Defence secretary Pete Hegseth is in the spotlight for a communications blunder in which he reportedly created his own Signal group chat that included his wife and brother, in which he shared confidential details of a US strike on Yemen this March.
The chat on Signal, a commercially available app not authorized as a means to communicate sensitive or classified national defense information, allegedly included more than a dozen people.
The revelations come weeks after national security advisor Mike Waltz created a separate Signal chat to discuss the Yemen strikes, which included top officials from the Trump administration, and inadvertently, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic.
President Trump downplayed the first incident, describing it as “glitch”.
Here are the key stories at a glance:
Pete Hegseth shared Yemen attack details in second Signal chat – report
Before the US launched military strikes on Yemen in March, Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, sent detailed information about the planned attacks to a private Signal group chat that he created himself, which included his wife, his brother and about a dozen other people, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
According to unnamed sources familiar with the chat, Hegseth sent information such as the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets that would strike Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, that he also shared with another Signal group of top officials created by Mike Waltz, the national security adviser.
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US citizen wrongfully arrested by border patrol in Arizona held for nearly 10 days
Immigration officials detained a US citizen for nearly 10 days in Arizona, according to court records and press reports.
Jose Hermosillo, a 19-year-old New Mexico resident visiting Arizona, was detained by border patrol agents in Nogales, a city along the Mexico border about an hour south of Tucson. Hermosillo’s wrongful arrest and prolonged detention comes amid escalating attacks by the Trump administration on immigrants in the US.
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Senator says trip to El Salvador was to support Kilmar Ábrego García’s due process
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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Amy Klobuchar calls on supreme court to hold Trump officials in contempt
Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar warned on Sunday that the US is “getting closer and closer to a constitutional crisis”, but the courts, growing Republican disquiet at Trump administration policies, and public protest were holding it off.
“I believe as long as these courts hold, and the constituents hold, and the congress starts standing up, our democracy will hold,” Klobuchar told CNN’s State of the Union, adding “but Donald Trump is trying to pull us down into the sewer of a crisis.”
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Massachusetts governor calls Trump’s attacks on Harvard ‘bad for science’
Massachusetts governor Maura Healey said on Sunday that Donald Trump’s attacks on Harvard University and other schools are having detrimental ripple effects, with the shutdown of research labs and cuts to hospitals linked to colleges.
During an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, the Democratic governor said that the effects on Harvard are damaging “American competitiveness”, since a number of researchers are leaving the US for opportunities in other countries. After decades of investment in science and innovation, she said: “intellectual assets are being given away.”
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Trump draft order calls for drastic restructure of state department
A draft Trump administration executive order reported to be 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.
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JD Vance granted lightning audience with Pope Francis in Vatican
Pope Francis and JD Vance, who have disagreed very publicly over the Trump administration’s attitude to immigration and its migrant deportation plans, met briefly in Rome on Sunday to exchange Easter greetings.
The meeting came a day after the US vice-president, who converted to Roman Catholicism in 2019, sat down with senior Vatican officials and had “an exchange of opinions” over international conflicts and immigration.
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What else happened today:
It was a nation of dreams, built for the screen. Then it shattered. Read this essay by Stephen Marche: The America I loved is gone.
Tom Philipps, the Guardian’s Latin American correspondent, has written a compelling feature of the family of Venezuelan musician sent to El Salvador prison who are agonizing over his fate.
Catching up? Here’s what happened 19 April 2025.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
