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    Trump ambushes South African president with video and false claims of anti-white racism

    Donald Trump ambushed the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, by playing him a video that he falsely claimed proved genocide was being committed against white people under “the opposite of apartheid”.The hectoring stunt on Wednesday set up the most tense Oval Office encounter since Trump’s bullying of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February. But Ramaphosa – who earlier said that he had come to Washington to “reset” the relationship between the two countries – refused to take the bait and suggested that they “talk about it very calmly”.Trump has long maintained that Afrikaners, a minority descended from mainly Dutch colonists who ruled South Africa during its decades of racial apartheid, are being persecuted. South Africa rejects the allegation. Murder rates are high in the country and the overwhelming majority of victims are Black.What began as a convivial meeting at the White House, including lighthearted quips about golf, took a sudden turn when Ramaphosa told Trump there is no genocide against Afrikaners.Trump said: “We have thousands of stories talking about it,” then ordered his staff: “Turn the lights down and just put this on.”Sitting next to Trump before the fireplace, Ramaphosa forced a smile and turned to look at a big TV screen as Trump’s South Africa-born billionaire ally Elon Musk, JD Vance, the defence secretary Pete Hegseth and diplomats and journalists from both countries looked on.The video included footage of former South African president Jacob Zuma and firebrand opposition politician Julius Malema singing an apartheid-era struggle song called “Kill the Boer”, which means farmer or Afrikaner, as supporters danced.Ramaphosa quietly but firmly pushed back, pointing out that the views expressed in the video are not government policy.There was also footage that Trump claimed showed the graves of more than a thousand white farmers, marked by white crosses. Ramaphosa, who had mostly sat expressionless, occasionally craning his neck to look, said he had not seen that before and would like to find out what the location was.Trump then produced a batch of newspaper articles that he said were from the last few days reporting on killings in South Africa. He read some of the headlines and commented: “Death, death, death, horrible death.”Ramaphosa acknowledged there is crime in South Africa and said the majority of victims are Black. Trump cut him off and said: “The farmers are not Black.”The conspiracy theory of a white genocide has long been a staple of the racist far right, and in recent years has been amplified by Musk and rightwing media personality Tucker Carlson.Trump kept returning to the theme during Wednesday’s televised meeting. He said: “Now I will say, apartheid: terrible. That was the biggest threat. That was reported all the time. This is sort of the opposite of apartheid.“What’s happening now is never reported. Nobody knows about it. All we know is we’re being inundated with people, with white farmers from South Africa, and it’s a big problem.”He added: “They’re white farmers, and they’re fleeing South Africa, and it’s a very sad thing to see. But I hope we can have an explanation of that, because I know you don’t want that.”But Ramaphosa maintained an even tone, observing: “We were taught by Nelson Mandela that whenever there are problems, people need to sit down around the table and talk about them. And this is precisely what we would also like to talk about.”The meeting came days after around 50 Afrikaners arrived in the US to take up Trump’s offer of “refuge”. Trump made the offer despite the US having halted arrivals of asylum seekers from most of the rest of the world as he cracks down on immigration.Relations between the countries are at their lowest point since the end of apartheid in 1994. The US has condemned South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza at the international court of justice, slashed aid, announced 31% tariffs and expelled the South Africa ambassador for criticising Trump’s Make America great again (Maga) movement.But the biggest bone of contention has been a South African land-expropriation law signed in January that aims to redress the historical inequalities of white minority rule. Ramaphosa denied that the law will be used to arbitrarily confiscate white-owned land, insisting that all South Africans are protected by the constitution.But Trump falsely asserted: “You do allow them to take land – and then when they take the land, they kill the white farmer, and when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them. …“You’re taking people’s land away from them and those people in many cases are being executed. They’re being executed and they happen to be white.”Ramaphosa arrived at the White House with agriculture minister John Steenhuisen, who is white, two of South Africa’s top golfers, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, and the country’s wealthiest person, Johann Rupert, in a bid to woo the golf-loving president. All weighed in during the Oval Office meeting and seemed to be well-received by Trump.Rupert said South Africa needs technological help in stopping deaths in the country, which he said were not just of white farmers but across the board. “We have too many deaths … It’s not only white farmers, it’s across the board, and we need technological help. We need Starlink at every little police station. We need drones,” Rupert said.South Africa will reportedly offer Musk, who was born in the country, a deal to operate his Starlink satellite internet network in the country. The Tesla and SpaceX boss has accused Pretoria of “openly racist” laws, a reference to post-apartheid Black empowerment policies seen as a hurdle to the licensing of Starlink.South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world. White people make up 7% of the country’s population but own at least half of South Africa’s land. They are also better off economically by almost every measure. More

