TVG Daily Brief 16 APR 2025

16 APR 2025

Stay informed and ahead of the curve with today’s top headlines, breaking stories, and the latest updates shaping our world. Get the BLUF (bottom line up front!) on defense, national security, economy, business development, technology, American manufacturing, school safety, 2A issues - and more. Prep for the whiplash and stay engaged. Know better - do better. Be the somebody!

DEFENSE

-US military poised to slash troops in Syria, officials say: The U.S. military is set to consolidate its presence in Syria over the coming weeks and months, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday, in a move that could reduce the number of troops it has in the country by half. The U.S. military has about 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria across a number of bases, mostly in the northeast. The troops are working with local forces to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State, which in 2014 seized large swathes of Iraq and Syria but was later pushed back. (Reuters)

· One of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that consolidation could reduce the number of troops in Syria to about 1,000. Another U.S. official confirmed the plan for a reduction, but said there was no certainty on numbers and was skeptical of a decrease of that scale at a time when President Donald Trump's administration has been negotiating with Iran and building up forces in the region.

· The United States has recently sent aircraft including B-2 bombers, warships and air defense systems to reinforce the Middle East. Trump said on Monday that he believes Iran is intentionally delaying a nuclear deal with the United States and that it must abandon any drive for a nuclear weapon or face a possible military strike on Tehran's atomic facilities. Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is carrying out a global review of U.S. military troops around the world.

· The Islamist-led government in Syria that took over after Bashar Assad was ousted in December has sought to rebuild Syria’s ties in the region and further afield. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, backed by the U.S., last month signed a deal with Damascus on merging Kurdish-led governing bodies and security forces with the central government.

· The U.S. gave Syria a list in March of conditions to fulfill in exchange for partial sanctions relief but the Trump administration has otherwise engaged little with the country’s new rulers. Some White House officials have been keen to take a more hardline stance, pointing to the new Syrian leadership’s former ties to Al-Qaeda as reason to keep engagement to a minimum.

-Trump resurrects ghost of US military bases in Panama: US President Donald Trump's bid to take back control of the Panama Canal has put his counterpart Jose Raul Mulino in a difficult position and revived fears in the Central American country that US military bases will return. After Trump vowed to reclaim the interoceanic waterway from Chinese influence, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed an agreement with the Mulino administration last week for the United States to deploy troops in areas adjacent to the canal. For more than two decades, after handing over control of the strategically vital waterway to Panama in 1999 and dismantling the bases that protected it, Washington has regularly conducted maneuvers in the country. (AFP)

· Although the agreement does not allow the United States to build its own permanent bases, Washington will be able to maintain a long-term rotational force in Panama, similar to the one it has in Australia and other countries, for training, exercises and "other activities." The United States will be able to deploy an unspecified number of personnel to three bases that Washington built when it previously had an enclave in the canal zone.

· That is a "flagrant violation" of the constitution, which prohibits foreign bases, and the 1977 handover treaties that establish the "neutrality" of the canal and permit only Panama to have military forces on national territory, Euclides Tapia, a Panamanian professor of international relations, told AFP. But there is a loophole: one of the treaties "allows the US to defend the canal when it feels the neutrality is jeopardized," said Will Freeman, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, a US-based think tank.

· Benjamin Gedan, former director for South America on the US National Security Council, argues that Panama has cooperated with the United States in securing the canal. Panamanian lawyer Arturo Hoyos sees no violation of laws or treaties, as the new agreement allows “joint” operations.

· Mulino’s government says that the facilities and land belong to Panama and will be for “joint use” by US and Panamanian security forces. He maintains that he has not ceded an inch of sovereignty to Trump, a natural right-wing ally.

· The agreement is a “trade-off” because it “limits the Trump administration’s pressure tactics and hostility and maybe the scope of the concessions” by Panama, Freeman said. “The risk that nobody’s pricing in, at least on the US side, is that they make Mulino a lame duck” by humiliating him, leaving the Panamanian leader “unable to govern,” he added.

-US and Philippine joint combat drills show Trump is not scaling back on South China Sea region: About 14,000 American and Filipino forces will take part in battle-readiness exercises in the Philippines, including live-fire drills, in a largescale deployment that shows the Trump administration is not scaling back its commitment to help deter aggression in the region, a senior Philippine military official said Tuesday. (AP)

· The annual joint Balikatan — Tagalog for “shoulder-to-shoulder” — exercises between the longtime allies will be held from April 21 to May 9 and involve about 9,000 United States and 5,000 Filipino military personnel. They will involve fighter aircraft, navy ships and an array of weaponry, including a U.S. anti-ship missile system, Philippine Brig. Gen. Michael Logico said. Australia will deploy about 200 military personnel. and Japan and a number of other friendly nations will send smaller military delegations.

· China has frowned on such war drills in or near the disputed South China Sea and in northern Philippine provinces close to Taiwan, especially those that involve the U.S. and allied forces that Beijing says aim to contain it and consequently threaten regional stability and peace. Logico said the Balikatan exercises were not aimed at any particular country.

-Top Hegseth adviser Dan Caldwell put on leave in Pentagon leak probe: One of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's leading advisers, Dan Caldwell, was escorted from the Pentagon on Tuesday after being identified during an investigation into leaks at the Department of Defense, a U.S. official told Reuters. Caldwell was placed on administrative leave for "an unauthorized disclosure," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The decision has not been previously reported. "The investigation remains ongoing," the official said without providing details about the nature of the alleged disclosure, including whether it was made to a journalist or to someone else. (Reuters)

· President Donald Trump’s administration has moved to aggressively pursue leaks, an effort that has been enthusiastically embraced by Hegseth at the Pentagon. A March 21 memo signed by Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, requested an investigation into “recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications.” Kasper’s memo left open the possibility of a polygraph, although it was unclear if Caldwell was subjected to one.

· Although Caldwell is not as well known as other senior Pentagon officials, he has played a critical role as an adviser to Hegseth. His importance was underscored in a leaked text chain on Signal disclosed by The Atlantic last month. In it, Hegseth named Caldwell as the best staff point of contact for the National Security Council as it prepared for the launch of strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

· Caldwell had drawn attention in Washington for past views that critics have called isolationist, but which advocates said sought to right-size America’s defense priorities. A Marine Corps veteran who deployed to Iraq, Caldwell was quoted saying before going to the Pentagon that America would have been better off if U.S. troops had just stayed home. “I think the Iraq war was a monstrous crime,” Caldwell told the Financial Times in December 2024. He was also a skeptic of U.S. military assistance to Ukraine and advocated for U.S. retrenchment from Europe.

-Two top Pentagon officials placed on leave in leak probe: The Pentagon placed two top political appointees under administrative leave on Tuesday after a probe into potential leaks of sensitive information, according to three defense officials. Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, was escorted out of the Pentagon by security officers and had his building access suspended pending further investigation, said two of the officials, who were granted anonymity to discuss an ongoing probe. (Politico)

· Darin Selnick, the Pentagon’s deputy chief of staff, was also suspended as part of the same probe and escorted out of the building, according to one of the officials. Reuters first reported Caldwell’s removal, but Selnick’s departure and the focus of the leaks have not been previously reported.

· Selnick, earlier this year, also performed the duties of the under secretary of Defense for personnel and readiness. He served in the White House and the Department of Veterans Affairs in the first Trump administration. He’s also a former senior adviser to Concerned Veterans for America, which Hegseth used to lead.

