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      Fifteen years after Deepwater Horizon, Trump is setting the stage for disaster | Terry Garcia

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      Last month, I joined nearly 500 former and current employees of National Geographic, where I was executive vice-president and chief science and exploration officer for 17 years, urging the institution to take a public stance against the Trump administration’s reckless attacks on science. Our letter pointed out that the programs being dismantled are “imperative for the success of our country’s economy and are the foundation of our progress and wellbeing. They make us safer, stronger and more prosperous.” We warned that gutting them is a recipe for disaster.In the face of this danger, none of us can remain silent.I say this from the unique perspective of having been closely involved in the two most significant environmental disasters in US history: the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon oil spills. Fifteen years ago this Sunday, an enormous explosion tore through the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and unleashed an environmental catastrophe that devastated the Gulf of Mexico. The explosion triggered the release of more than 3m barrels of oil that polluted 1,300 miles of coastline from Louisiana to Florida. Eleven lives were lost, ecosystems were ravaged and the economic toll soared into the billions.I served on the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, which investigated the root causes of the disaster, and before that I led the federal government’s implementation of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Restoration Plan. I have witnessed first-hand the human and economic toll exacted by these events. Men and women who, for generations, had made a living from the sea were suddenly confronted with the possibility that an entire way of life would be lost.Despite such painful lessons of the past, we find ourselves once again hurtling toward disaster. The Trump administration’s personnel and programmatic cuts at science, environmental and safety agencies, and the wholesale rollback of environmental regulations, threaten to unravel decades of progress in safeguarding our country. These actions aren’t just misguided – they’re a dangerous rejection of the hard-won knowledge gained from former crises and a gamble we cannot afford to take.Among the many alarming moves by the Trump administration are plans to weaken offshore drilling safety measures implemented in response to the Deepwater Horizon calamity, such as the reversal of the Biden administration’s ban on drilling in sensitive coastal areas, including the Arctic, and the closure of regional offices responsible for oil spill response. Eliminating these measures demonstrates a callous disregard for lessons learned at a staggering human and economic cost.Disturbingly, these actions are but a small part of a larger effort to weaken environmental regulation and oversight under the guise of restoring government efficiency. Take the recent rollback of dozens of Environmental Protection Agency health and safety regulations and the reported plan to eliminate the agency’s scientific research office. The administration claims these moves will unleash US energy and lower the cost of living, when in fact the only thing they’re guaranteed to achieve is undermining fundamental protections that keep our air and water clean. The mass layoffs and plans to dismember the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), where I was deputy administrator from 1997 to the end of 1999 and prior to that its general counsel, have nothing to do with cost savings – they’re an outright assault on science. Targeting programs that monitor ocean health, track ecosystem changes and study climate impacts – essential to understanding and mitigating looming threats – will leave us blind to and defenseless against the dangers ahead.Cuts to science funding amplify the harms, jeopardizing our ability to innovate solutions, assess risks and respond effectively to crises. In 2010, we lacked even basic data about ocean conditions in areas around the ruptured Deepwater Horizon well. This absence of critical knowledge hindered response and recovery efforts, including understanding the impacts of using oil dispersants in the deep ocean. After the spill, robust government support for science enabled researchers to develop new response and cleanup technologies, better understand long-term ecological impacts, and provide critical insights that helped shape environmental and safety policy. Without government support, these advances would have been impossible – and they will be impossible in the future as funding is slashed.The Trump administration’s insistence that its actions will reduce bureaucratic burdens or spur economic growth is false and deliberately misleading. It’s gaslighting on a national scale. The only sure result is that the burden of risk will be shifted on to communities, small businesses and ordinary Americans. The destruction of habitats and livelihoods is not an abstract consequence of environmental disasters. They devastate families, cripple economies, poison food supplies and leave communities struggling for decades. Businesses are boarded up, and community members suffer life-altering health consequences. After the Deepwater Horizon spill, losses in commercial and recreational fishing, tourism and property values amounted to tens of billions of dollars; cleanup and restoration costs exceeded $60bn – far surpassing what preventive measures would have required.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump and his industry allies will paint such an event as an unforeseeable tragedy, a terrible mishap, a sad accident. Don’t buy it.As we mark this somber anniversary, we cannot allow the cautionary tales of Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon to fade into history, only to be repeated when the next horror strikes. Science and environmental protections are our first line of defense against catastrophe. Now is the time to demand that our government stop the madness and commit to strong environmental and safety regulations, rigorous scientific research, and adequate funding for the agencies tasked with protecting our health and shared resources. The price of ignoring science and dismantling regulations is far too high.

