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    Remote Wyoming vacation lodge emerges as haven for US ‘dissident’ right

    A vacation lodge known as the Wagon Box Inn in the tiny town of Story, Wyoming, has emerged as an unlikely hub of rightwing ambitions to reorient US politics and culture.Events held there since it opened, and others planned for this spring, have brought together figures from the so-called “dissident right”, political figures backed by reactionary currents in Silicon Valley, and proponents of the “network state” movement.The dissident right is a term that describes rightwing intellectual currents that go beyond and even attack mainstream conservatives for their perceived concessions to liberals on issues like race, feminism and LGBTQ+ rights. Network state proponents envision a network of extra-national communities that exist beyond the control of nation-states.The Guardian contacted the Wagon Box founder and owner Paul McNiel for comment. He did not respond directly but instead posted a screenshot of the request to X appended with commentary.There, McNiel said he was driven by “good-faith curiosity” that events there had been “largely focused on a suspicion of ‘the machine’” and boasted of the “breadth of the politics represented”, citing appearances by the likes of Patrick Deneen and Seneca Scott.Deneen is a Notre Dame professor and conservative political theorist whose 2023 book Regime Change “offered a preview of the Trump administration’s intention to breathe fire on America’s cultural institutions” whose fans include JD Vance, the vice-president.Scott, who McNiel described as a “90s Democrat who wants a safe community for his family and goats”, is a former union organizer based in Oakland, California, whose activism, political campaigning and social media output have targeted transgender people, homeless encampments, local media organizations, progressive politicians and city employees.‘Liberalism is crumbling’Sheridan county property records indicate that Paul McNiel bought the property that includes the Wagon Box – formerly a holiday destination and RV park – in August 2022.Property records, satellite imagery, and media posted on social media platforms and on the Wagon Box website indicate a semi-rural location on the western fringes of Story.Since McNiel took control of the property, it has played host to a string of events, many of them featuring figures associated with overlapping rightwing movements.The project has drawn concerns in local media, but garnered a laudatory write-up in the Bari Weiss-founded Free Press. Free Press investors include rightwing tech figures like Marc Andreessen and Trump administration “crytpo czar” David Sacks.McNiel – billed as a millionaire in an appearance on a real estate investment podcast in 2021 – is the principal of a legion of LLCs, according to company records in Alaska, Wyoming, Montana and North Carolina.View image in fullscreenProperty records and data brokers indicate that McNiel or LLCs controlled by him have bought and sold dozens of properties – many of them trailer parks or similar sites for low-cost housing – in at least three states.According to founding documents on its website, Wagon Box is run as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), a term for organizations managed in part via decentralized technologies like blockchains and smart contracts.A 2021 Wyoming law allows DAOs to incorporate in the state, despite their often anonymous ownership structure. The sparsely populated state is notorious for a “cowboy cocktail” of loose financial regulations and opaque company ownership.“We’re not northern Idaho or even Montana. We’ve so far managed to not attract the crazy far right to our state,” said Elizabeth Storer, a Democratic state representative from Jackson who has spoken critically of Wyoming’s libertarian financial laws and opacity.“We’ve allowed just about anyone to come into Wyoming because of our low tax environment, our limited liability corporation laws and the use of registered agents all over the state – it allows people to offshore funds in Wyoming with a great deal of secrecy,” she added.The current version of a document explaining the DAO aligns the project with the network state movement, claiming that “the grand project of liberalism is crumbling, and that in its wake people are looking for new avenues of allegiance and interdependence”.The document continues “Balaji Srinivasan, among others, has identified this shift and suggested a process for uniting modern technologies with ancient human trends of association to createnetwork states”, providing a link to Srinivasan’s self-published 2022 book of the same name.Reverse diasporasSrinavisan is an entrepreneur and investor formerly associated with companies including Andreessen-Horowitz and Coinbase. (That company’s current CEO, Brian Armstrong, is another outspoken booster of network states).For more than a decade, Srinivasan has advocated a radical anarcho-capitalist vision in which like-minded people can “exit” and place themselves beyond the legal and economic reach of nation-states in parallel, networked special economic zones.His ideas are often couched in vituperative attacks on his perceived enemies, including academics, government employees and the media.As early as 2013, Srinavisan was advocating a “reverse diaspora” in which people enabled by technology could assemble in “cloud cities … outside the United States”. These “could be floating cities in international waters as put forth by Peter Thiel, or one of the more ambitious 80,000 person colonies on Mars desired by Elon Musk”.Soon after, in response to reporting linking Silicon Valley figures to the anti-democratic neo-reactionary movement and its leading light, Curtis Yarvin, Srinavasan reportedly emailed Yarvin with the suggestion that “it may be interesting to sic the Dark Enlightenment audience on a single vulnerable hostile reporter to dox them and turn them inside out”.He later cited Yarvin in The Network State, writing: “As Yarvin in particular has documented at length, the most important left-authoritarians are not formally part of the elected state at all. They are the professors, activists, bureaucrats, and journalists.”He describes people in these fields as constituting “the control circuitry for the US government”.Last September, he opened a residential network school for would-be builders of network nations, reportedly located in Malaysia’s Forest City, whose “requirements include an admiration of ‘western values’, seeing Bitcoin as the successor to the US Federal Reserve, and trusting AI over human courts and judges”.View image in fullscreenThe network state vision has already inspired an attempt to build a city, California Forever, in rural Solano county, with investors including Andreessen and the LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. Network state advocates also reportedly want to construct a similar “charter city” in Greenland if it is annexed by the United States.Donald Trump has floated the idea of creating 10 such “freedom cities” on federal land, including San Francisco’s Presidio.The movement also overlaps with efforts to mount a rightwing takeover of city governments in San Francisco and Oakland, with the likes of the Y Combinator CEO, Garry Tan, backing both projects.Srinivasan has offered lurid fantasies of what a tech-controlled San Francisco might look like. In an October 2023 podcast interview, he envisioned a city controlled by tech-aligned “grays” enjoying privileged access to large parts of the city, bribing a pliant police department, and with “blues” – San Francisco’s liberals – subject to exclusion and hostile propaganda.Devin Burghart, the executive director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Righs and a longtime observer of far-right organizing in the mountain west, told the Guardian in an interview that the Wagon Box was significant for being one of the first real-world attempts at constructing a “network state” hub beyond California.