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    Trump news at a glance: president unveils Golden Dome project – and claims Canada is interested

    Donald Trump has announced that his administration will move forward with developing a multibillion-dollar missile defense system, called “Golden Dome”, and claimed that Canada was interesting in being part of it.“Once fully constructed, the golden dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world, and even if they are launched from space,” Trump said. “Forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland.”The US space force general Michael Guetlein will oversee implementation of the project, Trump said. The selection of Guetlein, vice-chief of space operations at the space force, means the elevation of a four-star general widely seen at the Pentagon to be competent and deeply experienced in missile defense systems and procurement.Here are the key stories at a glance:Trump rolls out Golden Dome missile defense project Flanked by the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, Trump announced the Golden Dome missile defense project on Tuesday in the Oval Office. The president said he wanted the project to be operational before he left office, and added that Republicans had agreed to allocate $25bn in initial funding and Canada had expressed an interest in taking part.What exactly Golden Dome will look like remains unclear. Trump said on Tuesday evening that he had settled on architecture for the project and suggested the total cost of putting it into service would reach $175bn. He provided no further details.Read the full storyTrump officials ‘illegally deport’ Vietnamese and Burmese migrants Immigrant rights advocates have accused the Trump administration of deporting about a dozen migrants from countries including Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan in violation of a court order, and asked a judge to order their return.Read the full storyRubio clashes with Democrats over Afrikaner ‘refugee’ statusMarco Rubio, the US secretary of state, has defended the Trump administration’s decision to admit 59 Afrikaners from South Africa as refugees after Tim Kaine, a Democratic senator from Virginia, said they were getting preferential treatment because they were white.The clash between Rubio and Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s former running mate, came a day before South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, was due to meet Donald Trump at the White House in an encounter that promises to be highly charged thanks to the controversy surrounding the Afrikaner arrivals.Read the full storyTrump bangs drum for tax bill as some still hold outDonald Trump traveled to the Capitol on Tuesday to insist that the fractious House Republican majority set aside their differences and pass his wide-ranging bill to enact his taxation and immigration priorities.In a speech to a closed-door meeting of Republican lawmakers, the president pushed holdouts to drop their objections, afterwards saying: “I think we have unbelievable unity. I think we’re going to get everything we want, and I think we’re going to have a great victory.”But it is unclear if the president’s exhortations had the intended effect as at least one lawmaker said afterwards they still do not support the bill.Read the full storyMusk claims he won’t spend as much on politicsElon Musk claimed that he would decrease the amount of money he spends on politics for the foreseeable future. If true, the reduction would represent a significant turnaround after the world’s richest person positioned himself as the US Republican party’s most enthusiastic donor over the last year.Read the full story‘Plenty of time’ to fix climate crisis, says Trump aideThe US has “plenty of time” to solve the climate crisis, the interior secretary, Doug Burgum, told a House committee on Tuesday.The comment came on his first of two days of testimony to House and Senate appropriators in which he defended Donald Trump’s proposed budget, dubbed the “one big, beautiful bill”, that would extend tax reductions enacted during Trump’s first term, while cutting $5bn of funding for the Department of the Interior.Read the full storyMost US companies say tariffs causing higher pricesA majority of US companies say they will have to raise their prices to accommodate Trump’s tariffs in the US, according to a new report. More than half (54%) of the US companies surveyed by the insurance company Allianz said they will have to raise prices to accommodate the cost of the tariffs.Read the full storyPatel scraps FBI watchdog teamThe FBI director, Kash Patel, has scrapped a watchdog team set up to scrutinise a warrantless surveillance law he previously claimed was being abused to target supporters of Donald Trump.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

    Charles Kushner, the father of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared, has secured US Senate confirmation to serve as the nation’s ambassador to France.