      Terry Garcia was National Geographic’s executive vice-president and chief science and exploration officer for 17 years. He also served as the assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and deputy administrator of Noaa, as well as its general counsel More

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      ‘I just ask God that he’s OK’: family of Venezuelan musician sent to El Salvador prison agonizes over his fate

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      In a recording studio in downtown Santiago, where the dad she has never met once sung, a four-month-old baby girl snuggles in her mother’s arms, noise-cancelling earmuffs shielding her tiny ears from the sound.Nahiara Rubí Suárez Sánchez is equally oblivious to the plight of her father, a Venezuelan musician who is thought to be languishing in a maximum-security prison thousands of miles away in El Salvador after being swept up in Donald Trump’s anti-migrant crusade.Arturo Suárez Trejo, 33, is one of more than 200 Venezuelan men sent to the Central American country from the US, accused by Trump’s administration – with no evidence – of being terrorists, rapists and gang members.More than a month later, Suárez’s relatives – who insist he is innocent – remain completely in the dark about his whereabouts, his wellbeing or how long he might be trapped behind bars.View image in fullscreen“Right now I have no idea what’s happening to him – I just ask God that he’s OK,” said Suárez’s 27-year-old wife, a fellow Venezuelan called Nathali Sánchez, who lives with their child in Chile’s capital. “If something happens to my husband, I will hold Donald Trump and [El Salvador’s president] Nayib Bukele responsible.”Critics have decried Trump’s decision to banish asylum seekers and immigrants to a jail in an authoritarian foreign land as part of a disturbing democratic backslide in one of the world’s largest democracies. “This is the beginning of an American policy of state terror,” the historian and author Timothy Snyder recently warned.For Suárez’s loved ones, the policy represents an emotional sucker punch that follows years of hardship after they, like nearly 8 million Venezuelans, fled economic and political turmoil in their South American homeland.“[It’s] fucked up, man,” said Denys Zambrano, a rapper known as Nyan who became one of Suárez’s best friends in Santiago after they migrated there from different parts of Venezuela.Suárez’s elder brother, Nelson, said they had left Venezuela in 2016 after joining anti-government demonstrations that were sweeping the country amid food shortages and hyperinflation. For challenging Nicolás Maduro’s government, the siblings were threatened by armed pro-regime gangs called colectivos.View image in fullscreen“It was a really difficult time,” recalled Nelson Suárez, 35, whose brother relocated to Cartagena and Bogotá, in Colombia, before moving to Chile, where hundreds of thousands of uprooted Venezuelans have migrated over the past decade. Nelson Suárez headed north to the US.In Santiago, Arturo Suárez built a new life, fixing fridges as he chased his dream of becoming a famous singer-songwriter, under the stage name is SuarezVzla. He became a relentless promoter of Venezuelan music, founding an event called Urban Fresh to showcase budding reggaeton and trap stars. “Arturo’s my mentor,” said Mariangelica Camacho, 20, a dancer and singer who fled Venezuela with her parents at age 14 and whose career he helped launch.At one gig he met his future wife.But making ends meet was a struggle, particularly after the Covid pandemic hammered Chile’s economy. Last May, Suárez decided to join his brother in North Carolina and embarked on a five-month odyssey to the US that involved crossing the treacherous jungles of the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama.Sánchez, who was pregnant, decided not to risk the journey having suffered a miscarriage the previous year, and remained in Santiago. Before setting off from their shoebox apartment looking out across the Andes, Suárez wrote a message to his “lioness” and his unborn child on a whiteboard hanging over her cot. “Soon we’ll be together again,” it says. “I love you both with all my life.”By September, after two months toiling in a Mexico City tortilla shop, Suárez reached the southern border, crossing into San Diego after making an immigration appointment on the Biden-era smartphone app called CBP One. From there he made a beeline for New Bern, North Carolina, where he found work as a handyman, mowing lawns and cleaning pools to support baby Nahiara, who was born in early December.But Suárez’s American dream quickly crumbled. In February, three weeks after Trump’s inauguration, he was detained by immigration officials while making a music video in Raleigh. After a stint in an Atlanta detention centre, he was moved to Texas and then – to his family’s horror – sent to El Salvador after being told he was being deported to Venezuela.View image in fullscreenOn 16 March, 24 hours after Suárez was incarcerated in Bukele’s terrorism confinement centre (Cecot), Sánchez spotted her shaven-headed husband in a propaganda photo released by the Central American country’s government. She recognized him because of tattoos on his neck and thigh and a childhood scar on his scalp. “I felt like the world had collapsed on top of me,” Sánchez said. Since then she has heard nothing and, in her darkest moments, fears he may not even still be alive.“We’ve lost all communication,” said Krubick Izarra, 26, a music producer who is godmother to the couple’s child.Trump’s El Salvador deportations – which activists call enforced disappearances – have grim echoes in Latin America, where such tactics were common during the US-backed dictatorships of the 1970s and 80s.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn Santiago, a brutalist museum commemorates the hundreds of people spirited into custody during Gen Augusto Pinochet’s 17-year regime – most never to return. “Nobody believed that in Chile people could disappear,” reads an entry in a picture book displayed in one exhibition room about the dictatorship’s dungeons.Half a century later, campaigners say the scores of Venezuelans sent to El Salvador find themselves in a similar void, deprived of contact with their families and lawyers, without due process and, in most cases, never having been convicted of any crime.“It’s a legal black hole – and in that legal black hole, I think it’s unlikely the families should expect a judicial remedy,” said Noah Bullock, the director of Cristosal, a rights group which has spent the last three years denouncing the plight of the 85,000 Salvadoran citizens incarcerated as part of Bukele’s hardline anti-gang crackdown. At least 368 of them have died as a result of torture, according to the Cristosal’s count.View image in fullscreenBullock believed the fate of prisoners such as Suárez hinged on whether it was “politically viable” for Trump and Bukele to keep them behind bars, despite mounting evidence of their innocence. “The only option for them, I think, is public advocacy and building sufficient political pressure for their freedom,” he said.Making noise is something Suárez’s musician friends in Santiago are good at.One evening last week, they gathered in a rehearsal room to practise for their latest concert and defend a man they called a cheery, kindhearted, teetotal dreamer whose only crime was seeking a better life.“Arturo has never harmed anyone – and he certainly isn’t a terrorist,” said Heberth Veliz, a 29-year-old musician who suspected his friend had been targeted because of his numerous tattoos, which include a tribute to his late mother, a map of Venezuela, a palm tree, some musical notes and the phrase “The future will be brilliant.”Veliz, whose body is also covered in tattoos, said he struggled to contain his anger when he saw the US president on television smearing Suárez as “the worst of the worst”. “I feel like jumping into the screen and slapping him so he stops talking nonsense. ‘Shut up, Trump! You don’t know what you’re talking about!’” he fumed, although he admitted he was not surprised by his friend’s treatment. “Everyone knows that the most ruthless people wear suits and ties,” he said.Cradling baby Nahiara in a pink shawl, Sánchez said she was determined to stay strong for the sake of her daughter and her absent husband. “It’s up to me to be the pillar of the family now,” she declared, vowing to continue denouncing her husband’s capture. “When he gets out, I want him to see that I didn’t give up – and I want him to feel proud.”View image in fullscreenSpeaking from the US, Nelson Suárez said he believed Trump was using innocent Venezuelans such as his sibling as “guinea pigs” to show off to his base. He felt “morally and psychologically shattered” by his disappearance.“I always wanted my brother to become world famous,” Suárez said. “But not like this, you know?” More