-Army and Air Force libraries are ordered to review books for DEI material: Army and Air Force libraries have been told to go through their stacks to find books related to diversity, equity and inclusion, according to new memos obtained by The Associated Press. The orders from service leaders come about two weeks after the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, removed nearly 400 books from its library after being told by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office to get rid of those that promote DEI. The latest Army and Air Force orders are part of the Trump administration’s far-reaching efforts to purge so-called DEI content from federal agencies. (AP)

· The memos suggest that any removal of books will only happen after the initial lists are reviewed more closely. That slower pace may reflect a desire to be more careful about what books are pulled from shelves after the Navy faced criticism over some of those it removed. Books on the Holocaust, histories of feminism, civil rights and racism, as well as Maya Angelou’s famous autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” were among the 381 books that were removed from the U.S. Naval Academy’s Nimitz Library.

· The Army memo was sent to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, the Army War College in Pennsylvania and several other service departments. It says they must review their collections and any books promoting DEI, gender ideology and critical race theory “in a manner that subverts meritocracy and unity” must be removed “pending additional guidance.”

· The memo — signed by Derrick Anderson, acting assistant Army secretary for manpower — says a list must be provided to the Army’s chief librarian by Wednesday. The order also applies to libraries under the authority of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, Army Special Operations Command and the Army Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School.

· The Air Force memo, meanwhile, directs the Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs, Colorado, to review all of its titles for anything related to DEI, gender ideology and critical race theory. The school must provide an interim list by April 30 and a final list by May 30. That memo was signed by Gwendolyn DeFilippi, the acting assistant secretary for manpower, and did not specify other libraries within the Air Force.

-Students sue US Defense Department schools for book removals: A dozen students in U.S. Defense Department schools sued the department and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday for book removals and curriculum changes following executive orders from President Donald Trump, an advocacy group said. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of 12 students from six families who attend schools as children of active duty service members, the ACLU said on Tuesday. (Reuters)

· The lawsuit argues that students' First Amendment rights were harmed by what the ACLU called the "censorship of materials about race and gender in military-run schools." The U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protects free speech. The ACLU said three of Trump's orders signed in January revoked "students' access to books and curricula about race and gender." The Pentagon had no immediate comment.

-Fort Benning takes back its old name, but to honor a different soldier: The Army is restoring the name Fort Benning to its storied training post in Georgia, only this time to honor an 18-year-old corporal who fought in World War I rather than a Confederate general. A ceremony to make the name change official was scheduled Wednesday at the base just outside Columbus. Roughly 70,000 soldiers, civilian workers and military family members are stationed at Fort Benning, which trains infantry troops and tank crews and is home to the elite Army Ranger School. (AP)

· It’s the second time in less than two years that Fort Benning commanders have been tasked with swapping out the post’s name on everything from signs marking gates, streets and buildings to official stationery and websites. The last name change in 2023 redesignated the post as Fort Moore as part of a move started by Congress in 2020 and completed during President Joe Biden’s administration to remove names that honored Confederate leaders, including from nine Army posts.

· The name of Henry L. Benning, a former Georgia Supreme Court justice who vocally supported secession and served as a Confederate brigadier general in the Civil War, had adorned the base since it opened as Camp Benning in 1918. Federal law now prohibits naming military bases for Confederates. The Pentagon under President Donald Trump has found a workaround for reverting bases back to what they were formerly called, by finding new soldiers to honor with the same last name.

· Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last month ordered the change back to Fort Benning to honor Fred Benning, who was awarded the nation’s second-highest honor for battlefield bravery as an 18-year-old corporal in 1918. Fred Benning received his Distinguished Service Cross after returning home to Nebraska, where he started a bakery and served as mayor of the small town of Neligh. He died in 1974.

-Review of decision not to award Space Command to Alabama inconclusive, with Trump reversal expected: With the Trump administration expected to reverse a controversial 2023 decision on the permanent location of U.S. Space Command, a review by the Defense Department inspector general could not determine why Colorado was chosen over Alabama. The inspector general's report, issued Friday, said this was in part due to a lack of access to senior defense officials during the Biden administration, when the review began. The location of U.S. Space Command has significant implications for the local economy, given the fast growth in national defense spending in space-based communications and defenses. (AP)

· In 2021, the Air Force identified Army Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, as the preferred location for the new U.S. Space Command due to cost and other factors. But a temporary headquarters had already been established in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and after multiple delays President Joe Biden announced it as the permanent headquarters.

· Alabama’s Republican congressional delegation accused the Biden administration of politicizing the decision. But Colorado, which has Republican and Democratic lawmakers, is home to many other Air Force and U.S. Space Force facilities.

· As recently as last week, Rep. Mike Rogers House, an Alabama Republican who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, told a panel at Auburn University he expects the decision to be reversed by the White House before the end of April.

· The location of Space Command would be one of many decisions that have swung back and forth between Biden and President Donald Trump. For instance, Biden stopped the construction of the border wall that began during Trump’s first term, only to have Trump now vow to complete it. And Trump is again seeking to ban transgender troops from serving in the military, after Biden removed Trump's first-term limitations.

-IG: SPACECOM HQ move to Alabama could save $426 million: Moving U.S. Space Command headquarters from Colorado to Alabama would have saved the Defense Department $426 million, according to the latest report from the DOD inspector general. The report, released today, provides a list of events or communications in chronological order of when the Air Force secretary, defense secretary and SPACECOM commander made recommendations along with when reports were completed. (Inside Defense)

· After a redacted sentence, the report states: “However, the one-time cost for moving to [Redstone Arsenal in Alabama] was $426 million less than remaining in Colorado Springs because of lower personnel costs and construction savings.” The report noted that the office of the assistant Air Force secretary for energy, installations and environment assessed the daily drive time for personnel, differences in one-time costs and annually recurring costs, but the remaining two paragraphs in the report’s section are redacted.

-Joint Staff pursues ‘major step forward’ to enhance ORION force management platform with AI: The Joint Chiefs of Staff recently moved to modernize its military intelligence platform that supplies high-stakes data analytics, predictive capabilities, and real-time visualization and collaboration tools to decision-makers across the Pentagon’s Joint Planning and Execution Community — with support from BigBear.ai. (DefenseScoop)

· In separate discussions on the heels of a $13.2 million sole-source contract award underpinning the work, a Joint Staff spokesperson and two officials from the Virginia-based company briefed DefenseScoop on the near-term plans to enhance the Force Management Directorate (J-35)’s ORION Decision Support Platform, and ultimately offer a more complete, AI-enabled view of the U.S. military’s assets, missions and personnel.

· “The DOD operates within a finite force pool, balancing responses to a wide range of global events — from humanitarian assistance to major military operations — often occurring simultaneously. The ORION Decision Support Platform provides a comprehensive view of force capabilities to support real-time decision-making,” a spokesperson from the Joint Staff told DefenseScoop on Tuesday.

· Broadly, the J-35 directorate oversees the organizational structure, policies, and resources necessary for the U.S. military branches to collectively maintain readiness and integrate global operations, against a backdrop of complex and evolving threats.

