A federal judge in Massachusetts ruled on Wednesday in favor of immigrant rights advocates who asked him to block the government from deporting migrants to Libya, amid reports that the US military planned to fly detained immigrants there this week.
District court judge Brian Murphy agreed with the rights advocates that a previous injunction he had issued already barred such flights. The judge wrote that he had already explained on 30 April that “the Department of Homeland Security may not evade this injunction by ceding control over non-citizens or the enforcement of its immigration responsibilities to any other agency, including but not limited to the Department of Defense”.
“If there is any doubt — the Court sees none — the allegedly imminent removals, as reported by news agencies and as Plaintiffs seek to corroborate with class-member accounts and public information, would clearly violate this Court’s Order” Murphy clarified.
In a rare show of unity, Libya’s rival governments had already responded to news reports by saying that they would refuse to accept any deportatees from the United States.
When Donald Trump was asked on Wednesday if his administration was planning to send migrants to Libya, the president replied: “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Homeland Security please.”
The Senate confirmation hearing for Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as US surgeon general, Fox News contributor Dr Janette Nesheiwat, has been cancelled amid reports that the White House is withdrawing the nomination.
Bloomberg News first reported that the White House is pulling its nomination Nesheiwat, who has come under fire for allegedly misleading statements about where she went to medical school and, from vaccine skeptics, for promoting vaccination against Covid-19.
The confirmation hearing was scheduled for Thursday, but Nesheiwat’s name has been removed from the revised witness schedule by the Senate committee on health, education, labor and pensions.
When Trump announced the nomination of the Fox News regular, he described Nesheiwat as a “proud graduate of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences”. However, as CBS News reported last week, Nesheiwat “actually earned her medical degree from the American University of the Caribbean (AUC) School of Medicine, located in St. Maarten” before completing her residency at the University of Arkansas.
Until the CBS report was published, Nesheiwat’s LinkedIn profile incorrectly listed an MD from the University of Arkansas School of Medicine and made no mention of AUC.
The network also reported that the doctor previously used a formulation of the Caribbean university’s name that might have misled people into thinking she had attended the American University in Washington DC.
“I completed my medical training and residency at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences near Little Rock where I served as Chief Resident”, Nesheiwat wrote on Facebook in 2018. “Initially pursuing training at the American University, I completed the majority of my studies in London, England, at St. Thomas & Guy’s Hospital.”
Nesheiwat’s nomination has been heavily criticized by Trump supporters from the far-right, including Dr Simone Gold, an emergency physician who entered the Capitol on January 6 2021, and told Trump supporters not to take “an experimental biological agent deceptively named a vaccine”. On social media, Gold complained that Nesheiwat had urged Americans to wear masks during the pandemic, said the vaccine was “safe and effective”, and praised Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg for cracking down on misinformation about the pandemic. “Is she Dr. Fauci 2.0?” Gold asked.
Trump’s confidante, the Islamophobic, 9/11 truther Laura Loomer campaigned against Nesheiwat on social media, writing on Sunday that her “promotion of DEI-focused initiatives” and “her advocacy for the China Virus ‘vaccine’” made her “unfit for the role of United States Surgeon General”.
If Nesheiwat’s nomination has been withdrawn, it will be the second time in a week Trump has lost confidence in her family. Her older sister, Julia, a homeland security adviser to Trump during his first term who also served in the Obama administration, is married to Mike Waltz, Trump’s now former national security adviser.
FBI director, Kash Patel, testified before a House appropriation subcommittee today, where he dodged questions about whether he would fire more agents who had investigated the January 6 insurrection.
“Do you anticipate firing any additional employees that may have worked in relation to the January 6 investigations?” asked congresswoman Grace Meng, the top Democrat on the panel, which held a hearing with Patel on the FBI’s budget request.
“The only way you get fired from the FBI while I’m the director is if you violate the ethical guidelines or break the law,” Patel replied.
A longtime defender of Trump and critic of the alleged “deep state” he claims worked against the president during the first term, Patel narrowly won Senate confirmation to lead the federal law enforcement agency in February. He took office weeks after the agency’s interim director disclosed that he had been directed to fire eight senior leaders, and compile a list of all agents who had worked on January 6 cases, prompting a lawsuit to stop the list’s creation and sharing.