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      Anti-Trump protesters in the US might look to the Czech Republic: ‘We are an example’

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      A former cold war communist dictatorship and component part of the Habsburg empire seems an unlikely source of hope for Donald Trump’s opponents.One such country, Hungary, is often cited as the model for Trump’s no-holds-barred authoritarian assault on US institutions. Viktor Orbán, the central European country’s prime minister, has been a guest at the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate and has won Trump’s praise for transforming Hungary into an “illiberal state” that extols “traditional” values – and for projecting the kind of “strongman” persona the president admires.Now in his fourth consecutive term, Orbán and his Fidesz party have captured state institutions, tamed the media and been successfully re-elected, despite periodic waves of anti-government mass protests – the most recent this week against an attempt to ban the annual Pride march.It seems an ominous portent for Trump critics who took part Saturday in a second weekend of mass demonstrations, organized across 50 states by the 50501 group, following the “Hands Off” rallies staged in 1,000 locations across the US on 5 April.Yet the contrasting political fate of one of Hungary’s neighbours with similar historical antecedents may provide a glimmer of hope for the prospects of mass protest laying foundations for a successful onslaught against Trump, leading to victory at the ballot box.The Czech Republic – once part of what was cold war-era Czechoslovakia and, coincidentally, birthplace of Trump’s first wife, Ivana – is a possible blueprint for how street protest can bloom into a unified electoral strategy that eventually unseats a billionaire leader with autocratic aspirations and apparent scorn for democracy.In 2018, a popular movement, Million Moments for Democracy, began organizing rallies in the Czech capital, Prague, and other cities to protest the anti-democratic tendencies of the country’s prime minister, Andrej Babiš, who had been labelled “the Czech Trump”.View image in fullscreenBabiš, a billionaire oligarch who was the country’s second-richest person, had taken office as head of a coalition that relied on support from the remnants of the Czech communist party after his populist ANO (Action for Dissatisfied Citizens) party won the previous year’s election.Opponents accused Babiš – whose sprawling Agrofert conglomerate controlled vast segments of the Czech economy and two of the country’s biggest newspapers – of fraud and multiple conflicts of interest, while abusing power to further enrich himself. There were also complaints about past ties – upheld in court, despite Babiš’s denials – to the communist secret police, the StB, for which he reportedly acted as an informer.Early protests attracted crowds of up to 20,000, but within months attendances had skyrocketed as rallies were staged more regularly, always climaxing in calls for his resignation. By June 2019 – three months after Babiš was hosted by Trump at the White House in a visit that seemed to boost his international standing – Prague saw its biggest political protest since the 1989 fall of communism, with more than 250,000 turning out in opposition to the prime minister and his close ally, the elderly pro-Russian president, Miloš Zeman.An even greater number turned up in November 2019, ostensibly to mark the 30th anniversary of communism’s collapse – which had itself been triggered by mass protests. The prime minister stood firm, and as the Covid-19 virus forced the country into prolonged lockdown, protests diminished and Babiš’s position seemed more assured, despite widespread discontent over his handling of the pandemic.Yet in 2021 parliamentary elections, Babiš and his lavishly funded party were defeated by a five-party coalition whose ideological differences were superseded by their hostility toward the prime minister.View image in fullscreenThe demonstrations, despite the lost momentum caused by Covid and Babiš’s stubborn refusal to resign even as police lodged criminal fraud charges, had worked by converting discontent into votes at the ballot box.“We certainly had some role in the election results,” said Benjamin Roll, Million Moments for Democracy’s spokesperson and deputy leader at the time. “I believe we in the Czech Republic are an example of how long-term civic-society activities can bring, or help bring, political change.“Those protests gave us all the feeling we have the power, that we were not alone, and we can do something. I think this emotion is really crucial.”It is a potentially decisive factor amid swirling debate about how to respond to Trump as he has smashed long-established norms and assailed institutions at breakneck speed since his inauguration on 20 January.While the leftwing Vermont senator, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive New York representative, have attracted vast crowds on their Fighting Oligarchy road tour that seems to emphasize the value of popular dissent, other Democrats have adopted a less confrontational approach, with some opting not to fight Trump at every turn.The party’s leader in the senate, Chuck Schumer, drew fire from many on his own side for leading a group of fellow Democratic senators in voting for a six-month Republican funding bill last month, averting a government shutdown.The move sharpened criticism that congressional Democrats had reacted too passively to Trump’s authoritarian power grabs.At the same time, the party’s exclusion from power in the White House and on Capitol Hill has prompted questions over the effectiveness of mass protests. The failure of demonstrations to translate into electoral defeat for authoritarian-type leaders in some countries – Hungary, Turkey and Serbia are recently cited examples – has fed such doubts.View image in fullscreenHowever, Steven Levitsky, a politics professor at Harvard University and a specialist on authoritarian threats to democracy, said dismissing mass rallies as futile – which he called “a new conventional wisdom” after years of thinking they guaranteed a dictator’s downfall – was misplaced.