-Pentagon Looks to Ground Radars to ‘Fill Gaps’ in Space Domain Awareness: As the Space Force looks to expand its ability to track objects in orbit, a series of ground-based radars coming in the next few years could help fill gaps in coverage. Better space domain awareness—essentially intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance on satellites—is one of the top priorities of USSF leadership, who want to be able to track more threats and have a deeper understanding of what they’re doing, especially as competitors like China maneuver their satellites more and more. To do so, the service can use its own spacecraft or sensors on the ground. (Air & Space Forces Magazine)

· Col. Bryon McClain, program executive officer for space domain awareness (SDA) and combat power, told reporters at the Space Symposium that he is taking a “both/and” approach. “The answer is always ‘I want more,’ and space-based fills in gaps that ground-based systems can’t always grab. Ground-based systems fill in gaps that space-based systems can’t grab. To me, it’s a mix,” he said. Yet ground-based radars in particular seem to be how the Space Force is trying to boost coverage in the near term, especially over the Indo-Pacific region, while it plans other long-term upgrades.

-New Pentagon program could kickstart a new era of nuclear power: The explosion in new AI capabilities is driving a related competition for more electrical power, including nuclear power. But practical and regulatory obstacles have inhibited investors. Now, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit has chosen a new slew of companies that are eligible to build small, or “microreactors” at Defense Department installations. (Defense One)

· The potential reactors could provide bases with reliable power in the event of a major attack on U.S. infrastructure, or a power collapse due to a national disaster. But the move could also lay the foundation for a microreactor industry, with broad applications for the commercial world.

· The companies selected include General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, Kairos Power, X-Energy, and others, according to DIU’s announcement last week. The companies aren’t on contract yet, Andrew Higier, director of the energy portfolio at DIU, told Defense One. But announcing they are eligible for a contract is the first step.

· “The next step would be for vendors to receive what we call a request for prototype proposal, at which point we would actually go into contract negotiations to look to put vendors on contract,” he said.

· The Defense Department has been looking at microreactors for years, for a variety of purposes, and has produced some concepts. But concerns about ballooning power requirements for power-hungry AI tools has created an opportunity for the Defense Department to get in on the ground floor and help shape a new industry.

· “That AI boom that we’re seeing has really reinvigorated the entire industry of micro and small reactors, and more than that, it’s catalyzed the industry to start investing private capital into this technology,” Higier said. “I felt compelled that DIU had to be involved here. Because of the AI boom—with big companies out there, Apple, Google, Meta, Facebook—they’re all looking at AI data centers powered by nuclear” energy.

-Pentagon’s ‘SWAT team of nerds’ resigns en masse: Under pressure from the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, nearly all the staff of the Defense Digital Service — the Pentagon’s fast-track tech development arm — are resigning over the coming month, according to the director and three other current members of the office granted anonymity to discuss their job status freely, as well as internal emails. The resignations will effectively shut down the decade-old program after the end of April. (Politico)

· The Defense Digital Service was created in 2015 to help the Pentagon adopt fast tech fixes during national security crises and push Silicon Valley-style innovation inside the Pentagon. It built rapid response tools for the military during the Afghanistan withdrawal, databases to transfer Ukrainian military and humanitarian aid, drone detection technologies and more.

· Without the program, some key efforts to streamline the DOD’s tech talent pipeline and counter adversarial drones will be sunset, one soon-to-be former employee said. Once dubbed the Pentagon’s “SWAT team of nerds,” DDS was one of the department’s earliest efforts to inject Silicon Valley ethos into its massive bureaucracy.

-Anduril gets green light from Army to take over Microsoft’s IVAS project: Exec: Anduril has officially assumed oversight of a multi-billion production deal for the US Army’s mixed-reality Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), a company official told Breaking Defense. (Breaking Defense)

· On April 10, the service signed off on the “contact novation,” which essentially slid the terms of Microsoft’s 10-year, $22 billion contract over to the tech company, according to Anduril’s Senior Vice President of Engineering Tom Keane. However, the company is not expecting to actually produce any hardware under the deal, but rather focusing on making sure the existing devices operate properly.

· Microsoft, Keane explained, has fulfilled all existing production orders for Army IVAS heads-up displays (HUDs) including an order for 400 of the 1.2 version of the devices delivered in the February timeframe.

· “There’s no new hardware on the existing IVAS contract that Anduril is responsible for delivering, but what we’re going to be delivering is the software functionality on top of those existing headsets,” Keane said. “We’ve modified and changed pretty extensively the way in which software used to be released as part of IVAS,” he said separately. “It used to take about 180 days or six months to get from a developer down to the warfighter. … We’ve got that down to about 18 hours.”

-Navy Seeks to Reactivate Wells Closed During Red Hill Crisis: More than three years after the Navy shut down two of its Oahu water wells in response to the Red Hill water crisis, the serv ­ice is now looking to reopen them. The state Department of Health has given the Navy “conditional approval ” to work toward reopening its Aiea-Halawa Shaft. The Navy also has released a draft environmental impact statement on the possibility of building water treatment facilities that eventually would allow it to reactivate its fuel-contaminated Red Hill Shaft, and is soliciting public feedback until Sunday. (Honolulu Star-Advertiser)

· The Navy is in the process of permanently shutting down the Red Hill facility, which sits just 100 feet above an aquifer most of Honolulu relies on for water.

· In 2021, fuel from the facility tainted the Red Hill Shaft and entered the Navy’s Oahu water system that serves 93, 000 people, including military families and civilians living in former military housing areas. Thousands of people on the Navy water line reported experiencing ailments ranging from rashes, digestive issues, neurological problems and others.

· Representatives of the Honolulu Board of Water Supply and the Red Hill Community Representation Initiative have raised concerns about the reactivation plans—including the degree to which residents on the water line are being informed of plans to reactivate the wells.

-Marine Corps Fires Commander of East Coast Air Station: The Marine Corps fired the commanding officer of one of the service's most storied air stations on Tuesday, a regional spokesperson confirmed to Military.com. Col. Mark D. Bortnem, a former F/A-18 pilot with more than 30 years in the service, was relieved of his duties as commander of Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina, Nat Fahy, director of communications for Marine Corps Installations East, said in an emailed statement. Fahy said the reason was "due to a loss of trust and confidence" in Bortnem's ability to command. The military often uses that phrase as an opaque justification for firings that avoids specifics. (Military.com)

-Top enlisted leader of Air Force Special Operations Command fired amid investigation: The top enlisted leader for the 20,000-person Air Force Special Operations Command was relieved of duty for “loss in confidence in his ability to fulfill his duties,” according to a statement released by AFSOC officials. An AFSOC spokesperson told Task & Purpose that Command Chief Master Sgt. Anthony Green was fired Monday as the command chief and reassigned outside of AFSOC headquarters at Hurlburt Field, Florida, pending the outcome of an investigation. Officials would not comment on the nature of the investigation. (Task & Purpose)

-Former Air Force Commander at Wright-Patterson Faces Court-Martial: A court-martial is underway this week for a former commander at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, who is accused of adultery and fraternization. Col. Christopher Meeker, the former commander of the 88th Air Base Wing, was removed from his leadership position in late December 2023. In December 2024, it was announced that he was facing three violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The charges include "one charge and one specification under Article 90, Willfully Disobeying Superior Commissioned Officer; and another charge and two specifications under Article 134, Extramarital Sexual Conduct and Fraternization," Wright-Patterson announced at the time in a press release. (Military.com)

-Shaving Waivers Revoked by Massachusetts Guard in Change Disproportionately Impacting Black Troops: The Massachusetts Army National Guard has abruptly rescinded long-standing medical waivers that allowed certain soldiers to maintain facial hair -- a policy primarily affecting Black service members. (Military.com)

· According to an email to the state's troops, parts of which were posted to social media and confirmed as authentic to Military.com by Guard officials, the Massachusetts Guard informed soldiers that any shaving waivers issued before January 2023 are now considered expired. Those waivers, commonly granted for a chronic skin condition known as pseudofolliculitis barbae (PFB), are typically issued by medical professionals and are usually indefinite unless reassessed for medical reasons. Waivers are also granted for religious accommodations.

