Category Archives: US News

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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Missouri State star Todric McGee dies after suspected accidental shooting

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  • Police found 21-year-old at home after wellness check
  • Safety was a decorated high school player in Kansas

Missouri State safety Todric McGee has died at the age of 21 after what has been described as a possible accidental shooting.

A Springfield Police Department spokesperson said officers had gone to McGee’s home for a wellness check on Friday morning after receiving a call. They found McGee, who they believe had suffered a “possible accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound”. He was taken to a local hospital but died from his injuries.

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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 Harsono, 33, was arrested four days after his visa was revoked without notice.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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Bill Clinton urges Americans to put aside ‘resentments’ 30 years after Oklahoma City bombing

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Former president spoke at commemoration for the 168 people who died in the 1995 attack by far-right extremist

Bill Clinton called on Americans to put aside “whose resentments matter most” and issued a defense of government employees as he returned to Oklahoma City on Saturday for a remembrance service for the 30th anniversary of the deadliest homegrown terrorist attack in US history.

“If our lives are going to be dominated by efforts to dominate people we disagree with, we’re going to put the 250-year-old march toward a more perfect union at risk,” he said. “None of us would ever get much done. Believe me, we’ve all got something to be mad about.”

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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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‘Zohran Mamdani represents the future New York’: socialist riding high in bid to be mayor

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The progressive Democrat from Queens is the son of a famous film-maker and poised to take on frontrunner Andrew Cuomo

Can a 33-year-old cricket-playing socialist, who wants to freeze rent, make city transport free and once aspired to be a rapper win an already turbulent election to become the next mayor of New York?

Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist and state assembly ­member in Queens, has been the surprise package in the Democratic primary and is now poised to take on the frontrunner in the race, ex-state governor Andrew Cuomo, who is mounting a political comeback after being forced from office in the face of a series of sexual harassment claims.

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Further delay as Menendez brothers seek freedom after decades in prison

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Brothers had hoped resentencing hearing would pave way for immediate release – but judge orders pause until May

The Menendez brothers have spent years waiting for another day in court and a chance to prove that they should be freed after serving more than three decades in prison for the 1989 slayings of their parents.

This week it appeared their time was perhaps finally coming – a judge was set to review their request for a resentencing and determine whether they have been rehabilitated. Their attorney, Mark Geragos, planned to ask the Los Angeles county judge Michael Jesic to reduce Erik and Lyle Menendez’s charges to manslaughter, which would allow them to be released from prison immediately.

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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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Detained Turkish student must be transferred from Louisiana for hearing, judge rules

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Rumeysa Ozturk was taken by immigration officials over what her lawyers say was apparent retaliation for op-ed

A federal judge on Friday ordered that a Turkish Tufts University student detained by immigration authorities in Louisiana to be brought to Vermont by 1 May for a hearing over what her lawyers say was apparent retaliation for an op-ed piece she co-wrote in the student newspaper.

US district judge William Sessions said he would hear Rumeysa Ozturk’s request to be released from detention. Her lawyers had requested that she be released immediately, or at least brought back to Vermont.

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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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Scores killed in US strikes on Yemen fuel port of Ras Isa, Houthi officials say

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Death toll reportedly hits 80 with 150 wounded in deadliest attack since Washington launched its campaign

US military strikes on Yemen’s Ras Isa fuel port have killed at least 80 people including civilians and rescue workers, according to the Houthi-run health ministry, in the deadliest attack since Washington launched its campaign against the Iran-backed militants.

The rebels’ Al-Masirah TV, citing local officials, said the toll from the strike had “risen to 80 dead and 150 wounded”.

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What a boob: Texas school district bans Virginia state flag and seal over naked breast

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Students in Lamar can no longer learn about the state of Virginia on their online research database due to the ban

Virginia’s state flag and seal, depicting the Roman goddess Virtus standing over a slain tyrant, her drooping toga exposing her left breast, has been banned from younger students in a Texas school district.

The district, Lamar consolidated independent school district, near Houston, took action against the image late last year when it removed a section about Virginia from its online learning platform used by third through fifth graders, typically encompassing ages eight to 11, sparking a row, Axios reported on Thursday.

