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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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’

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

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

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

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

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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Doge unemployment ‘fraud’ discoveries are old finds from Biden era, experts say

Exclusive: Some aren’t even fraud but rather known attempts by states to protect victims of identity theft, former top official says

In a series of late-night posts on X last week, Elon Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency” revealed the seemingly startling findings of their “initial survey” into unemployment benefits.

They cited examples of claimants who were deceased, between one and five years old, or not born yet. They even cited one case of someone with a listed birthday in 2154 allegedly claiming $41,000.

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Trump and Musk taking ‘hatchet’ to social security, says Biden | First Thing

Former president accuses Trump in first speech since leaving office. Plus, deadly Israeli strike hits second Gaza hospital this week

Good morning.

In his first speech since leaving the White House, Joe Biden accused Donald Trump and Elon Musk yesterday of “taking a hatchet” to social security, which he called a “sacred promise” that 73 million Americans rely on each month.

What else did Biden say? “In the 90 years since Franklin Roosevelt created the social security system, people have always gotten their social security checks. They’ve gotten them during wartime, during recessions, during a pandemic. No matter what, they got them. But now for the first time ever, that might change. It’d be a calamity for millions of families.”

What is the humanitarian toll of Sudan’s civil war? The consequences for Sudan’s 51 million people have been devastating. Tens of thousands are reportedly dead. Hundreds of thousands face famine. Almost 13 million people have been displaced, 4 million of whom went to neighbouring countries. Almost half the population – 24.6 million people – do not have enough food.

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Democratic senator heads to El Salvador to try to visit Kilmar Ábrego García

Chris Van Hollen warns of ‘constitutional crisis’ and says he hopes to report back to family on Maryland man’s condition

Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland will travel to El Salvador on Wednesday and attempt to visit Kilmar Ábrego García, a constituent whose deportation and incarceration in the Central American country, he warns, has tipped the United States into a constitutional crisis.

In an interview with the Guardian on Tuesday, Van Hollen said he hopes to learn of Ábrego García’s condition and convey it to his family, who also live in the state he represents.

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US removes sanctions from Antal Rogán, aide to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán

US secretary of state Marco Rubio also spoke with foreign minister about strengthening countries’ ties

The United States has removed sanctions on a close aide of the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, the state department said, adding that the punitive measures had been “inconsistent with US foreign policy interests”.

Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, spoke on Tuesday with his Hungarian counterpart, the foreign minister Péter Szijjártó, and informed him of the move, state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.

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Canadian universities report jump in US applicants amid Trump crackdown

UBC and others report spike in interest from US citizens as Trump withholds funds and revokes foreign student visas

More students living in the United States are applying to Canadian universities or expressing interest in studying north of the border as Donald Trump cuts federal funding to universities and revokes foreign student visas.

Officials at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Vancouver campus said the school reported a 27% jump in graduate applications as of 1 March from US citizens for programs starting in the 2025 academic year, compared with all of 2024.

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Obama backs Harvard as Yale faculty members support standing up to Trump

Harvard faces funding freeze as Yale faculty asks leadership ‘to resist and legally challenge any unlawful demands’

Barack Obama has come out in support of Harvard after the Trump administration elected to cut $2bn of its federal grants after the Ivy League school in Massachusetts rejected what it said was an attempt at “government regulation” of the university.

Meanwhile, faculty at Yale University – another prominent Ivy League institution – has asked its leadership “to resist and legally challenge any unlawful demands that threaten academic freedom and … self-governance”.

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