    A participant in the January 6 attack pardoned by Trump was recently arrested for burglary and vandalism in Virginia.

    The Trump administration lifted a stop work order on a $5bn windfarm off the New York coast after negotiations – but cancelled plans for a gas pipeline could be revived.
    Catching up? Here’s what happened on 19 May 2025. More

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    What is temporary protected status and who is affected by Trump’s crackdown?

    Millions of people live legally in the United States under various forms of temporary legal protection. Many have been targeted in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.The latest move has been against people who have what’s known as “temporary protected status” (TPS), which grants people the right to stay in the US legally due to extraordinary circumstances in one’s home country such as war or environmental catastrophe.The Trump administration has in recent weeks announced its plan to end TPS for Haitians, Venezuelans, Afghans and Cameroonians. The move may force more than 9,000 Afghan refugees to move back to the country now ruled by the Taliban. The administration also is ending the designation for roughly half a million Haitians in August.Here’s what to know about TPS and some other temporary protections for immigrants:What is temporary protected status?Temporary protected status allows people already living in the United States to stay and work legally for up to 18 months if their homelands are unsafe because of civil unrest or natural disasters.The Biden administration dramatically expanded the designation. It covers people from more than a dozen countries, though the largest numbers come from Venezuela and Haiti.The status does not put immigrants on a long-term path to citizenship and can be repeatedly renewed. Critics say renewal has become effectively automatic for many immigrants, no matter what is happening in their home countries. According to the American Immigration Council, ending TPS designations would lead to a significant economic loss for the US. The non-profit found that TPS households in the country earned more than $10bn in total income in 2021, and paid nearly $1.3bn in federal taxes.What is the latest supreme court ruling on Venezuelans?On Monday, the supreme court allowed the administration to end protections that had allowed some 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants to remain in the United States.Many Venezuelans were first granted TPS in 2021 by the Biden administration, allowing those who were already in the US to apply for protection from deportation and gain work authorization. Then, in 2023, the Biden administration issued an additional TPS designation for Venezuelans, and in January – just before Trump took office – extended those protections through October 2026.The Trump administration officials had ordered TPS to expire for those Venezuelans in April. The supreme court’s decision lifted a federal judge’s ruling that had paused the administration’s plans, meaning TPS holders are now at risk of losing their protections and could face deportation.What other forms of legal protection are under attack?More than 500,000 people from what are sometimes called the CHNV countries – Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela – live in the US under the legal tool known as humanitarian parole, which allows people to enter the US temporarily, on the basis that they have an urgent humanitarian need like a medical emergency. This category, however, is also under threat by the Trump administration.In late March, the Trump administration announced plans to terminate humanitarian parole for approximately 530,000 Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans and Haitians. In April, a federal judge issued a temporary order barring the elimination of the humanitarian parole program.But last week, the administration took the issue to the supreme court, asking it to allow it to end parole for immigrants from those four countries. The emergency appeal said a lower-court order had wrongly encroached on the authority of the Department of Homeland Security.US administrations – both Republican and Democratic – have used parole for decades for people unable to use regular immigration channels, whether because of time pressure or bad relations between their country and the US.The case now returns to the lower courts. For the California-based federal court, the next hearing is on 29 May. For the Massachusetts case, no hearings are scheduled and attorneys are working on a briefing for the motion to dismiss filed by the government, according to WGBH, a member station of National Public Radio in Massachusetts. The appeals court hearing will be the week of 11 July. More

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    Trump officials deported Vietnamese and Burmese migrants to South Sudan, say lawyers