· PFB, which disproportionately affects Black men, causes painful inflammation due to tightly curled hair growing back into the skin after shaving. Facial hair waivers for those diagnosed with PFB have long been standard practice across the armed services, as clean-shaven grooming requirements can exacerbate the condition and result in significant discomfort or disfigurement.

VETERANS

-VA plans to cut hundreds of payroll jobs at regional medical sites: Veterans Affairs leaders plan to cut hundreds of payroll workers in coming months as part of efforts to downsize the department’s workforce and increase efficiency in agency operations. The moves, outlined in an internal memo signed by VA Secretary Doug Collins earlier this month, would shutter payroll offices at nearly 50 VA medical centers spread throughout the country, which employ around 600 staffers. (Military Times)

· Their workload would instead be handled by the department’s Financial Services Center, centralizing finances for all department workers. Officials estimate the move will save the Veterans Health Administration about $13 million annually. “Centralizing these payroll services will reduce administrative overhead, duplication errors, back pay settlements, fraud, and increase efficiencies,” Acting Chief Financial Officer Edward Murray wrote in the memo.

· But it will also eliminate jobs for about 300 federal workers and force the relocation of 300 other positions. In a statement, VA Press Secretary Peter Kasperowicz said the department has yet to finalize details about which employees will be given opportunities to move or accept other department jobs.

· “Despite the fact that VA has a proven payroll system that processes paychecks for more than 200,000 VA employees, some 50 VA medical centers still maintain their own payroll support staff,” Kasperowicz said. “By consolidating payroll and payroll support for all employees under VA’s Financial Services Center, VA will save money, time and resources. “This is exactly the kind of commonsense reform that should have been done years ago but is only happening now under President Trump and Secretary Collins.”

-Lenders voice concerns over decision to end VA home loan rescue effort: Mortgage industry officials this week expressed concerns over the recent Veterans Affairs’ decision to abruptly end a home loan rescue program, saying that more guidance is needed from department planners to protect individuals facing severe financial hardships. (Military Times)

· In a letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins on Monday, leaders from the Community Home Lenders of America — a non-profit association of small and mid-sized community mortgage lenders — said that companies working with veterans have received “no detailed guidance, or in fact any information, to help them properly advise veterans families of imminent changes” with the Veterans Affairs Servicing Purchase (VASP) program.

· On April 4, VA leaders announced the 10-month-old VASP program would stop accepting new enrollees on May 1. The effort was launched to purchase defaulted VA loans from outside mortgage servicers in an effort to allow financially strapped veterans to avoid forfeiture of their homes.

· About 17,000 veterans received home loans with lower interest rates through the program, according to VA statistics. But the effort drew sharp criticism from conservative lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who claimed it undermined the existing VA home loans program by providing too much financial aid to a select few veterans.

-VA Watchdog: Misdated PACT Act Disability Decisions Costing Government, Veterans Millions: A sampling of disability claims filed under the 2022 PACT Act found that roughly one-quarter listed incorrect start dates, resulting in improper payouts of about $6.8 million to some veterans and shortchanging an estimated 2,300 others, the Department of Veterans Affairs' internal watchdog found. (Military.com)

· In a report released Tuesday, the Veterans Affairs Officer of Inspector General concluded that the legislation’s complexity, along with inadequate guidance from the Veterans Benefits Administration, led claims adjudicators to assign the wrong “effective date” to an estimated 26,000 claims, resulting in overpayment by the government in the first year of the legislation.

· An estimated 2,300 additional claims had erroneous dates—including some that should have been made retroactive to a date before the law was signed, increasing compensation for veterans—but the watchdog agency said it “could not determine their monetary impact” on any affected veterans.

· The landmark PACT Act, signed into law Aug. 10, 2022, expanded health care and benefits to millions of veterans exposed to environmental pollutants while serving overseas in specified combat zones across decades, including the Middle East and Afghanistan.

· According to the VA, it has received 2.44 million PACT Act-related claims since the law went into effect. It has adjudicated 2.14 million claims and approved 1.59 million and, as of May 2024, had awarded $5.7 billion in related benefits to veterans or survivors. The VA OIG estimated that the VA will have made an estimated $20.4 million in improper payments in the first three years of the law, representing about 0.36% of payouts.

-Veteran self scheduling system for medical appointments stills need a little work: It seems simple enough. Veterans seeking care from community providers external to VA can schedule their own appointments. That’s once they get the okay from VA. Now the VA’s Office of Inspector General has called for more oversight of the Veteran Self Scheduling system. The director for community care in the office of Audits and Evaluations, Jennifer McDonald, joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to share more. (Federal News Network)

· Tom Temin: What is complicated about this that caused an IG investigation? You’ve got a long list of recommendations. It seems like the simplest thing in the world.

· Jennifer McDonald: We do, we had eight recommendations on this. So what makes this complicated is veterans have to opt into the scheduling preference, so normally for community care, once a veteran’s eligible, schedulers from their facility will reach out to the community care provider. We’ll make the appointment, we’ll reach back out to the veteran, we’ll ask, does this time work for you? Is this the provider you want to see? And it takes some coordination. So veteran self scheduling is an option that instead allows veterans who opt into it to contact the provider of their choice directly to schedule right with them. So it’s supposed to speed up scheduling and it’s supposed to take the burden off of the VAMC and also give the veteran the ability to go to a provider they want to go. So it should be simple but what we found happening is that veterans were being opted into this option without their knowledge. So that’s where it gets more complex, when they’re not aware of it

-Republican-led legislation bans VA executives from taking bonuses meant for rank-and-file employees: Senior executives at the Department of Veterans Affairs would be banned from ever again taking bonuses that Congress established for rank-and-file workers — including police, housekeepers and claims processors — under legislation adopted by the Senate. Sponsored by Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., the legislation stops funds in the Critical Skills Incentives Program from going to executives at VA headquarters who weren’t eligible to receive them. (Stars and Stripes)

· About $11 million from the program, which was authorized under the PACT Act, was erroneously paid out as year-end bonuses to VA executives at the agency’s central office in late 2023. Payments to individuals ranged from $39,000 to more than $100,000. The VA also has pledged to examine the improperly awarded bonuses and recoupment efforts, according to Peter Kasperowicz, the VA press secretary.

· Moran, who is chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, described the improper payouts as a gross misuse of funds. “This legislation will make certain these funds will not be used to enrich VA bureaucrats,” he said.

· Air Force veteran Nicholas Marino of South Carolina, who is 100% disabled and medically retired, said he welcomes the legislation but worries its impact will be limited. He said he often is frustrated by VA decisions over the delivery of services and benefits. “I see the VA bureaucracy as a big part of the problem,” said Marino, a former staff sergeant who served from 1997 to 2008, including in the Middle East. “Incentive bonuses will only be helpful with those VA employees already dedicated and trying to do a good job. But there will always be bad actors — workers who just show up for the paycheck and little else.”

· Moran’s legislation, passed by unanimous consent, was offered as an amendment to the Protecting Regular Order for Veterans Act, which seeks to bring more financial accountability and transparency to VA spending. Sponsored by Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, the PRO Act requires the VA secretary to give Congress a quarterly budget briefing on the agency’s spending plan that includes projections about shortfalls and the reasons for them.