“Mass protest is less likely to bring down a government in a place where elections are a viable channel, meaning where it is still a democracy or near-democracy,” he said. “Protest is not going to lead to Donald Trump’s resignation, or Orbán’s, but that doesn’t mean it’s not relevant. Protest can weaken the government, can shape public opinion and the media framing and discourse, which is very important.”At the “Hands Off” rally in Washington DC on 5 April, which drew tens of thousands of people, participants said one aim was to embolden reticent voters and Trump critics who might be intimidated by the president’s blustering tactics.Jiří Pehe, a Czech political analyst who is the director of New York University in Prague, said that message had its echoes in the Czech precedent.“It was this overall, this strategy of waking people up and telling them: ‘Look, you have agency. You can change things. You are not just passive observers of what’s going on, but you can change things, but you have to be active,’” he said.But allowing millions of dissatisfied Americans simply to vent their frustrations would not be enough, Pehe warned. “If the Czech Republic is to be an example, these demonstrations need to happen again and again across the United States and they need to have one or two strong messages. There has to be a very strong message towards the political class because only it can actually change things. And in this case, there should be pressure on the Democrats, saying: ‘Look, it’s your task to stop Donald Trump.’”Speaking to the Guardian at the 5 April Washington rally, Jamie Raskin, a Democratic representative from Maryland who is the party’s top member of the House judiciary committee, said “a popular resistance strategy” featuring protests could only work in harness with “an effective legislative strategy”, a tall order since the Republicans control both the Senate and the House of Representatives.“Ultimately, we’re going to have to win the elections next year, and when we take back the House and the Senate, we will be back in the driver’s seat,” he said.That aim evokes another lesson from the Czech example, observers say: the need for the Democrats to take their cue from the demonstrators and put aside their ideological differences for the sake of unity.“What you’ve seen in the Czech Republic is a broad array of political forces coming together to form a pro-democracy coalition and I think that’s instructive for the US,” said Norm Eisen, a former US ambassador to Prague and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who called for a “big tent” approach encompassing anti-Trump Republicans.“They were for putting aside particular differences on partisan issues, on ideology. That is one of the critical ingredients for success, and I believe we are seeing that here. In these deportation disputes, we filed a brief at the supreme court by more than three dozen conservatives, [who served in] every Republican presidential administration, from Nixon to Trump 1, and I was the lawyer on that, together with a senior justice department official from the Bush administration.”Levitsky said the US protests had assumed outsize importance given the failure of other institutions and pillars of the establishment – including major CEOs, law firms, the Catholic church and, until this week, universities – to mount a stand since Trump took office.“This emerging protest movement, and the size of the crowds at the Bernie Sanders and AOC events, is going to compel Democratic politicians to become more active, follow their base rather than so as not to lose it,” he said. “What the protest movement can do is contribute to an erosion of Trump’s popularity, and embolden opposition politicians and probably contribute to an electoral outcome in a couple years.“In that sense, these guys are not wasting their time. I think it’s a very, very important step in getting the opposition off the sidelines.”Back in Prague, Roll – recalling the intoxication of the anti-Babiš rallies – had advice for US demonstrators: stay positive and, whatever Trump’s provocations, avoid hateful rhetoric – something he fears the US’s two-party system makes hard to avoid.“The division in the United States is really dangerous because you see the other side as the enemy,” he said. “It’s crucial to remain non-violent and hopeful. Talking in front of lots of people, we realised you have to be careful about your language because if you are too negative or hateful, it can defeat your purpose. Remember that the other side are people. They’re your brothers and sisters.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: Mass anti-Trump protests sweep nation; supreme court issues midnight order