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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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Trump team reveals lack of expertise – and patience – as it threatens to abandon Ukraine peace talks

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Trump said he could stop war in 24 hours, but team appears daunted by negotiation with ‘a lot of detail attached to it’

One key to a successful negotiation is always being willing to walk away from the table. But it isn’t clear whether the Trump administration has threatened to give up on a Russia-Ukraine peace deal as a negotiating tactic or simply because it lacks the concentration for a complicated negotiation – a shortcoming that has dogged the administration’s foreign policy through its first three months in office.

Standing on a tarmac in Paris, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, issued a threat that the US could simply “move on” from mediating the biggest military conflict in Europe since the second world war. That would be the latest about-face for an administration that has already taken a back seat on negotiating a peace in Gaza and retreated on implementing worldwide tariffs that shook financial markets around the globe earlier this month.

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Senate Democrat meets Ábrego García in El Salvador as legal battles continue – US politics live

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Visit by Maryland’s Chris Van Hollen comes as a federal appeals court rules against the Trump’s administration’s efforts to block return to the US

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news over the next few hours.

We start with news that 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.

James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee, and Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican leadership, have launched an investigation into Harvard University, accusing the university of a “lack of compliance with civil rights laws”.

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.

The supreme court said it will hear arguments next month over Donald Trump’s bid to restrict automatic birthright citizenship.

In their unanimous opinion issued today, a US appeals court warned the Trump administration that battles against the judiciary could undermine public confidence.

After weeks of strong rhetoric, the president told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday that he thought trade deals could be finished in the “next three or four weeks”.

Trump on Thursday extended a government-wide federal hiring freeze that was set to expire this weekend.

The Washington DC headquarters for the Department of Housing and Urban Development may soon be up for sale.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Rubio threatens to walk away from peace talks as outline of US minerals deal revealed – as it happened

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The Kremlin said on Friday that some progress had already been made in talks about a possible peace settlement to end the war in Ukraine but that contacts were rather complicated with the United States.

“Contacts are quite complicated, because, naturally, the topic is not an easy one,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “Russia is committed to resolving this conflict, ensuring its own interests, and is open to dialogue. We continue to do this.”

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Drummer for indie rockers the New Pornographers arrested over child sexual abuse images

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Joe Seiders in custody following search of home, vehicle and phone, after allegedly attempting to film child in California restaurant restroom

Joe Seiders, the American drummer with Canadian indie rockers the New Pornographers, has been arrested for possession of child sexual abuse imagery.

A statement made by the sheriff’s office of Riverside county, California, alleged that evidence has implicated Seiders in two incidents. On Monday 7 April, an 11-year-old boy reported that a man attempted to film him in a restroom of a fast food restaurant, and on Wednesday 9 April, police officers received another report from the restaurant, that a man was “entering and exiting the restroom with juvenile males at the business”.

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US ready to abandon Ukraine peace deal if there is no progress, says Marco Rubio

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Secretary of state threatens to pull plug ‘within days’, as Kyiv says it has signed mineral deal memorandum

The US will abandon its efforts “within days” to broker a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine unless there are clear signs a settlement can be reached, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said, as Kyiv says it has signed a memorandum with the US over a controversial minerals deal.

Speaking in Paris on Friday after meeting European and Ukrainian leaders, Rubio said Donald Trump was still interested in a deal. But he added that the US president had many other priorities around the world and was willing to move on unless there were signs of progress.

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Six Massachusetts hospital workers on same floor report getting brain tumors

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Newton-Wellesley hospital president says all six tumors benign as ‘rigorous ongoing investigation’ conducted

The number of staff members who have developed brain tumors while working on the same floor of a Boston-area hospital has increased to at least six, according to the facility’s leadership.

A recent statement attributed to the president of Mass General Brigham’s Newton-Wellesley hospital, Ellen Moloney, said the newly reported tumor was benign, as were five previously documented ones. The statement maintained that investigators had not turned up any evidence of environmental risks at the hospital, though their work remained ongoing.

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