“They’ve tipped their hand a bit with the constant references to [accelerationist theorist] Nick Land and Italian futurism. This is a different veneer of the apocalyptic, post-democratic world view that is also quite common with militia and prepper types.”The Wagon Box reportedly attracted immediate scepticism from residents of tiny unincorporated Story in the months following its establishment.Attenders at a 2023 public meeting reportedly expressed concerns both about the draft DAO document’s vision of “‘capital seed for a nascent network state’ and … a place for either gatherings or apocalyptic retreat”, and McNiel’s association with the notorious anti-government activist Ryan Payne.In 2018, Payne was sentenced to federal prison on conspiracy charges after playing the role of, according to a federal judge, “an architect” of the 2016 Malheur national wildlife refuge occupation, in which he participated alongside the likes of the current fugitive Ammon Bundy.‘A criminal regime’Wagon Box has hosted a series of events since McNiel’s acquisition, many with guests and themes associated with the far right.The 27 April event, Dawn in the West: A Futurist Serata (DitW) was subtitled “An UncleTed Talk”, a reference both to Ted talks and a nickname for the so-called Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski.Advertising materials highlighted themes including the work of Land, who, alongside Yarvin, is one of the progenitors of the neo-reactionary movement, whose anti-democratic ideas have been cited as an inspiration for the Trump administration’s gutting of the federal government.Another advertised speaker at that event was Jonathan Keeperman. The Guardian identified Keeperman in 2024 as the man behind the L0m3z X account and rightwing publisher Passage Press.Keeperman-founded Passage Press is also listed as a participant in Wagon Box’s 31 May roundtable Coalition for Cultural Renewal (CCR).The schedule for a Wagon Box event last August promised a conversation between Keeperman and the journalist James Pogue on “the failure of liberalism and globalization”.Pogue has written extensively about the new right for media outlets including the New York Times and Vanity Fair.In a post at the Wagon Box’s Substack newsletter, Pogue and McNiel are pictured together in a photograph purportedly taken inside the Passage-Press-sponsored Coronation Ball in Washington this January, and described in a caption as “Wagon Box brothers”.Keeperman is one of the overlaps between Wagon Box and a broader far-right milieu.Keeperman, for example, spoke last month at a pro-natalist conference in Austin, Texas, whose speaker roster included self-described eugenicists and promoters of race science.At the event, in response to a small protest on site, Keeperman took to X, posting: “NATALISM IS NAZISM Say it loud say it proud.”Balaji Srinivasan spoke at the same conference in 2023.The Natalism conference founder, Kevin Dolan, is listed in Texas company records as the principal of a natalism.org non-profit; a newly incorporated Eternal Capital Texas Inc; and Exit, a men-only organization which he characterized in a Substack newsletter as a rightwing business network which is “not just about making life in the regime more tolerable … setting ourselves up to succeed as it declines”.He founded that organization following Guardian reporting in 2021 that identified him as the man behind an influential “DezNat” account, “@extradeadjcb”.Exit is billed as a participant in Wagon Box’s CCR event, which will include other far-right publishers , along with Murphy’s Other Life and hard-right online magazine IM-1776.The Guardian previously reported on IM-1776’s support of authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele; its enthusiasm for extremist political figures such as Gabriele D’Annunzio and Kaczynski; and its close links with contemporary hard-right activists like the culture warrior Christopher Rufo, Erik Prince and would-be “warlord” Charles Haywood.IM-1776’s literary editor, Daniel Miller, is a speaker at DitW, and in YouTube videos posted to Wagon Box’s channel he is characterized as a writer-in-residence.In a January article for IM-1776, Miller called for Donald Trump to overthrow the government of the UK led by Keir Starmer and “liberate” the country, saying it was run by “a criminal regime” dominated by “a mafia-like organization of pathological personalities”, a necessity “as clear as the imperative of the Vietnamese to invade Cambodia and remove the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979”.Miller did not respond to a request for comment.The Oakland connectionEvents this spring also bill speakers associated with a tech-backed hard-right political movement in California’s Bay Area.Scott – who has run both for city council and mayor in Oakland – is set to appear at the Doomer Optimism Campout in June.Scott’s political activities in Oakland – including the candidacies and his advocacy for the recall of former mayor Sheng Thao last year – have been punctuated by scandals.During his 2022 campaign media reports revealed a 2021 arrest on charges of brandishing a firearm, in an incident that took place not far from the community garden he founded in West Oakland. Those charges were later dismissed.Last December, the city of Oakland applied for a restraining order against Scott over his alleged harassment of a city worker during the recall campaign. Among other things, Scott reportedly claimed that the employee was a pedophile on social media and posted their address publicly. In a February settlement, Scott agreed to stop posting personal information about the employee online.View image in fullscreenScott has received backing from rightwing tech figures including Tan, who, like Scott, has agitated against progressive approaches to homelessness and law and order, and employed bareknuckle social-media posting to promote his views.“If you want Oakland to be great then you will follow and support Seneca,” Tan wrote on X last year.In Oakland, Scott has drawn scrutiny for anti-transgender commentary and attacks on progressive voices in politics and media.Scott appeared at another Wagon Box event in summer 2024 in conversation about “Cities: urban agriculture, crime, and criminal justice reform”.Pogue also appeared alongside Scott at his community garden in a 2023 event hosted by a Scott-run non-profit, Neighbors Together Oakland, that was last year shuttered by California’s attorney general last year for conducting fundraising without a non-profit license.In an interview with Free Press in 2023, Scott had said he planned to use that non-profit as a platform to support “100 nontraditional candidates” for city councils, school boards, and potentially higher offices across the US.Another Doomer Optimism Campout speaker is Andrew Hock, a Tennessee political consultant who was reportedly involved with an alleged attempt to facilitate anonymous donations in support of the recall of Mayor Thao.Questions about Foundational Oakland Unite’s fundraising came amid a flood of campaign money into pro-recall groups, much of it from big-money donors. As previously reported in the Guardian, deep-pocketed tech figures have been involved in attempts to drag politics to the right in Oakland and San Francisco.In April, 2024 the Thao recall campaign sent an email to prospective donors offering “options for donors to remain private if you prefer”. Oakland city law forbids anonymous donations to political candidates. The message included an email address for Andrew Hock at Foundational Oakland Unites, a political action committee founded by Scott, as the main point of contact for donations.According to 2024 reporting by the Oaklandside, Scott previously employed Hock as a paid campaign consultant during his 2022 mayoral campaign.Scott claims to be a part-owner of Hock’s campaign consultant group, Laschian Consulting. In an April 17 post to X, Scott claimed that Laschian Consulting “has planted its flag and is already in talks to help other major US cities fight back against the soggies and their anti-human agenda”, using a self-coined derogatory term to refer to social democrats.“If your city is spiraling due to failed progressive policies and a coordinated NGO + public sector union takeover, give us a call. Maybe we can help you save your city too.”In January, Thao, the recalled mayor, was herself federally indicted over allegations including that she solicited political donations in violation of campaign finance laws.The alleged straw donor campaign for Thao was uncovered by Oakland’s Public Ethics Commission in an investigation that began half a decade ago. Though the PEC did not make a criminal referral, FBI white-collar crime investigators in Oakland picked up the thread and built their own criminal case independently.The PEC’s budget was slashed earlier this year amid a citywide fiscal crisis, severely impacting its ability to complete ongoing investigations.Hock did not respond to requests for comment. More

