of Venezuelan men detained in Texas without the judicial review previously ordered by the court.

In an emergency Friday court filing, ACLU lawyers said dozens of Venezuelan men held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Bluebonnet detention center in Texas were given notices indicating they were classified as members of the Tren de Aragua gang and would be deported under the Alien Enemies Act, and were told “that the removals are imminent and will happen tonight or tomorrow”.

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Trump to reclassify wide swaths of federal workers to allow for more firings

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President announces more employees under ‘Schedule F’ can be hired or fired based on their allegiance to him

Donald Trump on Friday said his administration is implementing a move that will allow far more firings of federal employees and will make significantly more roles into politically appointed positions beholden to the president.

The office of personnel management (OPM) on Friday published a new rule that invokes “Schedule F”, a prior attempt to reclassify wide swaths of federal workers not as civic service roles with protections regardless of who’s in power – but as political appointees who can be hired or fired based on their allegiances to the president.

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Trump ousts IRS chief days after appointment amid Musk-Bessent feud

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Treasury secretary Scott Bessent reportedly complained that Gary Shapley had been chosen without his knowledge

Donald Trump is replacing the acting commissioner of the US Internal Revenue Service after treasury secretary Scott Bessent reportedly complained to the president that the agency head had been appointed without his knowledge and under the instruction of Doge leader Elon Musk.

According to a report from the New York Times published on Friday, Bessent believed that the Doge head “had done an end-run around him” to get Gary Shapley installed as the interim head of the IRS, despite the fact that the IRS reports to Bessent. The report cited five anonymous sources with knowledge of the situation.

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Maryland senator meets Kilmar Ábrego García in El Salvador amid battle over US return

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Chris Van Hollen posts photo on X but does not provide update on status of man wrongly deported from US

The Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen met in El Salvador with Kilmar Ábrego García, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.

Van Hollen posted a photo of the meeting on X, saying he also called Ábrego García’s wife “to pass along his message of love”.

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Musk’s SpaceX is frontrunner to build Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ missile shield

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SpaceX-led group is pitching the Pentagon on a ‘subscription model’ for missile defense

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, six people familiar with the matter said.

Musk’s rocket and satellite company is partnering with the software maker Palantir and the drone builder Anduril on a bid to build key parts of Golden Dome, the sources said, which has drawn significant interest from the technology sector’s burgeoning base of defense startups.

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Cory Booker to visit El Salvador in effort to return wrongly deported man to US

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Democrats press Trump administration to follow supreme court order to bring back Kilmar Ábrego García

Cory Booker plans to travel to El Salvador, a source familiar with the New Jersey senator’s itinerary said, as Democrats seek to pressure the Trump administration to return a wrongly deported Maryland resident.

Booker’s trip to the Central American country would come after the Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen traveled there this week to meet with his constituent Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadorian national deported last month in what the Trump administration acknowledged was an “administrative error”. Despite a supreme court ruling saying his administration must “facilitate” Ábrego García’s return, Trump has refused to take steps to do so, and El Salvador’s government on Wednesday denied Van Hollen a meeting with the deportee.

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IRS reportedly planning to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status

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Probably illegal move against US’s richest university is latest in Trump’s attack on independence of higher education

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is reportedly planning to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status in what would be a probably illegal move amid Donald Trump’s concerted attack on the independence of US institutions of higher education.

Trump on Tuesday called for Harvard, the US’s oldest and wealthiest university and one of the most prestigious in the world, to lose its tax-exempt status, CNN first reported.

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Kilmar Ábrego García’s wife rejects Trump officials’ depictions of him as ‘violent’

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Jennifer Vasquez Sura criticizes DHS’s attempt to smear her wrongly deported husband over 2021 civil protective order

The wife of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man unlawfully deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador, has strongly criticized the Trump administration’s attempt to smear his character, saying a temporary restraining order against him was “out of caution” and that “he is a loving partner and father” who is being denied justice.

Jennifer Vasquez Sura said she “acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar” when she got the civil protective order in 2021, according to a statement emailed to the Baltimore Sun.

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Ex-UK defence minister ‘disgusted’ by Trump’s attitude to Putin and Russia

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Grant Shapps also compares calling Sumy strike a ‘mistake’ to statements by IRA terror group when it killed civilians

Pronouncing himself “disgusted” by Donald Trump’s favorable attitude to Russia and Vladimir Putin, the former UK defence minister Grant Shapps said the US president calling a Russian missile strike that killed dozens in Ukraine last weekend a “mistake” was an example of “weasel language we used to hear … from the IRA” terrorist group.

“All anybody needs Putin to do is get the hell out of a democratic neighboring country,” Shapps told the One Decision podcast, regarding attempts to end the war in Ukraine that has raged since Russia invaded in February 2022.

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Doge tried to embed staffers in criminal justice non-profit, says group

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Vera, an independent organization, says Musk’s team demanded meeting as administration expands targets

Staff at Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) demanded to meet with an independent non-profit to discuss embedding a team within their organization, according to the non-profit, stating that refusal to take the meeting would mean a violation of Donald Trump’s executive order empowering Doge.

Doge staff member Nate Cavanaugh emailed the Vera Institute of Justice, a criminal justice reform non-profit that is independent from the government, on 11 April to demand the meeting, according to a copy of the email. Vera’s staff was confused by the request, as its government funding had been canceled a week prior, but agreed to a call which they said took place on Tuesday.

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US judge finds probable cause to hold Trump officials in contempt over alien act deportations

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Judge also warned he could name independent prosecutor if White House stonewalled contempt proceedings

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that there was probable cause to hold Trump officials in criminal contempt for violating his temporary injunction that barred the use of the Alien Enemies Act wartime power to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.

In a scathing 46-page opinion, James Boasberg, the chief US district judge for Washington, wrote that senior Trump officials could either return the people who were supposed to have been protected by his injunction, or face contempt proceedings.

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Trump has put Christian nationalists in key roles – say a prayer for free speech

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Experts warn that a specific brand of Christianity will be prioritized and lead to a ‘further dismantling’ of institutions

The Trump administration’s promotion of white Christian nationalists and prosperity gospel preachers to key government roles will lead to the “further dismantling of government institutions” and the chilling of free speech, experts have warned.

Donald Trump announced the creation of an “anti-Christian bias” taskforce and a White House Faith Office (WHFO) in February, saying it would make recommendations to him “regarding changes to policies, programs, and practices” and consult with outside experts in “combatting anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and additional forms of anti-religious bias”.

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