    Immigrant rights advocates have accused the Trump administration of deporting about a dozen migrants from countries including Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan in violation of a court order, and asked a judge to order their return.The advocates made the request in a motion directed to a federal judge in Boston who had barred the Trump administration from swiftly deporting migrants to countries other than their own without first hearing any concerns they had that they might be tortured or persecuted if sent there.Lawyers for a group of migrants pursuing the class action lawsuit before US district judge Brian Murphy said they learned that nearly a dozen migrants held at a detention facility in Texas were flown to South Sudan on Tuesday morning.Those migrants included an individual from Myanmar whose lawyer received an email on Monday from an official with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement informing the attorney of the intent to deport his client to South Sudan.The migrant’s lawyers said they learned their client had been flown to South Sudan on Tuesday morning.The spouse of a Vietnamese man who was held at the same detention center in Texas emailed his lawyer, meanwhile, saying he and 10 other individuals were deported as well, according to the motion.The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSouth Sudan, the world’s youngest country, gained independence from Sudan in 2011, and has since struggled with armed conflict and poverty. Between 2013 and 2018, fighting between factions loyal to the current president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, and his vice-president, Riek Machar, killed nearly 400,000 people. More

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    Win a game show, become a US citizen? We’ve entered the realm of the truly depraved | Dave Schilling

    I guess Republicans really love game shows. Just a few days after Fox aired its “isn’t Trump wild” guessing game, What Did I Miss, it was revealed that the TV producer Rob Worsoff has pitched the United States Department of Homeland Security on a series premise he calls The American, which would give immigrants a chance to compete in a series of challenges for the prize of US citizenship. The actual process of winning citizenship is obviously too boring to film. Filling out an N-400 form? Snore. A written exam? I’d rather watch a dog eat grass. Skip all that and give us an obstacle course instead.People have stupid ideas all the time. My child thought it would be fun to squeeze lemon juice in his hot chocolate. He took one sip, almost barfed on the table, then begged me to order him another, lemon-less beverage. Stupid ideas are great, because most of them are harmless. “Oh, I ate a large bug off the ground. Whoops.” The only stupid ideas that are a problem are the ones where the actual government considers cosigning them. The DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin was asked by Time magazine what the status of Worsoff’s pitch was and responded via email that it “has not received approval or rejection by staff”.Gotta really think this one through, I guess. Something like this must be thoroughly vetted by serious people. How cruel is this one, exactly? How desirable is the bloodthirsty demo for advertisers these days? Can we sell a presenting sponsorship? And is this for streaming or broadcast? Can we get Chris Hardwick to host? These are all vital questions to consider before making a decision in show business.Such an idea would be eye-rollingly low-class in normal times, but as the Trump administration attempts to ramp up deportations and to do away with the constitutional right of citizenship by birth (and federal courts bravely fight back), this dumb concept travels at warp speed to the dimension of the truly depraved. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services website takes great pains to describe the process of becoming an American as solemn and full of responsibility. Step 10 of the site’s “10 Steps to Naturalization” is “Understanding U.S. Citizenship”. It states: “Citizenship is the common thread that connects all Americans. Check out this list of some of the most important rights and responsibilities that all citizens – both Americans by birth and by choice – should exercise, honor, and respect.”Yes, but what if you had to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar first?To make his pitch even more appealing to the bigwigs in Washington, Worsoff suggested a few choice ideas for challenges that correspond to the most stereotypical aspects of life in America’s 50 states. A pizza-making contest for New York, a rocket-launching challenge for Florida, and a “gold rush challenge” for California. Nothing says “vital skills for living in 2025” like panning for gold in a pair of tattered Levi’s 501s. Perhaps Levi’s will sponsor the segment. Gosh, this thing pays for itself.But why stop there? Maybe a Breaking Bad-themed meth-making challenge for New Mexico. Polygamy challenge for Utah? How efficiently can you operate a turn-of-the-20th-century steel mill in Pennsylvania? Can you safely land a plane at Newark airport? For Washington state, you just have to answer trivia questions about Seattle inaccuracies in the sitcom Frasier. The possibilities for inanity are significant.In order to advance to the next round of this bottomless pit of human misery, contestants would be subjected to a vote, which Worsoff described as “like a presidential election”. Oh, how fun. Can you contest the results of that vote, too? Worsoff said in an CNN interview that his idea is “not like the Hunger Games”. Mostly because the costume budget isn’t as high.The Democratic opposition in Congress has, naturally, lined up to publicly condemn such a grotesque notion. The New York congressman Jerry Nadler said on X (formerly known as a useful platform for conversation) that “human lives are not game show props.”A nice sentiment, but I must be the bearer of bad news. Human lives have been game show props since the invention of the form. In 2005, Fox (why is it always Fox?) aired a reality show called Who’s Your Daddy, where a woman had to guess which of eight men was her real father. If she guessed correctly, she’d win both an awkward conversation and $100,000. Presumably the cash prize would go directly to her therapy bills. Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise, while not a game show (the real winners are the viewers, I suppose) is a reality universe where women frequently abuse alcohol to the detriment of their own lives and the lives of others around them. If human lives are not props in these shows, are they even entertaining to the masses?An idea like The American, then, is the natural extension of the genre, taking someone’s desperation, fear, and overwhelming desire and squeezing all the drama possible out of it. Worsoff told CNN that he had pitched this idea to previous Democratic administrations, but weirdly, we never heard about it back then. It’s only now that such a concept feels enough in line with the zeitgeist of immigration paranoia that Worsoff felt emboldened to speak freely about it.He said: “I’m putting a face to immigration. This is a great celebration of America.” Yes, it is a celebration of America. Specifically our worst impulses: the desire to make everything a game and revel in the bread-and-circuses spectacle of life and death, but to cloak it in nobility and charity. Worsoff continued: “I’m very fortunate and lucky and honored to be an American. And I want everybody to understand the process.”At no point did I think that a pizza-making contest was part of the process.

    Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist More

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    New Jersey congresswoman LaMonica McIver charged with assault after clash at detention center

    US representative LaMonica McIver, a Democrat, was charged with assaulting federal agents after a clash outside an immigration detention center in New Jersey, the state’s federal prosecutor announced on Monday.Alina Habba, interim US attorney, said in a post on social media that McIver was facing charges “for assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement” when she visited the detention center along with two other Democratic members of the New Jersey congressional delegation on 9 May.“No one is above the law – politicians or otherwise,” Habba said in a statement. “It is the job of this office to uphold justice impartially, regardless of who you are. Now we will let the justice system work.”McIver on Monday accused federal law enforcement of escalating the situation, saying that it was the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents who “created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation”.“The charges against me are purely political – they mischaracterise and distort my actions, and are meant to criminalise and deter legislative oversight,” she said.At the same time, Habba announced her office was dismissing a misdemeanor trespassing charge against Ras Baraka, the Democratic mayor of Newark, whose arrest instigated the clash with federal agents.Baraka, the mayor of New Jersey’s largest city and a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor, was arrested and charged with trespassing as he sought to join the congressional delegation at Delaney Hall, a privately run federal immigration detention center.Habba, who served as Trump’s personal lawyer before being named to the post, said she had dismissed the charge “for the sake of moving forward” and offered to personally accompany Baraka on a tour of the facility, declaring the government has “nothing to hide”.View image in fullscreenKristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, wrote on X that McIver was being charged after a “thorough review of the video footage and an investigation”.Body camera footage released by the agency and shared with Fox News shows a chaotic scene outside the facility’s chain-link fence as the mayor is arrested. During the scuffle, McIver walks through the gate and appears to make contact with a law enforcement officer wearing fatigues and a face covering. It is unclear if the contact is intentional, accidental or the result of being caught in the scrum.Meanwhile, footage from witnesses on the scene appears to contradict the government’s claim that members of Congress stormed the facility.Paul Fishman, an attorney for McIver called the decision to charge the congresswoman “spectacularly inappropriate”, arguing she had the “right and responsibility to see how Ice is treating detainees”.“Rather than facilitating that inspection, Ice agents chose to escalate what should have been a peaceful situation into chaos,” Fishman, the former US attorney for the District of New Jersey, said in a statement.Democrats and legal advocates reacted with alarm on Monday, casting the prosecution of the congresswoman as an attempt to deter legislative oversight and stifle opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration policies, which have included raids and deportations without due process.In a joint statement, House Democratic leaders on Monday condemned the charges as “extreme, morally bankrupt and [lacking] any basis in law or fact”.“There is no credible evidence that Rep McIver engaged in any criminal activity,” the Democrats said, noting that after the incident, Trump administration officials led the members of Congress on a tour of the facility, which they said would not have been permitted “had she done anything wrong”.In a statement on Monday, Bakara welcomed the dismissal of charges against him, but said he would “continue to advocate for the humane treatment of detainees” and “continue to press the facility to ensure that it is compliant with City of Newark codes and regulations”. He also made clear that he stood with McIver, whom he called a “daughter of Newark”. “I fully expect her to be vindicated,” he said.Mike Zamore, national director of policy and government affairs at the ACLU, and Amol Sinha, executive director of ACLU-NJ, warned that the charges against a sitting member of Congress were “more suited for authoritarianism than American democracy”.“If the Trump administration can target elected officials who oppose its extreme agenda, it can happen to any one of us,” they wrote. “We demand that they drop the charges against Rep McIver, and we implore her fellow members of Congress to call for the same.” More