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    Record number of Americans seeking UK residency, says Home Office

    During the 12 months leading up to March, more than 6,000 US citizens have applied to either become British subjects or to live and work in the country indefinitely – the highest number since comparable records began in 2004, according to data released on Thursday by the UK’s Home Office.Over the period, 6,618 Americans applied for British citizenship – with more than 1,900 of the applications received between January and March, most of which has been during the beginning of Donald Trump’s second US presidency.The surge in applications at the start of 2025 made that the highest number for any quarter on record.The figures come as British authorities under a Labour government are trying to reduce immigration to the UK, with Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, vowing to take “back control of our borders” and warning that uncontrolled immigration could result in the country “becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together”.UK figures show net migration dropped by almost half in 2024 – to 431,000 – compared with 2023.The surge in US applications for UK residency comes as American immigration lawyers say they are receiving an increasing number of inquiries. Some are pointing to the polarized political climate in the Trump-led country, which itself is mounting an aggressive immigration-related crackdown.Muhunthan Paramesvaran, an immigration lawyer at Wilsons Solicitors in London, told the New York Times that inquiries had risen “in the immediate aftermath of the election and the various pronouncements that were made”.“There’s definitely been an uptick in inquiries from US nationals,” Paramesvaran told the outlet. “People who were already here may have been thinking: ‘I want the option of dual citizenship in the event that I don’t want to go back to the US.’”Zeena Luchowa, a partner at Laura Devine Immigration, which specializes in US migration to the UK, was more explicit in pointing to the “political landscape” amid Trump’s government. Luchowa told the outlet that the rise was not limited to US nationals – but also other nationalities living there.“The queries we’re seeing are not necessarily about British citizenship – it’s more about seeking to relocate,” Luchowa said to the Times.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHowever, the increase in US applications to the UK may not necessarily reflect political conditions in either country. Of the 5,521 settlement applications from US citizens last year, most were from people who were eligible via spousal or family links.Paramesvaran said such applications were likely to climb because the UK government had extended the qualification period from five years to 10 before they could apply for settlement. But Labour government politicians have hinted that some applicants may be able to skirt those requirements.That echoes one aspect of Trump’s thinking in the US, where he has floated the idea of an immigration “gold card” – in essence, an extension of the EB-5 program that extends green cards to foreign investors and their families.The UK home secretary, Yvette Cooper, told parliament earlier in May that “there will be provisions to qualify more swiftly that take account of the contribution people have made” and said the British government “will introduce new, higher language requirements” because “the ability to speak English is integral to everyone’s ability to contribute and integrate”. More

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    Trump news at a glance: judge puts a stop to ban on Harvard’s foreign students – for now