· Sullivan said his goal is to bring greater oversight to the VA’s $369 billion budget and prevent mismanagement of VA funds. The bill, which collected more than a dozen Republican co-sponsors, has been forwarded to the House for consideration, after its adoption last week in the Senate.

-NC House committee OKs bill expanding state job preferences for veterans: A bill expanding eligibility for hiring preferences for military veterans, spouses and dependents in state government got a favorable hearing Tuesday in the Committee on Homeland Security and Military and Veterans Affairs. While veterans are already granted an employment preference under current state law, House Bill 114 would: Remove the requirements that service be related to a period of war; Include people serving on active duty; Include members of the U.S. Armed Forces Reserve; and Include the spouse or dependent of a qualified person. “It [HB 114] addresses an employment preference statute that’s a little bit antiquated,” said Rep. Charles Smith (D-Cumberland), one of the bill’s co-sponsors. (NC Newsline)

· Under current law, for example, veterans must have served during a period when the nation was at war. Current law defines the Vietnam War as the nation’s last such conflict. “Time has passed and so to expand that preference to a greater pool of veterans, it strips away that language [defining the Vietnam War as the nation’s last],” Smith said. Expanding eligibility for state job preferences could help fill vacancies in state government, Smith said.

· In March, NC Newsline reported that the state’s job vacancy rate was 20%. The turnover rate was 12%, but significantly higher within an employee’s first year — 31%. Key sectors have especially high vacancy rates: 33% for health care, and 26% for corrections.

· Smith said the changes in the law — particularly a provision extending the preference to spouses — would help North Carolina keep former military personnel in the state once they leave the service. “As we strive to be a military friendly state, if we want to retain service members as they transition into civilian life, I think having a spouse with a career in state government is a good way to do that,” Smith said.

· The veteran unemployment rate was 3.7% in March, which was down from 4.0% the previous month and up from 3.0% the prior year. Meanwhile, the civilian unemployment rate was 4.2%, which marked a slight increase over the 4.1% rate in February.

· HB 114 comes amid uncertainty in federal employment as the Trump administration slashes jobs as part of its efforts to streamline the federal government. According to the Pew Research Center, more than 700,000 veterans worked in federal departments and agencies as of September 2024.

· The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, reported in March that the Trump administration’s federal workforce cuts may jeopardize the careers of nearly 900,000 veterans, spouses of veterans and spouses of active military personnel. They makeup 30% of the entire federal government workforce. The federal government also gives hiring preferences to veterans. Veterans comprise just 5% of all employed Americans.

· The Department of Veterans Affairs, which provides health care for millions of veterans, is planning to cut 83,000 jobs. In North Carolina, there are 84,900 civilian federal employees, according to EPI. Nearly 28,000 of them are veterans. Meanwhile, 33,200 are spouses of veterans or spouse of active-duty military service members. A quarter of the VA’s 482,000 employees are veterans.

· Rep. Eric Ager (D-Buncombe), Rep. Edward Goodwin (R-Chowan) and Kyle Hall (R-Forsyth) are also primary sponsor of HB 114. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development.

-Missouri lawmaker wants to bring wellness check program to doorsteps of military veterans: “Identifying needs before they become a crisis.” That’s what Rep. Michael Johnson, D-Kansas City, says he wants to do for U.S. military veterans who are at risk. He is sponsoring a bill that would require the creation of a state program to offer wellness checks to veterans who are vulnerable to homelessness, isolation, and mental health problems. (Missourinet)

· A House committee is deciding whether to advance his bill that would allow veterans to voluntarily enroll in the program. “Missouri is home to over 400,000 veterans,” said Johnson, a U.S. Army veteran. “Too many suffer in silence. This bill brings support to their doorsteps instead of waiting for them to seek it out. Studies show regular human interaction reduces the risk of suicide, hospitalization and homelessness.”

· House Bill 948 would offer wellness checks twice a month by phone, virtually, or in person. They would be completed by a veteran or a person who has received training on medical, mental health, housing, and vocational needs of veterans.

-‘Dismantle the system’: Father of U.S. Navy veteran who died by suicide calls for mental health reform: A well-decorated Navy veteran died by suicide outside the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital on April 7 in what his father believes was an outcry against the Department of Veterans Affairs and its mental health care system. Mark Miller, 53, a retired Special Forces sniper who served in the U.S. Navy for 15 years, sent a text message to his father, Dr. Larry Miller, just moments before he took his own life. Larry Miller said he responded immediately to his son. “I messaged him back saying, ‘Son, I love you too, very much. Give me a call.’ But I don’t know if he ever got that message or not,” he said. (KSAT)

· In a Facebook post, Larry Miller said his son’s suicide was meant to send a message. “He was making a powerful statement to the VA and to the world on behalf of thousands of veterans,” he wrote. Larry Miller blamed the VA’s handling of mental health care for his son’s death. “Absolutely, positively, they are at fault,” he said. “I lay the blame on the VA system and the psychiatrist who drugged him instead of helping him.”

· Larry Miller described his son as a dedicated service member. “He did jobs that very few other people would be willing to do,” Larry Miller said. “He helped us and helped the country in a time of need.” But during what would be his final visit to the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital, Mark Miller expressed frustration with what he perceived as a medication-first approach to care. “He said, ‘Can you believe what they’ve done? They’re just like robots handing out pills, poisoning our people,’” Larry Miller recalled.

· Now, Larry Miller is calling for systemic reform. “Dismantle the system of mental health,” he said. “Get people in there who are going to do the right thing. Get them out of the VA system and into private enterprise.” Despite his grief, Larry Miller said he’s determined to amplify his son’s message — and prevent other families from experiencing similar loss. “Don’t do it,” he urged other veterans who may be struggling. “There’s always a way out. You’re going to really hurt your family. If you get to that point, you have to reach out. You can’t do this by yourself.”

-U.S. veteran fears for Afghanistan allies' safety as deportation threat looms: In a little over a month, Temporary Protected Status designation will cease for Afghanistan. Afghan immigrants who don't have a legal immigration status to shift to once Temporary Protected Status expires could face deportation, including thousands of refugees who fled the country in 2022 when the Taliban took over the country. (WCIV)

· With the change, Rebekah Edmonson – a U.S. Army veteran who served four tours in Afghanistan – remains worried about the safety of those they worked with. “The women that my colleagues and myself trained had no choice but to flee Afghanistan because of the work that they had done and their affiliation to the US military,” Edmonson said.

· Currently, she works with Nxt Mission. It is a nonprofit dedicated to assisting Afghan women soldiers who fought alongside US Special Operation forces gain work and citizens. “So colleagues and I worked collaboratively to get them evacuated to the United States,” Edmonson said. “There was a group of 40 at the time, and that number has since grown to about. And as it stands today, out of that group, only six of them have received their green cards.”

· Once Temporary Protected Status expires, those without a different legal immigration status could face separation back to Afghanistan and Taliban rule. “They wouldn’t stand a chance,” Edmonson said of the women forced back to Afghanistan. “Their names, the names of their family members are known to the Taliban government. So not only would they face death, but I believe that it would be done in the most horrific public way possible just to make a statement.”

· The National Immigration Forum estimates over 8,000 Afghanistan refugees are currently under Temporary Protected Status. “I know that the women that I work with represent but a small subset of the Afghan community that has come here over the last few years, but the situation is not safe for any Afghan, especially any afghan that had any type of collaboration with the US government or the military,” Edmonson explained. “And to the idea of sending any of them back, is insane. It’s unthinkable. It’s more than inhumane.”