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      Protesters poured into the streets across the country again on Saturday in the second wave of demonstrations this month, as organizers seek to turn discontent with Donald Trump’s presidency into a mass movement that will eventually translate into ballot box action.Large protests took place from east coast to west, in major cities like Washington, New York and Chicago, as well as Rhode Island, Maryland, Wisconsin, Tennessee, South Carolina, among many others. Americans abroad also signalled their opposition to the Trump agenda in the Irish capital of Dublin and other cities.In San Francisco, protesters formed a human chain to spell out the words, “Impeach Remove!” while holding the American flag upside down.Protests cut across party lines, organizers sayThe 50501 movement behind the “Hands Off” protests said it was seeking to send a message to opposition politicians and ordinary voters that vocal resistance to Trump’s policies was essential. It also said that demonstrators were supporters of different parties.“We have registered Democrats, registered independents and registered Republicans all marching because they all believe in America, because they all believe in a fair government that puts people before profits,” said organizer Heather Dunn.Read the full storySupreme court orders temporary halt to deportationThe US supreme court ordered the Trump administration to halt the deportation of Venezuelan men in immigration custody in Texas, after their lawyers said they were at imminent risk of removal without a judicial review.The order came just minutes after midnight on Saturday and puts into question the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century wartime law.Read the full storyIndonesian student detained by Ice after visa revokedAn Indonesian father of an infant with special needs will remain in custody after an immigration judge ruled on Thursday that his case can proceed.Judge Sarah Mazzie denied a motion to dismiss the case against Aditya Wahyu Harsono on humanitarian grounds, according to his attorney. Harsono, 33, was detained by federal agents at his hospital workplace in Minnesota after his student visa was secretly revoked. He was arrested four days later without notice and is scheduled for another hearing on 1 May.Read the full storyBarbara Lee, trailblazing former US Congress member, elected Oakland mayorBarbara Lee, a trailblazing former member of Congress, has been elected as the next mayor of Oakland, California, after fending off an insurgent challenge from the center at a critical moment for the Bay Area city.Lee defeated the former city council member Loren Taylor after nine rounds of ranked-choice voting gave her more than 52% of the vote to Taylor’s 47%, according to the Alameda county registrar of voters.Read the full storyJD Vance visits Vatican amid immigration policy criticism The vice-president, JD Vance, had “an exchange of opinions” with the Vatican’s secretary of state over current international conflicts and immigration, the Vatican has said.The Vatican issued a statement after Vance, a Catholic convert, met Cardinal Pietro Parolin and the foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher. The Holy See has responded cautiously to the Trump administration, in keeping with its tradition of diplomatic neutrality but has expressed alarm over its crackdown on immigration and cuts in international aid.Read the full storyDay by day: the Harvard-White House showdownIt took Harvard University less than 72 hours to reject a series of demands put forth by the Trump administration, setting up a high-stakes showdown between the US’s wealthiest and oldest university and the White House.The swift rebuke on Monday came after weeks of mounting pressure from Harvard faculty, students and alumni and the city of Cambridge, all urging the university to defend itself, and higher education as a whole, against what they saw as an unprecedented attack from Washington. Here’s how it all unfolded, day by day.Read the full storyOutrage as Trump’s coal expansion coupled with health cuts: ‘There won’t be anyone to work in the mines’The Trump administration’s efforts to expand coal mining while simultaneously imposing deep cuts to agencies tasked with ensuring miner health and safety has left some advocates “dumbfounded”.Agencies that protect coalminers from serious occupational hazards, including the condition best known as “black lung”, have been among those affected by major government cuts.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      US chocolate prices surge amid soaring cocoa costs and tariffs right as many Americans celebrate Easter.

      Bill Clinton called on Americans to put aside “whose resentments matter most” at commemorations for the Oklahoma City bombing 30 years ago.

      Associating with Elon Musk and misusing artificial intelligence are among the most surefire ways for companies to damage their brands, a new survey shows.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 18 April 2025. More

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      Indonesian student detained by Ice after US secretly revokes his visa