    Harvard University’s foreign students have described an atmosphere of “fear on campus” after an attempt by the Trump administration to ban international scholars at the oldest university in the US.On Friday, a US federal judge put a temporary hold on the government’s order revoking the university’s right to enrol foreign students.But it is likely to have done little to quell “mass panic” among international students after Thursday’s shock announcement by the Department of Homeland Security.Here is the key Trump news of the day:Court blocks ban on Harvard accepting international studentsA federal judge on Friday blocked the government from revoking Harvard University’s ability to enrol foreign students just hours after the elite college sued the Trump administration over its abrupt ban the day before on enrolling foreign students.US district judge Allison Burroughs in Boston issued the temporary restraining order late on Friday morning, freezing the policy that had been abruptly imposed on the university, based in nearby Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Thursday.Read the full storyUS accused of trying to deport MS-13 leader as favour to El Salvador’s president Donald Trump’s administration is attempting to dismiss criminal charges against a top MS-13 leader in order to deport him to El Salvador, according to newly unsealed court records – igniting accusations from critics and the defendant’s legal team that the US president is trying to do a favour for his Salvadorian counterpart, who struck a deal with the gang in 2019.Read the full storyTrump to make drastic cuts to National Security Council – reportA large restructuring of the US national security council (NSC) got under way on Friday as Donald Trump moved to reduce the size and scope of the once-powerful agency, five sources briefed on the matter said.Staff dealing with a variety of major geopolitical issues were sent termination notices on Friday, said the sources, who requested anonymity as they were not permitted to speak to the media. The move comes just weeks after the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, took over from Mike Waltz as national security adviser. The NSC declined to comment.Read the full storyTrump says he is hitting EU with 50% tariffThe president has said he will impose a 50% tariff on all European Union imports to the US from 1 June after saying trade talks between the two trading blocs were “going nowhere”. In a surprise announcement, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that his long-running battle to secure concessions from the EU had run aground.Read the full storyPresident threatens 25% tariff on iPhonesTrump has threatened to impose a 25% tariff on iPhones if they are not made in the US, as he steps up the pressure on Apple to build its signature product in America.Read the full storyTrump backs ‘partnership’ of US Steel with Nippon SteelThe president has thrown his weight behind a “partnership” between US Steel and Nippon Steel, months after insisting he was “totally against” a $14.9bn bid by the Japanese firm for its US rival.While Trump stopped short of an all-out endorsement of the takeover, he announced a deal between the two businesses on social media on Friday.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

    The future queen of Belgium has completed her first year at Harvard, but a Trump administration ban on foreign students could threaten her return.

    A US judge on Friday overturned Donald Trump’s executive order targeting Jenner & Block, a big law firm that employed a lawyer who investigated him.

    The Pentagon announced on Friday that it had a new press secretary, Kingsley Wilson, who has repeatedly shared an antisemitic conspiracy theory promoted by neo-Nazis.

    Trump signed a series of executive orders on Friday intended to spur a “nuclear energy renaissance” through the construction of new reactors he said would satisfy the electricity demands of datacentres for artificial intelligence and other emerging industries.
    Catching up? Here’s what happened on 22 May 2025. More

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    Drastic cuts under way bending US national security council to Trump’s will

    The Trump administration started to dramatically overhaul the White House national security council on Friday, preparing to reassign hundreds of staff and consolidating power with aides trusted by the president, according to people familiar with the matter.The changes involved downsizing the NSC to about 150 from 300 staff and cutting a number of committees. Most NSC staff are drawn from other parts of the administration including the Pentagon and the state department, and were expected to be sent back to their home agencies.At the leadership level, the administration appointed the vice-president’s national security adviser Andy Baker and Donald Trump’s longtime policy aide Robert Gabriel to become dual-hatted as deputy national security advisers for the NSC, sources said.The restructuring of the NSC marked the first set of major changes to the White House’s national security coordinating body since Donald Trump last month replaced Mike Waltz as national security adviser with the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who is serving in both roles.It underscored how the NSC is set to be changed from a body that traditionally helped presidents formulate an overarching national security policy into one that implements ideas already held by the president.Trump advisers familiar with the dynamics noted that the addition of Baker and Gabriel, senior aides to JD Vance and Trump respectively, is likely to ensure the White House maintains significant control of the NSC even with Rubio as its titular head.They also suggested it would end the NSC’s traditional bottom-to-the-top approach, where staff filtered policy recommendations through multiple layers before they reached the cabinet level, since Baker and Gabriel are set to use the NSC to focus more on execution of their bosses’ views.In doing so, the new leadership may help solve the lingering problem of Trump’s second term NSC being left without an overarching strategy in the wake of Mike Waltz’s removal.The US strategy for the Russia-Ukraine conflict in particular had remained a work in progress, because Waltz wanted Trump to hit Vladimir Putin with deep, punitive sanctions if the Russian president failed to agree to a peace deal brokered by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.That recommendation from Waltz put him at odds with Trump and Vance, who have been more interested in finding ways to normalize relations with Moscow. With Vance’s top national security aide embedded into NSC leadership, implementing policy may be more straightforward.The abrupt nature of the personnel changes, which were communicated in a 4.20pm email sent by the NSC chief of staff, Brian McCormack, before the long Memorial Day weekend, means that some of the dismissals and restructurings are expected to drag on until next week, the sources said.Senior staff leaving the NSC include Alex Wong, who was the principal deputy to Mike Waltz; Eric Trager, who had been handling Middle East affairs; Andrew Peek, who had been handling Europe; and the communications team.The changes come three weeks after Waltz was pushed out in the wake of a series of controversies including mistakenly adding a journalist to a Signal group chat that shared sensitive information about US missile strikes in Yemen before they took place. More

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    Trump administration trying to dismiss MS-13 leader’s charges to deport him