· The Afghan-American Foundation released a statement on social media, where it reiterated that Afghanistan remains unstable with widespread human rights violations – including the prosecution of women and minorities.

· “We went to Afghanistan,” Edmonson said. “We deployed time and time again in service to our country, and now we feel like what was that for? What does it matter if no one’s even listening to us when we’re telling them that these people matter?”

· Global Refuge, a nonprofit refugee resettlement agency, is also calling on the Trump administration to extend Temporary Protected Status designations for Afghanistan. “What I would hope for is for America as a society, for its leadership, to really listen to veterans that have sacrificed more than we have to even offer,” Edmonson said. “If you really have the desire to support America’s military and veterans, to really take the time to listen and to do something to help change it, and not just sit by and let the disaster to continue to unfold.”

· Alongside Afghanistan, Temporary Protected Status will also expire for Cameroon on June 7, impacting more than 3,000 people.

-Former Fort Carson soldier still facing deportation after being brought back to Colorado: Jose Barco was once in a U.S. combat uniform as he served two tours in Iraq for the Army. Now, Barco sits in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Aurora, and his loved ones are concerned and scared about his future. "That's probably one of the scariest things in my life, because you have no idea what's happening," said Tia Barco, the wife of Jose Barco. (KXRM)

· While serving in the army, Barco tried to apply for U.S. citizenship in 2006, but somehow his papers never made their way through. In January, Barco was released from prison after serving 15 years for an attempted murder charge back in 2009. After being released from the Colorado State Penitentiary, Barco was immediately taken by ICE and sent up to Aurora. From there, Barco has been on the move from one facility to another.

· The U.S. government attempted to put him on a flight back to Venezuela since Barco has a Venezuelan birth certificate. Tia Barco tells FOX21 that her husband’s ties to Venezuela come from Barco’s parents fleeing to the country from Cuba. Barco was not taken in by the Venezuelan government and was sent instead to Honduras before being sent back to the U.S. and ending up in Aurora once again.

· Through the whole process of being transported to different countries, Tia Barco said she was in the dark the whole time. “I didn’t know for almost 18 hours that he had been rejected when he got back to Arlington, he was put in a holding cell and they didn’t allow him to contact anyone for 12 hours,” Tia Barco said.

· Barco’s story has been gaining attention across Colorado, including from Anna Stout, a City Council member in Grand Junction. Once she learned of his story, Stout reached out to various contacts on LinkedIn to get in touch with the family and help in any way possible. “It just broke me to understand that we have somebody in our country, who fought for our country, who bled for our country, and is now facing removal,” Stout said.

· When it comes to undocumented immigrants convicted of a crime, the Trump Administration has argued that those immigrants should be deported. “We’re going to continue to arrest Public Safety threats, and national security threats will continue to be deported from the United States,” said Border Czar Tom Homan in an interview on ABC’s This Week.

· Since Barco does not have U.S. citizenship, Tia, Anna, and a team of lawyers are working to get him out by looking at any path possible, but Stout tells FOX21 News it does not look promising. “There’s not even a real clear path at this point because this is an unprecedented situation to have a U.S. veteran who was injured fighting for our country,” Stout said. Another complicating factor in Barco’s situation is his attempted murder conviction, barring him from obtaining U.S. citizenship. Barco would have to be pardoned by the governor in order to re-apply for citizenship.

· For the moment, Tia Barco and the rest of the family are doing what they can to ease Barco’s mind, as they fight to get him out of custody and into the treatment he needs for PTSD. “It’s really hard to give someone encouragement that’s mentally broken and exhausted,” Tia Barco said.

-97-year-old Veteran says instead of getting assistance from Veterans Affairs, he's getting ignored: More and more Veterans are likely to be Centenarians. That has Walter Dashiell, and his daughter, Zelda, wondering if the VA is ready to handle more aging veterans than ever before. "I need to be recognized more so than I am being at the present time," Walter said. (FOX 26)

· The backstory: Walter served in the United States Army from April 11, 1946 until April 11, 1949. “I was a teacher, that was my duty information education program,” he said. “I’m hoping my dad will receive aid and attendance,” said Zelda. “My dad is moving out of the ability of being independent.” Zelda says her dad has early signs of Dementia and none of his medical issues are service-related. “They’re starting to send him bills for co-pays we never saw before,” she said.

· Back in 2023, Walter got a letter from the Department of Veterans Affairs telling him his military records were destroyed in a fire at the National Archives and Records Administration on July 12, 1973. He’s yet to know if his file has been reconstructed. “We’ve had no personal phone calls from anyone saying, 'by the way, we've put this back together', or based on paperwork, we need nothing," Zelda said. "You never hear from them, that's what gets you," Walter said. "You just wait, what else can you do."

· "And the rent goes up every year, not once every two years, it's every year," said Zelda. Walter is now being threatened with eviction. He and his daughter say they are getting nowhere with the VA.

-Red Cross recording veterans’ stories to preserve for next generation: More than a dozen area veterans are sitting down in front of a camera to share and preserve their stories of service. These videos will be added to the collection maintained by the Library of Congress for the Veterans History Project. While there have been efforts in the past to collect the stories of Kansas veterans for this project, the American Red Cross of South Central and Southeast Kansas wants to grow the number of Kansans represented. It starts with a similar question. (KWCH)

· Red Cross volunteer Stacy Jones, “Introduce yourself and tell us where you were born.” “My given name is Milton H Duncan, I go by Herb,” said Duncan Tuesday, as he shared his story with the Veterans History Project. Duncan is here to tell his story. It’s something he’s committed to doing.

· “My mission, with my age at this point in time, is to represent the 58,000 that never came home. When I go into schools and talk to children and others, that’s what I want to project. That’s what I want to represent,” said Duncan. “Because if you’re remembered, you’ll never be forgotten. That’s why I’m particularly interested in doing something like this. To do my part, to draw attention to history.”

· He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1958 when a recruiter came to East High School in Wichita. “United States Navy saved my life because when I was in high school, I was going down the wrong road,” he said. He added during the recording, “When the plane started moving down the runway, of looking out the window. I had the darndest feeling of how my life has literally changed.”

GLOBAL

-Trump holds Situation Room meeting on Iran, officials say: President Donald Trump met with his top national security aides on Tuesday to discuss Iran's nuclear program ahead of a second meeting between U.S. and Iranian officials on Saturday, sources said. U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is to meet his Iranian counterpart on Saturday, a session currently scheduled to be held in Oman. Trump spoke to the sultan of Oman, Haitham bin Tariq, about Oman's mediation role between Washington and Tehran. (Reuters)

· A White House official confirmed the White House Situation Room meeting on Iran and said the location was not unusual since Trump gets briefed there regularly to take advantage of the chamber's secure setting. A second source briefed on the meeting said Trump and his top aides discussed the Iran talks and next steps. U.S. officials have been working on a framework for a potential nuclear deal.

· White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Trump’s bottom line in the talks, which included an initial session last Saturday, is he wanted to use negotiations to ensure Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. Trump and the Omani leader also discussed ongoing U.S. operations against Yemen’s Houthis, she said.

· “The maximum pressure campaign on Iran continues,” Leavitt said at a press briefing. “The president has made it clear he wants to see dialogue and discussion with Iran, while making his directive about Iran never being able to obtain a nuclear weapon quite clear.” She added that he had “emphasized” this directive during the call with Sultan Haitham.