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      An Indonesian father of an infant with special needs, who was detained by federal agents at his hospital workplace in Minnesota after his student visa was secretly revoked, will remain in custody after an immigration judge ruled Thursday that his case can proceed.Judge Sarah Mazzie denied a motion to dismiss the case against Aditya Wahyu Harsono on humanitarian grounds, according to his attorney. Harsono, 33, was arrested four days after his visa was revoked without notice. He is scheduled for another hearing on 1 May.“His wife has been in a state of shock and exhaustion,” Sarah Gad, Harsono’s lawyer, said. “The Department of Homeland Security has weaponized the immigration system to serve just an entirely different purpose, which is to instill fear.”Harsono, a supply-chain manager at a hospital in Marshall, Minnesota, who is married to a US citizen, was surprised by authorities in his workplace basement on 27 March. Gad said that Harsono was detained without clear explanation and interrogated for hours.Harsono’s wife, Peyton, called Gad in a panic after she received a call from human resources at the hospital. Two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents, dressed in plain clothes, had shown up and instructed the staff to stage a fake meeting in the basement so they could apprehend him, according to Gad.Hospital staff were distraught but felt forced to comply.“He unsuspectedly walks in, smiling, and then they just pull out their handcuffs and forcibly detain him, pushing against the wall, start frisking him, and stripping all of his belongings,” Gad said.View image in fullscreenThe Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Guardian.Harsono was brought to the Kandiyohi County Jail, where he is still detained, according to the Ice detainee locator.He told the Ice agents that his F-1 student visa was valid through June 2026, and that he had a pending green-card application based on his marriage to a citizen, but that he had been issued a notice to appear in court stating that he had overstayed his visa.His attorney said that as of 28 March, the day after his arrest, his F-1 visa was still active. Gad said the government revoked it without any notice to him, and then claimed he had overstayed.The revocation was backdated to 23 March and allegedly based on his 2022 misdemeanor conviction for graffitiing a semi-truck trailer. Gad said that this is not a deportable offense under the Immigration and Nationality Act. He had traveled internationally and returned multiple times to Indonesia since the conviction without incident.The day before Harsono’s bond hearing, DHS disclosed their evidence against him. Besides stating that his visa had been revoked for the misdemeanor graffiti conviction, for which he paid $100 in restitution, they also mentioned an arrest from 2021 during a protest over the murder of George Floyd. That charge was dismissed.Harsono is Muslim and frequently posts on social media in support of humanitarian relief for Gaza. He also runs a small non-profit, which sells art and merchandise, with proceeds going to organizations aiding Gaza.His wife and eight-month-old daughter, who has special needs, are distraught by his arrest, Gad said. After the judge granted Harsono a $5,000 bond on 10 April, the Minnesota Freedom Fund had been en route to pay it. But DHS immediately filed a notice to appeal the bond decision, which triggered an automatic stay, meaning Harsono had to remain in custody. Gad said this type of move is rare, usually only seen when a judge grants bond to someone charged with violent or serious crimes.“You never involve stays of an immigration judge’s bond order for a minor conviction when somebody’s on their way to becoming a green-card holder,” she said.Gad is preparing to file a federal petition and a temporary restraining order against DHS.In an appeal for help on GoFundMe, Harsono’s wife explained that her husband had been fired from his job while in detention and now the family is “in danger of losing our apartment” and they “no longer have health insurance”.The Minnesota Nurses Association condemned the hospital worker’s arrest and restated its position that “nurses should not and will not serve any role in immigration enforcement” and its hope that “all hospital employees will also reject a role in assisting Ice”.Harsono’s case comes amid a wave of reports of student visas being revoked under the Trump administration’s new executive policy. The actions by the federal government to terminate students’ legal status have left hundreds of scholars at risk of detention and deportation.At least 901 students at 128 colleges and universities have had their visas revoked or their legal statuses terminated since mid-March, according to an Associated Press review of university statements and correspondence with school officials.In some high-profile cases, including the detention of the former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, the Trump administration has argued it should be allowed to deport noncitizens over involvement in pro-Palestinian activism it casts as antisemitic. But in the vast majority of visa revocations, colleges say there is no indication that affected students had a role in protests. More

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      Protesters fill the streets in cities across the US to denounce Trump agenda

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      Protesters poured into the streets of cities and towns across the United States again on Saturday, in the second wave of protests this month, as organizers seek to turn discontent with Donald Trump’s presidency into a mass movement that will eventually translate into action at the ballot box.By early afternoon, large protests were under way in Washington, New York and Chicago, with images of crowds cascading across social networks showing additional demonstrations in Rhode Island, Maryland, Wisconsin, Tennessee, South Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, California and Pennsylvania, among others. Americans abroad also signaled their opposition to the Trump agenda in Dublin, Ireland, and other cities.More than 400 rallies were planned, most loosely organized by the group 50501, which stands for 50 protests in 50 states, one movement.Opponents of Donald Trump’s administration mobilized from the east coast to the west, including at rallies in Portland, Maine, and Portland, Oregon, decrying what they see as threats to the nation’s democratic ideals.The events ranged from a massive march through midtown Manhattan to a rally in front of the White House, and a demonstration at a Massachusetts commemoration marking the start of the American revolutionary war 250 years ago.View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreenIn Massachusetts, 80-year-old retired mason Thomas Bassford told CBS News that he believed US citizens were under attack from their own government, saying: “This is a very perilous time in America for liberty. Sometimes we have to fight for freedom.”Protesters identified a variety of concerns, each unified under a common theme: opposition to the second Trump presidency.“We are losing our country,” demonstrator Sara Harvey told the New York Times in Jacksonville, Florida. “I’m worried for my grandchildren,” she said. “I do it for them.”It is the fourth protest event to be staged by the group since Trump was inaugurated on 20 January. Previous events included a “No Kings Day” on President’s Day, 17 February, a theme adopted before Trump referred to himself as a king in a social media post days later.View image in fullscreenOrganizers have called for 11 million people to participate in the latest rallies, representing 3.5% of the US population.Such a figure would likely surpass the numbers who took part in the “Hands Off” rallies staged on 5 April, when 1,200 demonstrations were staged across the US to register opposition to Trump’s assault on government agencies and institutions, spearheaded by the president’s chief lieutenant, the tech billionaire Elon Musk, and his unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) unit.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIndivisible, the progressive movement behind the “Hands Off” events, said it was seeking to send a message to opposition politicians and ordinary voters that vocal resistance to Trump’s policies was essential. It also said it was seeking to build momentum that would lead to further and larger protests.Heather Dunn, a spokesperson for 50501, said the goal of Saturday’s protests was “to protect our democracy against the rise of authoritarianism under the Trump administration”.She called the group a “pro-democracy, pro-constitution, anti-executive overreach, nonviolent grassroots movement” that was nonpartisan.View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreen“We have registered Democrats, registered independents and registered Republicans all marching because they all believe in America, because they all believe in a fair government that puts people before profits,” she told the Washington Post.Academics who have tracked the slide of democracy into authoritarianism say protests can be part of a wider of strategy to reverse the trend.“Oppositions to authoritarian governments have to use multiple channels always,” said Steven Levitsky, a political scientist at Harvard University and co-author, with Daniel Ziblatt, of How Democracies Die. “They have to use the courts where those are available. They have to use the ballot box when that’s available, and they have to use the streets when necessary – that can shape media framing and media discourse, which is very, very important.”In Washington DC on Saturday, a protest planned by the 50501 movement is scheduled to take place in Franklin Park, and a march will start near the George Washington monument and head towards the White House in support of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadorian man with US protected status wrongly deported to El Salvador from Maryland. More