    Donald Trump’s administration is attempting to dismiss criminal charges against a top MS-13 leader in order to deport him to El Salvador, according to newly unsealed court records – igniting accusations from critics and the defendant’s legal team that the US president is trying to do a favor for his Salvadorian counterpart, who struck a deal with the gang in 2019.According to justice department records, the MS-13 figure in question, Vladimir Antonio Arevalo-Chavez, has intimate knowledge of that secretive pact, which – before eventually falling apart – involved Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele’s government ceding money and territory to the gang, who in return promised to reduce violence from its side and provide Bukele’s party with electoral support.Attempts by the Trump administration to expel Arevalo-Chavez are part of its own deal with Bukele to allow for the US to incarcerate immigrants in a maximum security Salvadoran prison. CNN reported in April that Bukele’s government had specifically asked for nine top MS-13 leaders to be brought back to El Salvador from the US.Critics of Trump who are defending Arevalo-Chavez’s rights see the move to deport him as a way to prevent him from testifying in a US court, or becoming a federal government cooperator, to limit disclosures about Bukele’s past ties to the gang as much as possible.Arevalo-Chavez is a member of the “Ranfla Nacional”, which is considered to be a directors’ board of sorts for the MS-13 gang. Federal charges pending against him in New York include racketeering, terrorism and conspiring to commit narco-terrorism.A filing from the US justice department – dated 1 April but not unsealed until Thursday – said federal prosecutors want to dismiss charges against Arevalo-Chavez for “sensitive and important foreign policy considerations”.Prosecutors added that “geopolitical and national security concerns of the United States” and said permitting “the prosecution of the defendant to proceed in the first instance in El Salvador” was also a factor.Arevalo-Chavez is still in the US, with his attorneys requesting more information about the reasons behind the dismissal of charges and the intended deportation.The judge ruled in April to not relocate him anywhere, preventing his being placed into the custody of the US’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), which would lead to his deportation.“The ‘geopolitical and national security concerns’ appear to be an effort by the government to support a ‘deal’ with El Salvador to assist Bukele in suppressing the truth about a secret negotiation he had with MS-13 leaders in return for our government using El Salvador prisons,” Arevalo-Chavez’s attorneys said in a separate filing also unsealed on Thursday. That filing in particular mentioned the notorious Cecot prison built to house alleged gang members.The US attorney’s office for New York’s eastern federal district, where Arevalo-Chavez is being prosecuted, declined to comment Friday when asked by the Guardian. Arevalo-Chavez’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In mid-March, the US justice department quietly dismissed charges against another top Ranfla Nacional member and expelled him to El Salvador to be detained at Cecot, an acronym whose full name in Spanish means “the terrorism confinement center”. That other Ranfla leader, Cesar Humberto López-Larios, was facing similar charges in New York and also reportedly had insight about the deal Bukele previously struck with the gang.“This is collusion between two governments, the US and El Salvador, to cover up a gang pact by dropping charges on known gangsters in order to disappear them before they can testify,” said political science professor Michael Ahn Paarlberg at Virginia Commonwealth University. “It’s a criminal conspiracy between the Trump and Bukele administrations.“The irony is both of them claim to be tough on crime.”According to a justice department indictment, in 2019, the MS-13 leadership forged a pact with top Bukele administration officials. El Faro, a Salvadoran news organization, first reported on secretive meetings during which Bukele officials would enter prisons in El Salvador to negotiate directly with the Ranfla leaders.As part of the deal, MS-13 would receive certain money- and land-related concessions while agreeing to reduce the amount of violence they inflicted in El Salvador. Additionally, some top MS-13 leaders were released from prison – and the gang promised to leverage its networks to support Bukele’s political party in the 2021 legislative elections, according to prosecutors.The pact purportedly collapsed in 2022, leading Bukele to engage in a massive offensive against gangs in the country. Critics say that so-called state of exception crackdown led to a trampling of due process and human rights in the Central American nation – while also allowing Bukele to further consolidate power there.For years, Bukele has attempted to suppress any evidence of his ties to MS-13 by either attempting to recapture Ranfla leaders or by ignoring US extradition requests.US federal law enforcement agencies have long pursued MS-13’s criminal networks. In 2020 and in 2022, two separate federal indictments in New York charging 27 leaders of the gang were handed up and unsealed.In 2021, the US treasury department sanctioned two top Bukele officials for their alleged “corruption”, saying they engaged in “covert negotiations between government officials and the criminal organization” in order to secure the secret pact with MS-13. The treasury department also alleged that Bukele’s administration in 2020 provided financial incentives to MS-13 to reduce gang violence in exchange for “political support”.Arevalo-Chavez, one of the co-defendants in the 2022 indictment, had “participated in negotiations with the government of El Salvador on behalf of MS-13”, said the justice department, then controlled by Joe Biden’s presidential administration. Arevalo-Chavez left El Salvador and went to Mexico, where he helped run the gang’s operations there.The Mexican government arrested Arevalo-Chavez in February 2023 and quickly transferred him to the US, where the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) took custody. He is in custody in a federal detention facility while his case proceeds.Relations between El Salvador and the US have improved since Trump took office. In 2021, tensions between Biden officials and the Bukele government flared when, despite an international arrest warrant and extradition request, Salvadoran officials quietly released Ranfla Nacional leader Elmer Canales-Rivera from prison. US prosecutors alleged in a 2023 letter that he was personally escorted out of prison by a high-level Bukele official, given a firearm and driven to the Guatemalan border for his escape.The Bukele administration then attempted to recapture Canales-Rivera. According to reporting from El Faro, Bukele’s government discussed a plan to pay a Mexican cartel to find Canales-Rivera and return him to El Salvador. The Mexican government found him first, arrested him, and expelled him to the US in November 2023.Eight Ranfla Nacional leaders remained in US custody after López-Larios one was expelled in March. Two of them pleaded guilty earlier this year. More