-Top Trump Aides' Remarks on Iran Nuclear Talks Give Mixed Messages: The Trump administration started with a simple goal: Make Iran dismantle its nuclear and missile programs. Then its top negotiator started softening his tone, and had to retreat. Just a few weeks ago, President Trump's national security adviser, Michael Waltz, a longtime hawk on Iran, cast the administration's goal in negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program in crystal clear terms. ''Full dismantlement,'' he said. He went on to list what that meant: Iran had to give up facilities for enriching nuclear fuel, for ''weaponization'' and even its long-range missiles. (NYT)

· But what sounded like a simple, tough-sounding goal on a Sunday talk show has started to unravel. In the past 24 hours, officials have left a contradictory and confusing set of messages, suggesting the administration might settle for caps on Iran’s activities—much as President Barack Obama did a decade ago—before backtracking on Tuesday.

· Some of this may simply reflect inexperience in dealing with nuclear weapons programs. Mr. Trump’s chief negotiator is Steve Witkoff, a friend of the president’s who, as a New York developer like him, has spent a lifetime dealing with skyscrapers but only began delving into Iran’s underground nuclear centrifuges and suspected weapons labs a few weeks ago.

· But the inconsistency also appears rooted in the splits inside Mr. Trump’s national security team as it grapples anew with one of the longest-lasting and most vexing problems in American foreign policy: How to stop Iran’s nuclear program without going to war over it. So far, the result is a blitz of mixed messages, conflicting signals and blustering threats, not unlike the way Mr. Trump and his aides talk about their ever-evolving tariff strategy.

-US Envoy Backtracks on Iran’s Nuclear Program: The Trump administration’s top Middle East envoy is backing away from his initial comments that the US would focus on restricting Iran’s uranium enrichment and missile capability rather than dismantling its entire nuclear program. Steve Witkoff made the original remarks Monday on Fox News — a suggestion that went against US and Israeli hardliners and would have marked a significant diplomatic step. But by the next morning, his tone changed. “A deal with Iran will only be completed if it is a Trump deal,” Witkoff wrote on a social media post. That means “Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program,” he added. (Bloomberg)

-Khamenei downplays US talks prospects as some Iranians' hopes stir, currency gains: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sought on Tuesday to play down expectations of a breakthrough in nuclear talks with the U.S., following stirrings of hope among some Iranians weary of economic hardships that have at times sparked public unrest. Failure to reach a deal with President Donald Trump to end Iran's decades-long dispute with the West could profoundly hurt the Islamic Republic, Iranian politicians and insiders have said, even if Washington is subsequently portrayed by Tehran as the guilty party. (Reuters)

· After last weekend’s U.S.-Iran talks in Oman, which both sides described as positive, Iranian expectations of economic relief have soared, according to Iranians reached by telephone and by messages posted by Iranians on social media. A second round of nuclear talks will be held in Muscat on April 19.

· Iran’s battered rial currency has gained some 20% against the dollar in the past few days, with many Iranians hoping an deal to end Iran’s economic isolation may be within reach. “We are neither overly optimistic nor pessimistic regarding them. After all, it is a process which was decided and its first steps have been well implemented,” Khamenei said in a meeting with officials, according to state media.

· White House special envoy Steve Witkoff, who leads the talks with Iran, said that Trump has asked him to “create a tough, fair deal that will endure.” “Any final arrangement must set a framework for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East - meaning that Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program,” Witkoff posted on X on Tuesday.

-Iran FM says uranium enrichment 'non-negotiable' after Trump envoy urged halt: Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Wednesday that Iran's enrichment of uranium as part of its nuclear programme was "non-negotiable" after US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff called for a halt. "Iran's enrichment is a real, accepted matter. We are ready to build confidence in response to possible concerns, but the issue of enrichment is non-negotiable," Araghchi told reporters after a cabinet meeting. The remarks came as Araghchi and Witkoff are due to meet again in Oman on Saturday, a week after they held the highest-level talks between the longtime foes since US President Donald Trump abandoned a landmark nuclear deal in 2018. (AFP)

-Israeli defense minister says troops will remain in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria indefinitely: Israel’s defense minister says that troops will remain in so-called security zones in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria indefinitely. Israeli forces have taken over large areas of Gaza in recent weeks in a renewed campaign to pressure Hamas to release hostages after Israel ended their ceasefire last month. Israel has also refused to withdraw from some areas in Lebanon following a ceasefire with the Hezbollah militant group last year, and it seized a buffer zone in southern Syria after the overthrow of President Bashar Assad. The Palestinians and both neighboring countries view the presence of Israeli troops as military occupation in violation of international law. (AP)

-Israel defence minister says no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza: Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said the country would keep blocking humanitarian aid from entering the war-battered Gaza Strip, where intense aerial and ground assaults have resumed. "Israel's policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population," Katz said in a statement, amid a major humanitarian crisis following Israel's decision to prevent the entry of aid since March 2. "No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and there are no preparations to enable such aid," Katz said. The United Nations warned on Monday that Gaza is facing its most severe humanitarian crisis since the war began in October 2023. (AFP)

-Netanyahu calls for hostages to be released during Gaza visit: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited northern Gaza on Tuesday, accompanied by the country's defense minister, head of the military and other senior officials, his office said. A statement released by the prime minister's office said Netanyahu received a security briefing in northern Gaza on the military's effort to free Israeli hostages and to defeat Hamas. "We insist that our hostages be released and we insist on achieving all of our objectives for the war, and are doing so thanks to our heroic fighters," Netanyahu's office cited the prime minister as saying during a meeting with soldiers. (Reuters)

-Hamas armed wing says it lost contact with group holding Israeli-US hostage Alexander: The armed wing of Hamas said on Tuesday it had lost contact with a group of militants holding Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander in the Gaza Strip. Abu Ubaida, the armed wing's spokesperson, said on the Telegram that it lost contact after the Israeli army attacked the place where the militants were holding Alexander, who is a New Jersey native and a 21-year-old soldier in the Israeli army. (Reuters)

· Abu Ubaida did not say where in Gaza Alexander was purportedly held. The armed wing later released a video warning hostages families that their "children will return in black coffins with their bodies torn apart from shrapnel from your army".

· Hamas has previously blamed Israel for the deaths of hostages held in Gaza, including as a direct result of military operations, while also acknowledging on at least one occasion that a hostage was killed by a guard. It said the guard had acted against instructions.

-‘Now You’re Dead’: Freed Hostage Recounts Captivity in Gaza: Keith Siegel, who spent 484 days as a hostage, described the physical and psychological distress he endured, in an interview with The New York Times. Hamas gunmen picked the female hostage out from a cluster of captives in an apartment in Gaza. They threatened her with a pistol and led her away into a separate room. Then they commanded Keith Siegel to follow. (NYT)

· It had been about a month since Mr. Siegel, the woman and roughly 250 others were kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, during the Hamas-led attack that set off the war with Israel. The conditions of their captivity in Gaza were unbearable, Mr. Siegel said. Meals were intermittent. Water was scarce. And any failure to follow their captors’ instructions risked violent retribution.

· As Mr. Siegel stepped into the room, panic washed over him: He found himself in the audience of a “medieval-style” trial by torture, he said. The woman had been bound, and the guards were beating her with primitive tools. They demanded that she “tell the truth,” Mr. Siegel said. He was instructed to assist with getting a confession. “I was told to go into the room and to tell the person that the torturing will continue until they admit what they were being accused of,” he said.