Asked about the list in the hearing, Patel said: “That email or memo was sent out prior to my arrival at the FBI. We have not addressed that specific email since I’ve arrived because the matter’s in litigation in federal court.”
The vice-president JD Vance struck a far more soft, conciliatory tone towards Europe at the Munich leaders meeting in DC this morning than he did in February this year – he even joked about thinking he might not be invited back after that. This time, Vance repeatedly emphasized that the US and Europe are “real friends” who are “on the same team” – and said that things had simply “got off track, and I’d encourage us all to get back on track together”. He did stress that the US wants Europe to be “self-sufficient” and to see 5% spending on defense, and he also pressed the EU to lower tariffs and regulatory barriers, and to open the door to US weapons.
Vance’s only harsh words were saved for Russia. Russia, he said, was “asking for too much” in its peace offer, and said the US is focused on a long-term ceasefire. The Trump administration wants Russia and Ukraine to move towards direct talks with each other as the next step towards peace, he said. On Iran, Vance said “so far so good” on nuclear talks, and said Iran should be allowed a “civil nuclear program” but not a “nuclear weapons program”. “So far we’re on the right pathway,” he said.
Elsewhere
In his first interview since leaving the White House in January, Joe Biden accused Trump of “modern-day appeasement” in his approach to Russia, and said it’s “foolish” to believe Vladimir Putin will stop the violence if he is handed over parts of Ukraine. He also condemned Trump’s aggressive talk toward Panama, Greenland and Canada. “What the hell’s going on here?” he asked. “What president ever talks like that? That’s not who we are. We’re about freedom, democracy, opportunity — not about confiscation.” Story here.
The Federal Reserve kept interest rates on hold as questions around the global economic outlook mount amid Trump’s erratic rollout of an aggressive trade strategy. Policymakers at the US central bank cautioned that “the risks of higher unemployment and higher inflation have risen” as they opted to maintain the benchmark interest rate for the third time in a row. Story here.
Trump said there would be more information in the next day on a potential new proposal for a hostage release deal and ceasefire in Gaza. “A lot of talk going on about Gaza right now,” Trump told reporters at the White House today. “You’ll be knowing probably in the next 24 hours.”
The Danish foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, said he would summon the acting US ambassador to Denmark after the WSJ (paywall) reported the Trump administration ordered US intelligence agencies to step up surveillance on Greenland. “I have read the article … and it worries me greatly because we do not spy on friends,” Rasmussen told reporters. “We are going to call in the US acting ambassador for a discussion at the foreign ministry to see if we can confirm this information, which is somewhat disturbing,” Rasmussen added. Story here.
A federal appeals court granted a judge’s order to bring Turkish Tufts University student, Rümeysa Öztürk, from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New England for hearings to determine whether her rights were violated. Story here.
The upcoming face-to-face meeting in Geneva this weekend between US treasury secretary Scott Bessent and his China counterpart He Lifeng was requested by the Trump administration, Chinese officials said. Bessent had earlier suggested it was the other way around. Asked about it Trump said: “They said we initiated it? Well I think they should go back and study their files.”
A hard-right, Trump-supporting US news network that perpetuated conspiracy theories about the 2020 election will provide news coverage for Voice of America (VoA), the Trump administration said. The move that OAN, which many see as a pro-Trump propaganda outfit, will provide content for VoA, which has traditionally been a more politically neutral news source, will spur further fears about Trump’s crackdown on the press. Story here.
The US National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have partnered to research the causes of the autism spectrum disorder, creating a database of autism-diagnosed people enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid. “We’re using this partnership to uncover the root causes of autism and other chronic diseases,” HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr said in a statement. “We’re pulling back the curtain—with full transparency and accountability—to deliver the honest answers families have waited far too long to hear.”
The Trump administration is poised to kill federal research into pollution from satellites and rockets, including some caused by Elon Musk’s space companies, raising new conflict-of-interest questions about the billionaire SpaceX and Starlink owner. Story here.
And finally, a fan of renaming gulfs, Trump plans to announce while on his trip to Saudi Arabia next week that the United States will now refer to the Persian Gulf as the “Arabian Gulf” or the “Gulf of Arabia”, none other than the Associated Press reports, citing two US officials. Iranian leaders said the move was “politically motivated”.