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    US judge overturns Trump order targeting major law firm Jenner & Block

    A US judge on Friday overturned Donald Trump’s executive order targeting Jenner & Block, a big law firm that employed a lawyer who investigated him.Trump’s executive order, called Addressing Risks from Jenner & Block, suspended security clearances for the firm’s lawyers and restricted their access to government buildings, officials and federal contracting work.Trump accused the law firm of engaging in activities that “undermine justice and the interests of the United States”, claiming that it participated in politically driven legal actions. In the executive order, Trump specifically criticized the firm for hiring Andrew Weissmann, an attorney who worked on Robert Mueller’s investigation into allegations of Russian influence in Trump’s 2016 campaign.The firm sued to block Trump’s order, arguing it violated the constitution’s first and fifth amendments.US district judge John D Bates ruled on Friday that Trump’s directive violated core rights under the US constitution, mirroring a 2 May ruling that struck down a similar executive order against law firm Perkins Coie.Bates did not mince words when calling a Trump executive order unconstitutional, which sought to target Jenner & Block.Trump’s order, Bates wrote, “makes no bones about why it chose its target: it picked Jenner because of the causes Jenner champions, the clients Jenner represents, and a lawyer Jenner once employed”.“Going after law firms in this way is doubly violative of the constitution,” Bates said.The justice department and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The administration can appeal Bates’ order to the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit.Trump signed an executive order in March, targeting Jenner & Block by suspending security clearances and restricting their access to government buildings, officials and federal contracting work. This was, Trump claimed, because of politically motivated “lawfare” the firm engaged in.By attempting to push forward this executive order, Trump attempted to “chill legal representation the administration doesn’t like, thereby insulating the executive branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers”.Bates added that the Trump executive orders against law firms “follow the same recipe: other than personalized touches in their first sections, they generally direct the same adverse actions towards each firm and decry the threat each firm poses to national security and the national interest”.Bates was appointed to the District of Columbia in 2001 by George W Bush. He blocked Trump’s executive order completely.Apart from Jenner and Perkins Coie, two other firms – WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey – have sued the Trump administration to permanently block executive orders he issued against them.Nine law firms, including Paul Weiss, Milbank, Simpson Thacher and Skadden Arps, have pledged nearly $1bn in free legal services to causes the White House supports and made other concessions to avoid being targeted by Trump.The justice department has defended Trump’s executive orders against Jenner and other law firms as consistent with the broad reach of presidential authority.Reuters contributed reporting More

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    Judge blocks Trump executive order targeting law firm linked to Robert Mueller – US politics live