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    Trump news at a glance: thinktank finds legal immigrants stripped of protections and sent to El Salvador prison

    At least 50 Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador had entered the US legally, according to a review by the Cato Institute.Published by the libertarian thinktank on Monday, the report analyzed the available immigration data for only a portion of the men who were deported to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), and focuses on the cases where records could be found.“The government calls them all ‘illegal aliens.’ But of the 90 cases where the method of crossing is known, 50 men report that they came legally to the United States, with advanced US government permission, at an official border crossing point,” Cato said in its report.Analysis finds at least 50 migrants sent to El Salvador prison entered US legallyThe Cato Institute’s analysis goes against the Trump administration’s claim that only undocumented people were deported to El Salvador.The report says that 21 men were admitted after presenting themselves at a port of entry, 24 were granted parole, four were resettled as refugees, and one entered the US on a tourist visa.The Trump administration deported more than 200 alleged gang members to the Cecot mega-prison in March, controversially invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law meant only to be used in wartime, as justification.Read the full storySupreme court sides with Trump on Venezuelans’ protected statusDonald Trump’s administration can end legal protections that have shielded about 350,000 Venezuelans from potential deportation, the supreme court ruled on Monday.America’s highest court granted a request by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, to revoke temporary protected status (TPS) for the Venezuelans while an appeal proceeds in a lower court.Read the full storyTrump and Putin phone call fails to bring breakthrough Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have held a rare phone call, which the US leader described as “excellent”, but the Kremlin refused to agree to a ceasefire in the war with Ukraine, despite pressure from Washington and European allies.Trump described the call as having gone “very well”. But the Russian leader declined to support the US-proposed 30-day unconditional ceasefire, which Washington had framed as the call’s primary objective. Putin also suggested his country’s maximalist objectives in the war with Ukraine were unchanged.Read the full storyComey says ‘8647’ Instagram post was totally innocentThe former FBI director James Comey has brushed off criticism about a photo of seashells he posted on social media, saying it is “crazy” to think the messaged was intended as a threat against Donald Trump.“I posted it on my Instagram account and thought nothing more of it, until I heard … that people were saying it was some sort of a call for assassination, which is crazy,” Comey said in interview on MSNBC.Read the full storyMohsen Mahdawi graduates from Columbia after Ice releaseThe Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who was released only weeks ago from federal detention, has crossed the graduation stage to cheers from his fellow graduates.The Palestinian activist was arrested by immigration authorities in Colchester, Vermont, while attending a naturalization interview. He was detained and ordered to be deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being charged with a crime.Read the full storyTrump signs law to combat fake images and online exploitationDonald Trump has signed into law the Take It Down Act, a measure that imposes penalties for online sexual exploitation that Melania Trump helped usher through Congress.The US president had the first lady sign it, too, despite what sounded like a mild objection on her part.Read the full storyCBS News chief steps down amid tense Trump legal battleThe president of CBS News has announced that she is stepping down, citing disagreements with the network’s parent company as it confronts a $20bn lawsuit from Donald Trump and a looming merger.Wendy McMahon, who has helmed the company’s venerated news division since 2023, said in a memo shared in full on social media that “it’s become clear the company and I do not agree on the path forward”.Read the full storyTrump claims without evidence stars were paid to endorse HarrisDonald Trump lashed out at celebrities who endorsed Kamala Harris in late night and early morning screeds on Monday, saying he would investigate them to see if they were paid for the endorsements – repeating a common refrain on the right about the star-studded list of Harris supporters.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