The Trump administration is considering exempting car seats, baby strollers, cribs and other essential items for transporting children from tariffs on China up to 145%, treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday.
Reuters reports that Bessent made the comments under questioning from Democratic representative Ayanna Pressley at a House financial services committee hearing that those exemptions were under consideration.
Pressley, of Massachusetts, noted that more than 3.5 million babies are born annually and almost all strollers are made in China. “Now that cost is going up,” she said.
In 2018, the Trump administration exempted some products produced in China from 25% tariffs including bicycle helmets and child-safety furniture such as car seats and playpens. However, car seat component parts, cribs, bassinets, diaper bags and wooden safety gates were not exempted.
Chris Peterson, the CEO of Newell Brands, the maker of Graco strollers, car seats and other children’s goods, said last week on an earnings call that approximately 97% of baby strollers and 87% of baby car seats in the US are sourced from China. The company has hiked prices of imported baby gear products by about 20% because of tariffs.
Peterson said the company has not priced in the latest 125% tariff hike and has temporarily halted shipments from China as it sells a few months of inventory.
“At some point, we will begin to run out of inventory. Retailers will begin to run out of inventory and we will turn back on reordering from China,” he said. “When that happens, because the whole industry sources from China, we would expect that we and the rest of the industry will take additional pricing to offset the tariff cost.”
The Federal Reserve kept interest rates on hold as questions around the global economic outlook mount amid Donald Trump’s erratic rollout of an aggressive trade strategy.
Policymakers at the US central bank cautioned that “the risks of higher unemployment and higher inflation have risen” as they opted to maintain the benchmark interest rate for the third time in a row.
“Uncertainty about the economic outlook has increased further,” they said in a statement.
The US president has repeatedly demanded in recent months that the Fed cuts rates – and even raised the prospect of firing Jerome Powell, its chairperson, before walking back the comments – as Trump’s tariffs plan appeared to knock the US economy.
The Fed has been sitting on its hands for months, however, citing heightened uncertainty. It last cut rates in December, to a range of between 4.25% and 4.5%.
As Trump pushed ahead last month with sweeping tariffs on imported goods from much of the world, Powell cautioned this would probably raise prices and slow growth – despite the administration’s pledges to revitalize the US economy and reduce the cost of living for millions of Americans.
Trump was also just asked about the comments I just reported from China that the US initiated this weekend’s upcoming trade meetings in Switzerland, to which he replied:
They said we initiated it? Well I think they should go back and study their files.
Donald Trump said there would be more information in the next day on a potential new proposal for a hostage release deal and ceasefire in Gaza.
“A lot of talk going on about Gaza right now,” Trump told reporters at the White House today. “You’ll be knowing probably in the next 24 hours.”
The upcoming face-to-face meeting in Geneva this weekend between US treasury secretary Scott Bessent and his China counterpart He Lifeng was requested by the Trump administration, Chinese officials have said.
“The US said repeatedly it wants to negotiate with China. This meeting is requested by the US side,” said the foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian, at his regular press conference on Wednesday.
China will be entering the talks “firmly” opposed to tariffs, Lin said in a post on X. “Meanwhile, China is open to dialogue, but any dialogue must be based on equality, respect and mutual benefit.”
His comments contradict Bessent’s earlier claims that the high-stakes meeting was taking place in Switzerland by coincidence. “I was going to be in Switzerland to negotiate with the Swiss,” he said in an interview on Fox News. “Turns out the Chinese team is traveling through Europe, and they will be in Switzerland also. So we will meet on Saturday and Sunday.” China, meanwhile, had said He was going to be in Switzerland at the invitation of the Swiss government.
In the last few weeks China has repeatedly denied that it has proactively reached out to the Trump administration to propose trade talks. Instead, Chinese officials said the country was evaluating the possibility of starting trade negotiations with the US after senior US officials reached out “through relevant parties multiple times” hoping to start tariff negotiations.
A hard-right, Trump-supporting US news network that perpetuated conspiracy theories about the 2020 election will provide news coverage for Voice of America (VoA), the Trump administration said.
Kari Lake, a special adviser to the body that oversees the government-funded VoA, announced on X that One America News (OAN), which was sued by voting machine companies for promoting claims of election fraud, will provide “newsfeed and video service”.