    A US judge on Friday overturned a Trump executive order targeting Jenner & Block, a big law firm that employed a lawyer who investigated him.Trump’s executive order, called Addressing Risks from Jenner & Block, suspended security clearances for the firm’s lawyers and restricted their access to government buildings, officials and federal contracting work.Trump accused the law firm of engaging in activities that “undermine justice and the interests of the United States”, claiming that it participated in politically driven legal actions. In the executive order, Trump specifically criticized the firm for hiring Andrew Weissmann, an attorney who worked on Robert Mueller’s investigation into allegations of Russian influence in Trump’s 2016 campaign.The firm sued to block Trump’s order, arguing it violated the constitution’s first and fifth amendments.A US district judge ruled on Friday that Trump’s directive violated core rights under the US constitution, mirroring a 2 May ruling that struck down a similar executive order against law firm Perkins Coie.Apart from Jenner and Perkins Coie, two other firms – WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey – have sued the Trump administration to permanently block executive orders he issued against them.The US departments of state and treasury acted on Friday to lift sanctions on Syria, following Donald Trump’s meeting with the new Syrian leader, the former Islamist rebel Ahmad al-Sharaa, last week in Saudi Arabia.A statement from the treasury explained that the Office of Foreign Assets Control had issued a license “to provide immediate sanctions relief for Syria” which “ authorizes transactions prohibited by the Syrian Sanctions Regulations, effectively lifting sanctions on Syria”.The state department also issued a waiver required by the 2019 Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act to suspend sanctions. “This is just one part of a broader U.S. government effort to remove the full architecture of sanctions imposed on Syria due to the abuses of the Bashar al-Assad regime”, the treasury said.The treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said the authorizations would “encourage new investment into Syria. Syria must also continue to work towards becoming a stable country that is at peace”.The administration did not say how long it would waive the congressional sanctions, but the law limits any presidential waiver to six months.For more permanent relief, administration officials are debating the extent to which Syria’s transitional government should be required to meet tough conditions.After meeting Sharaa, Trump told reporters that he was impressed with the former commander of al Qaeda’s franchise in the Syrian civil war. Sharaa, he said, was a “young, attractive guy; tough guy, you know. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.”A US federal judge did not mince words when calling a Trump executive order unconstitutional, which sought to target Jenner & Block, a big law firm.According to the judge, the Trump administration went after the law firm because of the causes it champions, the clients it represents and a lawyer the firm once employed.“Going after law firms in this way is doubly violative of the Constitution,” US District Judge John D Bates said in a ruling on Friday.Trump signed an executive order in March, targeting Jenner & Block by suspending security clearances and restricting their access to government buildings, officials and federal contracting work. This was, Trump claimed, because of politically motivated “lawfare” the firm engaged in.By attempting to push forward this executive order, Trump attempted to “chill legal representation the administration doesn’t like, thereby insulating the Executive Branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers”.Bates added that the Trump executive orders against law firms “follow the same recipe: other than personalized touches in their first sections, they generally direct the same adverse actions towards each firm and decry the threat each firm poses to national security and the national interest.”Bates was appointed to the District of Columbia in 2001 by President George W Bush. He blocked Trump’s executive order completely.A US judge on Friday overturned a Trump executive order targeting Jenner & Block, a big law firm that employed a lawyer who investigated him.Trump’s executive order, called Addressing Risks from Jenner & Block, suspended security clearances for the firm’s lawyers and restricted their access to government buildings, officials and federal contracting work.Trump accused the law firm of engaging in activities that “undermine justice and the interests of the United States”, claiming that it participated in politically driven legal actions. In the executive order, Trump specifically criticized the firm for hiring Andrew Weissmann, an attorney who worked on Robert Mueller’s investigation into allegations of Russian influence in Trump’s 2016 campaign.The firm sued to block Trump’s order, arguing it violated the constitution’s first and fifth amendments.A US district judge ruled on Friday that Trump’s directive violated core rights under the US constitution, mirroring a 2 May ruling that struck down a similar executive order against law firm Perkins Coie.Apart from Jenner and Perkins Coie, two other firms – WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey – have sued the Trump administration to permanently block executive orders he issued against them.Cases of measles, a viral infection that was considered eliminated from the US since 2000, have climbed slightly to 1,046.There have been 22 new cases in the past week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, a small increase that signals outbreaks are slowing down.Ten of those cases came from Texas. Other states with active measles outbreaks include Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. Indiana said its state’s outbreak was over.Two young children and an adult have died from measles-related illnesses this year, the AP reports. The virus that causes measles is airborne and highly contagious, although preventable through vaccines.Here are the key takeaways from Harvard’s legal battle over the Trump administration’s international student ban, from my colleague Anna Betts.Some of Harvard’s sports teams would be virtually wiped out by the Trump administration’s move to make the Ivy League school with the nation’s largest athletic program ineligible for international student visas.Harvard’s 42 varsity sports teams are the most in the nation, and Sportico reported last month that 21% of the players on the school’s rosters for the 2024-25 seasons – or 196 out of 919 athletes – had international home towns. The site noted that some could be US citizens or green card holders who wouldn’t need one of the international visas at issue in the Trump administration’s escalating fight with the university.Seven of the eight rowers on the men’s heavyweight crew team that just won the Eastern Sprints title – and is headed to the national championships – list international home towns on the school’s website. Mick Thompson, the leading scorer last season, and Jack Bar, who was a captain, are among a handful of Canadians on the men’s hockey roster; 10 of the 13 members of the men’s squash team and more than half of the women’s soccer and golf rosters also list foreign home towns.The supreme court temporarily paused judicial orders requiring the so-called “department of government efficiency”, established by Donald Trump and spearheaded by his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, to turn over records and answer questions in the coming days and weeks concerning its operations.The court put on hold Washington-based US district judge Christopher Cooper’s orders for Doge to respond to a government watchdog group’s requests for information after finding that Doge is probably a government agency covered by the federal Freedom of Information Act.The supreme court’s action, called an administrative stay, gives it additional time to consider the justice department’s formal request to block Cooper’s order while litigation proceeds in a lower court.This morning a federal judge in Boston swiftly blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to revoke Harvard’s ability to enrol international students, mere hours after the university sued the DHS. In its lawsuit Harvard condemned the administration for unconstitutional retaliation over its refusal to surrender to the White House’s political demands. It said the government’s move would “erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body”, force it to retract admissions for thousands of people, and has already thrown “countless” academic programs, clinics, courses and research laboratories into disarray. “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the university wrote in its legal complaint.Harvard’s president Alan Garber wrote in a letter to the university’s community:
    The revocation continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body.
    We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action. It imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities across the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams.
    US district judge Allison Burroughs granted the university’s request for an immediate temporary restraining order, which she said was necessary because Harvard had “made a sufficient showing … that, unless its motion for a temporary restraining order … is granted, it will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties”. She has set a hearing for 29 May to consider the administration’s actions.Trump doubled down earlier, telling reporters that “Harvard’s going to have to change its ways” and said he was also “looking at a lot of things” when asked if his administration was looking at stopping other universities besides from taking in foreign students. Before Burroughs’s ruling, a White House spokesperson had also earlier dismissed Harvard’s lawsuit as “frivolous”.While there are now two weeks of reprieve, there were reports of Chinese students at Harvard cancelling flights home today and seeking legal advice on staying in the United States as the Trump administration continues to wage war on the Ivy League university – and others – and amid years of tensions between the two countries. Per the New York Times (paywall), Trump’s attacks on elite institutions like Harvard have the potential to “reshape the broader relationship between [the US and China] by cutting off one of the few remaining reasons that people in China still admire the United States”.

    The Trump administration accused Columbia University of violating the civil rights of Jewish students by “acting with deliberate indifference” toward what it described as a “hostile environment” for Jewish students on campus.

    Trump ordered the nation’s independent nuclear regulatory commission to narrow regulations and expedite new licenses for reactors and power plants, seeking to shrink a multi-year process down to 18 months. The requirement was part of a batch of executive orders signed by Trump earlier today aiming to boost US nuclear energy production amid a boom in demand from data centers and AI.

    Vice-president JD Vance said that the US under Trump will choose carefully when to use military force and will avoid involvement in open-ended conflicts in a speech that signalled a huge shift in 21st-century US foreign policy.

    Trump said that a 25% tariff he said he will impose on Apple will also apply to Samsung and other smartphone makers who don’t make their products in the United States. “When they build their plant here, there’s no tariffs,” he said.

    Trump said he’s not looking for a trade deal with the EU – which he announced earlier today will be slapped with 50% tariffs from 1 June – but said he’d be open to talking about a delay if companies were willing to build their plants in the US.