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      Outrage as Trump’s coal expansion coupled with health cuts: ‘There won’t be anyone to work in the mines’

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      The Trump administration’s efforts to expand coal mining while simultaneously imposing deep cuts to agencies tasked with ensuring miner health and safety has left some advocates “dumbfounded”.Agencies that protect coal miners from serious occupational hazards, including the condition best known as “black lung”, have been among those affected by major government cuts imposed by the White House and the unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) run by the billionaire Elon Musk.“The [Mine Workers of America] is thrilled they’re looking at the future of coal,” said Erin Bates, a spokesperson for the United Mine Workers of America, about a series of executive orders signed by the president to expand coal mining. “But – if you’re not going to protect the health and safety of the miners, there’s not going to be anyone to work in the mines you are apparently reopening.”Last week, Trump signed a raft of measures he said would expand coal mining in the US in order to feed the energy demands of hungry datacenters that power artificial intelligence software.“All those plants that have been closed are going to be opened if they’re modern enough, or they’ll be ripped down and brand new ones will be built,” Trump told a crowd of lawmakers, workers and executives at the White House while signing the order. “We’re going to put the miners back to work.”The coal industry has shrunk precipitously in recent years, and now represents only about 15% of the power generated for the US electrical grid. Natural gas, wind and solar have proved to have a competitive advantage over coal, contributing to its decline, because plants are cheaper to operate, according to Inside Climate News.Even as coal mining has shrunk, the potential dangers for people who still work in the field remains high. Pneumoconiosis is among the best known occupational hazards faced by coal miners, but is far from the only risk they face – others include roof collapse, hearing loss and lung cancer, to name a few.Trump’s push for coal came less than a week after the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, imposed a 10,000-person cut to the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Cuts overseen by Kennedy, alongside those imposed by Musk’s unofficial Doge, represented the elimination of almost a quarter of HHS’s 82,000-person workforce.Nearly 900 of those workers were dismissed from the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH), including in the agency’s respiratory health division in West Virginia, which specifically oversaw an X-ray screening program for black lung. Doge has also pursued cuts to mine safety by eliminating 34 regional offices of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) in 19 states.The deep cuts especially worried those intimately familiar with the suffering caused by pneumoconiosis – such as Greg Wagner, a doctor and former senior adviser at the NIOSH.“My thoughts were, ‘Why NIOSH? Why now?’” said Wagner, whose early work at a community clinic in a small West Virginia coal mining town led him to a career working to prevent the disease at both NIOSH and as assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health.Wagner also worked with the International Labor Organization and multiple countries in an effort to eliminate pneumoconiosis globally. He is now a professor of environmental health at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health.The cuts “gutted” NIOSH, said Wagner, even as agency experts were “doing what they were asked to do and doing it extraordinarily well … Over-performing with little recognition. And to see that appear to be going up in smoke – I just – obviously my feelings were profound and complex.”The administration also wants to pause a new rule on silica dust – a kind of pneumoconiosis or “black lung” disease that is increasingly striking younger miners in Appalachia, as workers dig for harder-to-reach veins of coal.“To go into the silica rule – we’re almost dumbfounded,” Bates said. “The number of black lung cases that are showing up in the US is astronomical – it is increasing and not only are the numbers increasing, but it’s happening to younger and younger miners. Every single day this rule is delayed is another day our miners are contracting black lung.”Silicosis is a disease caused by inhaling silica dust, a form of pneumoconiosis that can be even more severe than the black lung of a century ago, and which has long been known to harm the health of coal miners.The government has been aware of the dangers of silica dust for decades, recommending dramatic reductions in exposure levels as early as 1974. In 1993, Wagner’s boss at NIOSH, Dr J Donald Millar, described the persistence of silicosis as “an occupational obscenity because there is no scientific excuse for its persistence”.The MSHA finalized a rule in April 2024 reducing silica dust exposure in mines, which was set to go into effect this year. Last week, the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association filed a suit seeking to pause enforcement of the silica dust rule pending a lawsuit. Days later, federal mine regulators told the court they wanted to pause enforcement of the silica dust rule for coal mining operations by four months, delaying any enforcement actions until August 2025.“The sudden shift in litigation position signaled by MSHA’s ‘enforcement pause’, and by its unilateral proposal to hold this case in abeyance for a period of four months is a clarion call to this nation’s miners that the agency charged with the profound responsibility of protecting their health and safety is losing the stomach for the fight to vindicate its own rule,” attorneys for mine and steel unions wrote, seeking to intervene in the case.Wagner said his concerns about delay of the silica rule extended beyond miners into workers in other industries – including people who work sand blasting or carving engineered stone countertops, all known to be environments where workers can be exposed to potentially harmful levels of silica dust.“I don’t have the right words,” said Wagner about the cuts to NIOSH, which was deeply involved in research that showed how silica dust harmed miners. “I feel like it was just done without thought, done without consideration and the consequences of the loss of the agency i think will be felt for years.“We will need to try to rebuild what NIOSH has been doing.” More

