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”.
Continue reading...Suspect, charged with four federal counts, faces separate state charges over death of Brian Thompson in Manhattan
Luigi Mangione was indicted on Thursday on a federal murder charge in the killing of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel last year, a necessary step for prosecutors to seek the death penalty.
The indictment returned by a grand jury in Manhattan federal court also charges Mangione with two counts of stalking and a firearms count.
Continue reading...US president and first lady received invitation in February from King Charles for unprecedented repeat trip
Donald Trump has said he is expecting to travel to the UK in September for his second state visit.
King Charles is preparing to host the US president and first lady as the UK government tries to bolster transatlantic ties after Trump imposed a series of tariffs on trading partners.
Continue reading...Senior diplomats set to meet again in London next week after ‘very productive’ Paris summit to revive stalled efforts
Senior US, European and Ukrainian diplomats will meet again in London next week, the Élysée Palace has said, after what a French official described as an “excellent” day of talks in Paris aimed at reviving stalled ceasefire efforts.
“We have started a positive process in which Europeans are a part,” the spokesperson said after the meetings attended by top British, French, German and Ukrainian officials as well as the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Continue reading...Trump praises Italian PM and accepts invitation that could present chance for him to meet other European leaders
Giorgia Meloni said Donald Trump had accepted her invitation for an official trip to Rome, as the pair met in Washington in an attempt by the Italian prime minister to bridge the gap between the EU and US amid trade tariff tensions.
Meloni said Trump’s trip could happen “in the near future” and could present an opportunity for him to meet other European leaders.
Continue reading...Lawyer says officials were looking for someone else while taking Juan Francisco Mendez in Massachusetts on Monday
A Massachusetts family is demanding answers from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), complaining its agents smashed a car window with a large hammer and detained a man whom they say had applied for asylum.
A lawyer for the family also claims agents were not looking for the man in the car, Juan Francisco Mendez, when they grabbed him on Monday in New Bedford while he was driving to a dental appointment. He is now believed to have been taken into Ice detention.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Henry Dimbleby joins farmers in voicing fears of lower standards and a poor deal for British food producers
Britain’s rural communities could be “destroyed”, the former government food tsar has said, if ministers sign a US trade deal that undercuts British farming standards.
Ministers are working on a new trade deal with the US, after previous post-Brexit attempts stalled. Unpopular agreements signed at the time with Australia and New Zealand featured tariff-free access to beef and lamb and were accused of undercutting UK farmers, who are governed by higher welfare standards than their counterparts. Australia, in a trade deal signed by Liz Truss in late 2021 that came into effect in 2023, was given bespoke sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards aimed to not be more “trade-restrictive than necessary to protect human life and health”.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Orforglipron also reduced blood sugar levels in participants with type 2 diabetes
A significant trial of a daily weight-loss pill has found that it helped people to shed the pounds and reduce their blood sugar levels, making it a contender to join the new wave of drugs that combat obesity and diabetes.
People who took a 36mg pill of orforglipron lost an average of 7.3kg (16lbs) over nine months, according to results from a phase 3 clinical trial reported by the drug’s manufacturer, Eli Lilly, on Thursday.
Continue reading...Jensen Huang causes stir on social media and is reported to have met founder of AI company DeepSeek
The chief executive of the American chip maker Nvidia visited Beijing on Thursday, days after the US issued fresh restrictions on sales of the only AI chip it was still allowed to sell to China.
Jensen Huang’s surprise visit was on the invitation of a trade organisation, according to a social media account affiliated with state media.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...E-tailers also hiking prices after Donald Trump ends ‘de minimis’ exemption for cheap shipments from China and Hong Kong
Temu and Shein are cutting back their spending on US social media advertising as they lose an exemption on tariffs for many of their shipments from China and Hong Kong.
The online e-tailers, both of which ship low-priced China-made goods direct to US shoppers, had been on an ad spree until recently. But under an executive order from Donald Trump, as of 2 May their sales valued at under $800 will no longer be exempt from US tariffs.
Continue reading...Mark Carney’s Liberals have surged in the polls since Donald Trump’s attacks on Canada, scuppering Conservative calls for change after Trudeau era
Prime Minister Mark Carney said the key question in Canada’s upcoming election is who is best to deal with Donald Trump as he faced his Conservative rival in a French-language leaders’ debate on Wednesday.
Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said during the debate Canada needs change after a decade of Liberal party rule and Carney is just like his predecessor, Justin Trudeau. Carney responded: “Mr Poilievre is not Justin Trudeau. I’m not Justin Trudeau either. In this election the question is who is going to face Mr Trump.”
Continue reading...A small Michigan community banded together to help a beloved local bookstore move its stock to a new storefront
Residents of all ages in a small Michigan community formed a human chain and helped a local bookshop move each of its 9,100 books – one by one – to a new storefront about a block away.
The “book brigade” of about 300 people stood in two lines running along a sidewalk in downtown Chelsea on Sunday, passing each title from Serendipity Books’ former location directly to the correct shelves in the new building, down the block and around the corner on Main Street.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Known for roles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gossip Girl, the actor was found dead in February
Michelle Trachtenberg, a popular TV actor, died of complications from diabetes, according to the New York City medical examiner’s office.
Trachtenberg, 39, was found dead in February and had recently received a liver transplant, according to NBC News, but the cause of her death had been unclear at the time.
Continue reading...Chris Van Hollen condemns ‘unjust situation’ and says vice-president blocked access to wrongly deported man
Maryland’s Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen says the government of El Salvador has denied his request to visit Kilmar Ábrego García, his constituent who was wrongly deported to the Central American country last month.
Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday with the intention of meeting Ábrego García at the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), where US authorities have said that the Maryland resident is being held along with others deported at Donald Trump’s orders.
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