    US special envoy Steve Witkoff held more than two hours of talks with an Iranian delegation in Rome today about Tehran’s nuclear program and agreed to meet again in the near future, a senior US official said.
    US special envoy Steve Witkoff held more than two hours of talks with an Iranian delegation in Rome today about Tehran’s nuclear program and agreed to meet again in the near future, a senior US official said.“The talks continue to be constructive – we made further progress, but there is still work to be done. Both sides agreed to meet again in the near future. We are grateful to our Omani partners for their continued facilitation,” the official said.Trump says he’s not looking for a trade deal with the EU – who he announced earlier today will be slapped with 50% tariffs from 1 June.He says the EU is “too slow-moving” and “if they build their plants [in the US] then they have no tariff at all”.
    I’m not looking for a deal. We’ve set the deal, it’s at 50%. But there’s no tariff if they build their plant here … If somebody wants to build a plant here I can talk to them about a little bit of a delay, while they’re building their plant, which is something that might be appropriate, maybe.
    Trump says that a 25% tariff he said he will impose on Apple will also apply to Samsung and other smartphone makers.“Or it would not be fair,” he says, adding that the White House will “appropriately have that done by the end of June”.“When they build their plant here, there’s no tariffs. So they’re going to be building plants here,” he says.When Trump first announced the tariff Friday morning, he targeted Apple CEO Tim Cook, who said recently that the company was shoring up manufacturing in India.“I said that’s okay to go to India, but not going to sell into here without tariffs,” Trump says.Trump says his administration “will do something very soon” to make it possible for people to come to the US and “have a road towards” citizenship.Following the signing of those executive orderes, Trump has been taking questions from the media.Asked by a reporter if his administration was looking at stopping other universities besides Harvard from taking in foreign students, Trump said:
    We’re taking a look at a lot of things.
    Citing the “billions of dollars” Harvard receives, Trump adds:
    Harvard’s going to have to change its ways.
    Here’s the clip of JD Vance saying the Trump administration has “reversed course” on US foreign policy, affirming that there will be “no more undefined missions, no more open-ended conflicts”.Donald Trump has ordered the nation’s independent nuclear regulatory commission to narrow regulations and expedite new licenses for reactors and power plants, seeking to shrink a multi-year process down to 18 months, Reuters reports.The requirement was part of a batch of executive orders signed by Trump just now aiming to boost US nuclear energy production amid a boom in demand from data centers and AI.Licensing for reactors in the US can take over a decade at times, a process designed to prioritize nuclear safety but which has discouraged new projects.“With these actions, President Trump is telling the world that America will build again, and the American nuclear renaissance can begin,” said Michael Kratsios, director of the White House office of science and technology policy.The moves include a substantial overhaul of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that includes looking at staffing levels and directing the energy and defense departments to work together to build nuclear plants on federal lands, a senior White House official said.The administration envisions the Department of Defense taking a prominent role in ordering reactors and installing them on military bases.The orders also seek to reinvigorate uranium production and enrichment in the United States, the senior White House official said.Trump declared a national energy emergency in January as one of his first acts in office, saying the US had inadequate supplies of electricity to meet the country’s growing needs, particularly for data centers that run artificial intelligence systems.Most of Trump’s actions have focused on boosting fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas, but administration officials also support nuclear power, which in recent years has attracted growing bipartisan support.I spoke too soon. Reuters is reporting that Donald Trump is making the nuclear announcement now and signing his executive orders.His secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum, said there will be four orders signed.Executive orders were on Donald Trump’s schedule for 1pm ET today. It’s obviously now way past that time but, as you may know, Trump often runs a tad late to these things. He has also been unusually quiet on Truth Social for the past six hours … so I’ll bring you the latest on what’s happening with the orders when we know more.Earlier, Reuters reported that as early as today Trump was due to sign executive orders meant to accelerate nuclear energy development. Trump is expected to streamline the regulatory process for new reactor approvals and enhance fuel supply chains, the news agency reported citing four sources familiar with the matter. The report saw shares of nuclear power companies surge. More

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    Trump warms to Nippon Steel, backing ‘partnership’ with US Steel

    Donald Trump has thrown his weight behind a “partnership” between US Steel and Nippon Steel, months after insisting he was “totally against” a $14.9bn bid by the Japanese firm for its US rival.While the US president stopped short of an all-out endorsement of the takeover, he announced a deal between the two businesses on social media on Friday.Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, had blocked Nippon’s acquisition of US Steel, citing national security concerns, during his final weeks in office. The Trump administration has since been reviewing the proposal.Under the arrangement announced by Trump on Friday, US Steel would remain in the US, with its headquarters in Pittsburgh, he stressed, announcing plans to hold a “big rally” in the state next week.“This will be a planned partnership between United States Steel and Nippon Steel, which will create at least 70,000 jobs, and add $14 Billion Dollars to the U.S. Economy,” the president claimed on Truth Social, his social network. “The bulk of that Investment will occur in the next 14 months.”Shares in US Steel surged more than 21% after Trump’s announcement on Friday afternoon.Nippon and US Steel did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The United Steelworkers union had urged the president to reject Nippon’s bid, dismissing the firm’s commitments to invest in the US as “flashy promises” and claiming it was “simply seeking to undercut our domestic industry from the inside”.Trump’s position on Nippon’s approach has shifted significantly. Just in December, he declared he was vehemently opposed to the transaction. “As President, I will block this deal from happening,” he wrote. “Buyer Beware!!!”By last month, however, he had somewhat softened his stance, stating only that he wanted US Steel to remain in the US. “We don’t want to see it go to Japan,” he said. More