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      JD Vance had ‘exchange of opinions’ with senior cardinal, Vatican says

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      The US vice-president, JD Vance, had “an exchange of opinions” with the Vatican’s secretary of state over current international conflicts and immigration when they met on Saturday, the Vatican has said.The Vatican issued a statement after Vance, a Catholic convert, met Cardinal Pietro Parolin and the foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher. There was no indication he met Pope Francis, who has resumed some official duties during his recovery from pneumonia.The Holy See has responded cautiously to the Trump administration, in keeping with its tradition of diplomatic neutrality.It has expressed alarm over Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration and cuts in international aid, and has called for peaceful resolutions to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.Those concerns were reflected in the Vatican statement, which said the talks were cordial and that the Vatican expressed satisfaction with the administration’s commitment to protecting freedom of religion and conscience.“There was an exchange of opinions on the international situation, especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees, and prisoners,” the statement said.“Finally, hope was expressed for serene collaboration between the state and the Catholic church in the United States, whose valuable service to the most vulnerable people was acknowledged.”The reference to “serene collaboration” appeared to refer to Vance’s accusation that the US conference of Catholic bishops was resettling “illegal immigrants” in order to obtain federal funding. Top US cardinals have pushed back strongly against the claim.Parolin told La Repubblica on the eve of Vance’s visit: “It is clear that the approach of the current US administration is very different from what we are used to and, especially in the west, from what we have relied on for many years,.”As the US pushes to end the war in Ukraine, Parolin reaffirmed Kyiv’s right to its territorial integrity and insisted that any peace deal must not be “imposed” on Ukraine but “built patiently, day by day, with dialogue and mutual respect”.Vance was spending Easter weekend in Rome with his family and attended Good Friday services in St Peter’s Basilica after meeting Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. On Saturday, after the Vance family’s introduction to Parolin, they had a private tour of the Sistine Chapel.It was not immediately clear where they would celebrate Easter. Pope Francis, for his part, according to official liturgical plans released on Saturday, indicated he hoped to attend Easter mass on Sunday, which usually draws thousands to St Peter’s Square.The pope and Vance have tangled over immigration and the Trump administration’s plans to deport people en masse. Francis has made caring for those who migrate a hallmark of his papacy and his progressive views on social justice issues have often put him at odds with members of the more conservative US Catholic church.The pope also changed church teaching to say that capital punishment was inadmissible in all cases. After a public appeal from Francis just weeks before Trump took office, Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row. Trump is an outspoken proponent of expanding capital punishment.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionVance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, identifies with a small Catholic intellectual movement that is viewed by some critics as having reactionary or authoritarian leanings and often described as “post-liberal”.Post-liberals share some longstanding Catholic conservative views, such as opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. They envision a counter-revolution in which they take over government bureaucracy and institutions such as universities from within, replacing entrenched “elites” with their own and acting upon their vision of the “common good”.Just days before the pope was admitted to hospital in February, Francis criticised the Trump administration’s deportation plans, warning that they would deprive people of their inherent dignity. In a letter to US bishops, he also appeared to respond to Vance directly for having claimed that Catholic doctrine justified such policies.Vance had defended the administration’s America-first crackdown by citing a concept from medieval Catholic theology known in Latin as ordo amoris. He said the concept delineated a hierarchy of care – to family first, followed by neighbour, community, fellow citizens and, last, those elsewhere.In his 10 February letter, Francis appeared to correct Vance’s understanding of the concept.“Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extends to other persons and groups,” he wrote. “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the good Samaritan, that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”Vance has acknowledged Francis’ criticism but has said he will continue to defend his views. During an appearance on 28 February at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Vance did not address the issue specifically but called himself a “baby Catholic” and acknowledged there are “things about the faith that I don’t know”. More