“Every day I look for ways to save American taxpayers money. Bringing in OAN as a video/news source does both,” Lake said. “OAN is one of the few family-owned American media networks left in the United States. We are grateful for their generosity.”
The news that OAN, which many see as a pro-Trump propaganda outfit, will provide content for VoA, which has traditionally been a more politically neutral news source, is a move that will spur further fears about Donald Trump’s crackdown on the press.
OAN, which spread conspiracy theories about the coronavirus epidemic, almost exclusively interviews Republican politicians and rightwing voices, including this week the founder of an organization that denies the existence of the climate crisis.
A federal judge in Florida has used a routine court filing to lament the exodus of attorneys from the justice department.
US district judge Donald Middlebrooks of the middle district of Florida made the comments after four justice department attorneys all informed the court they would be withdrawing from the case because they were leaving the department. Usually, judges grant such requests without much fanfare.
But Middlebrooks took the opportunity to call out the lawyers.
“This case was expertly litigated by a team of lawyers from the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, specifically the Disability Rights Section. Now it appears that multiple members of that team are ending their tenure with the Department,” wrote Middlebrooks, who was appointed to the federal bench by Bill Clinton. “I will grant the Motions to Withdraw, but I do so with disappointment that capable litigators and dedicated public servants have felt moved to leave their positions with the Department of Justice.”
He went on to “commend” the lawyers for “the extraordinary efforts they took in arguing these important issues and granted their request to withdraw.
More than 250 lawyers have left or are planning to leave the civil rights division, a flood of departures that amounts to about a 70% reduction in personnel. The head of the division, a political appointee, has made it clear in new “mission statements” to each of the sections that their longstanding priorities will shift to more closely align with the president’s priorities.
Former and current employees have said that the reduction in personnel makes it virtually impossible for the division to enforce civil rights laws.
A federal appeals court on Wednesday granted a judge’s order to bring Turkish Tufts University student, Rümeysa Öztürk, from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New England for hearings to determine whether her rights were violated.
A judicial panel of the New York-based US second circuit court of appeals ruled in the case after lawyers representing her and the US justice department presented arguments at a hearing on Tuesday.
Öztürk has been detained in Louisiana for six weeks following an op-ed she cowrote last year that criticized the school’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza. The court ordered her to be transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody in Vermont no later than 14 May.
A district court judge in Vermont had earlier ordered that the 30-year-old doctoral student be brought to the state for hearings to determine whether she was illegally detained. Öztürk’s lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process.
The justice department, which appealed that ruling, said that an immigration court in Louisiana has jurisdiction over her case.
Robert Tait and Miranda Bryant
The Danish foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, has said he would call in the acting US ambassador to Denmark after the Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported the Trump administration ordered US intelligence agencies to step up surveillance on Greenland.
“I have read the article in the Wall Street Journal and it worries me greatly because we do not spy on friends,” Rasmussen told reporters during an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Warsaw on Wednesday.
“We are going to call in the US acting ambassador for a discussion at the foreign ministry to see if we can confirm this information, which is somewhat disturbing,” Rasmussen added.
The WSJ report, published last night, said high-ranking officials working under Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, issued the instruction to agency heads in a “collection emphasis message”. Such messages customarily help to set intelligence priorities and direct resources and attention to high-interest targets.
The Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency were all included in the message. It told chiefs to study Greenland’s independence movement and attitudes to American efforts to extract resources on the island, according to the report, citing two unnamed officials familiar with the matter.
The move, which will further alarm Denmark and Europe, underlines the seriousness of Trump’s intent to increase US influence over Greenland. Just last weekend, he refused to rule out using military force to gain control of the island. Denmark, a US ally and Nato member, has repeatedly vowed that Greenland is not available for sale or annexation.
Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo and Edward Helmore in New York
The Trump administration is planning to deport a group of migrants to Libya, according to reports, despite the state department’s previous condemnation of the “life-threatening” prison conditions in the country. Libya’s provisional government has denied the reports.
Reuters cited three unnamed US officials as saying the deportations could happen this week. Two of the officials said the individuals, whose nationalities are not known, could fly to Libya as soon as Wednesday, but they added the plans could still change. The New York Times also cited a US official confirming the deportation plans. It was not clear what Libya would be getting in return for taking any deportees.