    The US has officially closed its Office of Palestinian Affairs in Jerusalem, according to an internal state department memo seen by the Guardian, in effect eliminating the Palestinians’ dedicated diplomatic channel to Washington.

    A federal judge has blocked efforts by the Trump administration and its so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) to dismantle the US Institute of Peace, at least temporarily.

    The Trump administration has reportedly reached an agreement to pay nearly $5m to the family of the woman who was fatally shot by police while participating in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
    Catching up? Here’s what happened on 18 May 2025. More

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    Mohsen Mahdawi, released from Ice custody, graduates from Columbia

    Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, released just over two weeks ago from federal detention, crossed the graduation stage on Monday to cheers from his fellow graduates.The Palestinian activist was arrested by immigration authorities in Colchester, Vermont, while attending a naturalization interview. He was detained and ordered to be deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being charged with a crime.Several students cheered for Mahdawi, 34, who was draped in a keffiyeh as he walked across the stage. He blew a kiss and bowed, one video showed. Then he joined a vigil just outside Columbia’s gates, raising a photograph of his classmate Mahmoud Khalil, who remains in federal custody.“It’s very mixed emotions,” Mahdawi told the Associated Press. “The Trump administration wanted to rob me of this opportunity. They wanted me to be in a prison, in prison clothes, to not have education and to not have joy or celebration.”He is one of several international students who have been detained in recent months for their advocacy on behalf of Palestinians.The Trump administration is attempting to deport them using an obscure statute that gives the secretary of state the right to revoke the legal status of people in the country deemed a threat to foreign policy.Mahdawi was released two weeks later by a judge, who likened the government’s actions to McCarthyist repression. Federal officials have not accused Mahdawi of committing a crime, but argued that he and other student activists should be deported for beliefs that may undermine US foreign policy.For Mahdawi, who earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Columbia’s School of General Studies, the graduation marked a bittersweet return to a university that he says has betrayed him and other students.“The senior administration is selling the soul of this university to the Trump administration, participating in the destruction and the degradation of our democracy,” Mahdawi said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe pointed to Columbia’s decision to acquiesce to the Trump administration’s demands – including placing its Middle Eastern studies department under new leadership – as well as its failure to speak out against his and Khalil’s arrest.Khalil would have received his diploma from a Columbia master’s program in international studies later this week. He remains jailed in Louisiana as he awaits a decision from a federal judge about his possible release.As he prepares for a lengthy legal battle, Mahdawi faces his own uncertain future. He was previously admitted to a master’s degree program at Columbia, where he planned to study “peacekeeping and conflict resolution” in the fall. But he is reconsidering his options after learning this month that he would not receive financial aid.For now, he said, he would continue to advocate for the Palestinian cause, buoyed by the support he says he has received from the larger Columbia community.“When I went on the stage, the message was very clear and loud: they are cheering up for the idea of justice, for the idea of peace, for the idea of equality, for the idea of humanity, and nothing will stop us from continuing to do that. Not the Trump administration nor Columbia University,” he said. More