Human rights groups condemned the reported plans, noting the country’s poor record on human rights practices and harsh treatment of detainees. Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn), wrote on X:
Migrants have long been trafficked, tortured and ransomed in Libya. The country is in a civil war. It is not a safe place to send anyone.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote on the platform alongside a picture of a Libyan detention facility:
Don’t look away. This is what Libya’s migrant detention facilities look like. This is what Trump is doing.
Amnesty International called these places a ‘hellscape’ where beatings are common and sexual violence are rampant. There are reports of human trafficking and even slavery.
It comes as the Trump administration expands its aggressive efforts to negotiate the swift deportations of migrants to third-party countries which, as well as Libya, includes Angola, Benin, Eswatini, Moldova and Rwanda, as reported by CBS News and Reuters earlier this week. This is alongside its existing arrangement with El Salvador, which it has paid millions to detain hundreds of migrants in its notorious mega-prison.
US customers could face higher energy bills amid reports that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to end the Energy Star program whose blue labels have certified energy efficiency on home appliances for more than 30 years, experts warn.
“If you wanted to raise families’ energy bills, getting rid of the Energy Star label would be a pretty good way,” said Steven Nadel, executive director of the non-profit research organization the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).
The reports of Energy Star’s elimination come after Donald Trump has railed against showers and toilets that conserve water. In April, he signed an executive order to “restore shower freedom”.
The New York Times reported that staff were told: “The Energy Star program and all the other climate work, outside of what’s required by statute, is being de-prioritized and eliminated.”
President Donald Trump accused the US courts of preventing him from deporting “murders and other criminals” in a post on Truth Social.
“Our Court System is not letting me do the job I was Elected to do. Activist judges must let the Trump Administration deport murderers, and other criminals who have come into our Country illegally, WITHOUT DELAY!!!” the president wrote.
Recent reports have revealed the intentions of the Trump administration to deport immigrants to more countries other than the one designated as the immigrant’s country of origin, also called third-country deportations.
The US National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have partnered to research the causes of the autism spectrum disorder, creating a database of autism-diagnosed people enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid, the agencies announced today.
The partnership will “focus first on enabling research around the root causes of autism spectrum disorder” in order to help NIH build a real-world data platform using claims data, electronic medical records, and wearable consumer health-monitoring devices. The agencies said the project will comply with applicable privacy laws.
“We’re using this partnership to uncover the root causes of autism and other chronic diseases,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr said in a statement. “We’re pulling back the curtain—with full transparency and accountability—to deliver the honest answers families have waited far too long to hear.”
The Trump administration’s health department has already faced backlash for this project following the announcement that the NIH would be collecting the private medical records of many Americans from several different federal and commercial databases.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the upcoming meeting with Chinese officials on trade set to begin on Saturday as “negotiations.” He added that Peter Navarro, the White House trade adviser, will not be joining him and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer at the discussions in Switzerland. He also declined to say which countries are close to reaching trade agreements with the US.
When asked during today’s House Financial Services Committee hearing whether discussions with China were considered advanced, Bessent replied: “I said, on Saturday, we will begin, which I believe is the opposite of advanced.”
After Wolfgang Ischinger thanks Vance and says he hopes he will come back to the Munich Security Conference again, the vice-president jokes:
I appreciate the invitation back. I wasn’t sure after February whether I’d get the invitation back, but it’s good to know that it’s still there.
Ischinger lightly interjects “we thought about it”, to which they both laugh.
Vance also congratulates Friedrich Merz after the conservative leader was elected German chancellor.
I know that we’ll have a conversation with him in the next couple of days.
Vance goes on to say that what he said in his February speech “applied as much to the previous American administration as much as it did to any government in Europe”.
In stark contrast to the tone of his February speech – as this whole Q&A session has been – Vance says he means “from the heart and as a friend” that “there’s a tradeoff between policing the bounds of democratic speech and debate, and losing the trust of our people”.
He says he accepts and understands that “some things are outside the realm of political debate” and every country will draw those lines slightly differently.
“We have to be careful that we don’t draw the lines in such a way that we don’t undermine democratic legitimacy,” he says.
It’s not: Europe bad, America good. It’s that I think we got a little bit off track, and I’d encourage us all to get back on track together. We’re certainly willing and able to participate in that work and I hope all of you are too.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