· The episode was one of many that defined the horrific experience that Mr. Siegel, an Israeli American originally from North Carolina, and his fellow hostages endured in captivity. Mr. Siegel was released on Feb. 1, after 484 days as a hostage, as part of a short-lived cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas. Another 59 hostages remain in Gaza, with around 35 presumed by the Israeli government to be dead.

-Gaza a 'mass grave' of Palestinians, says MSF, as Israeli strikes kill 13: Gaza has become a "mass grave" for Palestinians and those trying to help them, medical charity MSF said on Wednesday, as medics said the Israeli military killed at least 13 in the north of the enclave and continued to demolish homes in Rafah in the south. Palestinian medics said an airstrike killed 10 people, including the well-known writer and photographer, Fatema Hassouna, whose work has captured the struggles faced by her community in Gaza City through the war. A strike on another house further north killed three, they said. (Reuters)

· In Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, residents said the Israeli military demolished more homes in the city, which has all come under Israeli control in the past days in what Israeli leaders said was an expansion of security zones in Gaza to put more pressure on Hamas to release remaining hostages.

· “Gaza has been turned into a mass grave of Palestinians and those coming to their assistance. We are witnessing in real time the destruction and forced displacement of the entire population in Gaza,” Amande Bazerolle, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ emergency coordinator in Gaza, said in a statement. “With nowhere safe for Palestinians or those trying to help them, the humanitarian response is severely struggling under the weight of insecurity and critical supply shortages, leaving people with few, if any, options for accessing care.”

· Efforts by mediators Egypt, Qatar and the United States to restore the defunct ceasefire in Gaza and free Israeli hostages have faltered with Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas locked in their positions.

· Hamas says it wants to move into the second phase of the January ceasefire agreement that would discuss Israel’s pullout from Gaza and ending the war, which erupted when Hamas militants stormed Israel on October 7, 2023. Israel says war can only end when Hamas is defeated.

-UN human rights office concerned about Israeli strikes on civilians in Lebanon: The U.N. human rights office voiced concern on Tuesday about the protection of civilians in Lebanon as Israeli military operations have continued to kill civilians there since a ceasefire in November. "Israeli military operations in Lebanon continue to kill and injure civilians, and destroy civilian infrastructure, raising concerns regarding the protection of civilians," Thameen Al-Kheetan, spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva. (Reuters)

· At least 71 civilians - including 14 women and nine children - have been killed by Israeli forces in Lebanon since the ceasefire came into effect on 27 November last year, and 92,000 are still displaced, according to OHCHR. “We are calling for investigations into all allegations of violations...Each and every military action where civilians are killed must be investigated,” Al-Kheetan said.

· The U.N’s rights office raised concern about recent Israeli military operations hitting civilian infrastructure, including a strike on April 3 which destroyed a newly established medical centre run by the Islamic Health Society in Naqoura. It also noted that at least five rockets, two mortars and a drone have been launched from Lebanon towards the north of Israel, according to the Israeli army, and that tens of thousands of Israelis remain displaced from the north. “The ceasefire must hold and any escalation is a risk for stability in general in Lebanon, Israel and the whole region,” Al-Kheetan added.

-Jordan Says It Foiled a Plot Against the Kingdom: The Jordanian security services said Tuesday that they had arrested 16 people they accused of plotting threats to national security involving weapons, explosives and plans to manufacture drones and train combatants, both domestically and abroad. The statement from Jordan’s General Intelligence Department was a rare acknowledgment of threats to security in a country seen as one of the most stable in a region frequently beset by war and turmoil. Jordan has long been a key partner for Western allies in fighting Islamist militants and mediating in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (NYT)

· The Arab kingdom, with roughly half its population made up of Palestinians, has been struggling to maintain that stability amid simmering discontent within its population over the war in the Gaza Strip and broader regional fighting — particularly after Jordan supported Israel in shooting down missiles during an Iranian aerial attack last spring. For years, the country has also been engaged in an extended battle to combat drug smugglers seeking to move their goods through the country toward wealthy customers in the Gulf region.

-UK maritime agency reports incident east of Yemen's Aden: The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said on Tuesday that it received a report of an incident for a vessel 100 nautical miles east of Yemen's Aden, the first report by the agency in the area in months. The vessel's crew were safe and it was proceeding to the next port of call, UKMTO said, after reporting it was being followed by people in multiple small vessels for about two hours with shots being fired. The agency said it was investigating the incident, without identifying the vessel or naming the potential attackers. (Reuters)

-Russia is refusing to offer any concessions as talks over a U.S.-proposed 30-day ceasefire drag into a second month. Russian President Vladimir Putin is acting as though he’s already won, despite his forces failing to make significant gains on the ground. And President Donald Trump continues to act as though Ukraine has already lost, even as European allies have pledged 20 billion euros and Ukraine is waging an effective drone campaign against Russian targets. (Washington Examiner)

· Yesterday, Ukraine claimed to have destroyed the Russian missile base in the Kursk region that was the source of the Palm Sunday missile attack that killed more than 30 civilians and wounded more than 100 others in Sumy. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte visited Ukraine to deliver the message that NATO, even without the United States, “stands with Ukraine.”

· “I also know that some have called NATO’s support into question in the last couple of months,” said Rutte, standing alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the port city of Odesa. “But let there be no doubt, our support is unwavering.”

-The ‘Five Territories’: While the White House and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff say that Russia wants a peace deal, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War points out that Putin’s “maximalist” demands have not changed since he outlined conditions in a speech last year. (Washington Examiner)

· “Putin demanded on June 14, 2024 that Ukrainian forces must ‘completely withdraw’ from Ukrainian-controlled territory in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts and that Ukraine must officially abandon its goal of joining NATO,” the ISW said, noting that “Kremlin officials continue to demand that Ukraine surrender territory that Russia does not currently occupy and to justify Russia’s ambitions of asserting control over independent countries, including NATO member states.”

· In his Monday night interview on Fox News, Witkoff called his latest talks with Putin “compelling” and told host Sean Hannity that “it took a while for us to get to what Putin’s request is to have a permanent peace,” but “we got an answer to that.”

· “This peace deal is about these so-called five territories,” Witkoff said. “But there’s so much more to it. I think we might be on the verge of something that would be very important for the world at large.”

· Zelensky quickly rejected the idea that Ukraine would cede territory it now controls or recognize occupied regions as permanently part of Russia.

· “Ukraine is a sovereign state, and all territories belong to the unitary state of Ukraine. Therefore, once again, only the people of Ukraine can speak about the territories of our state,” Zelensky said. “And you know that for us, it is a red line to recognize any temporarily occupied territories as anything other than Ukrainian, and particularly as Russian.”

-Leavitt: ‘We Need To See A Ceasefire First’: Trump continues to insist that Putin is seeking peace, even as Russia continues to insist on onerous concessions from Ukraine, including the “full demilitarization” of its armed forces, currently the world’s sixth largest military, with 980,000 troops, more than France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. combined. (Washington Examiner)

· “Witkoff believes that Russia wants to end this war, and the President believes that as well,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at the White House Tuesday. “There is incentive for Russia to end this war and perhaps that could be economic partnerships with the United States. But we need to see a ceasefire first. And the President and the presidential envoy, Witkoff, made that very clear to the Russians.”

· Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg, the U.S. has told G7 allies it won’t endorse a statement condemning Russia’s deadliest attack on Ukraine this year because it is “working to preserve the space to negotiate peace.”

· “I think it’s very clear his sympathies are with Vladimir Putin and the Russians,” Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton said in an appearance on NewsNation. “I think it shows why even though he said he could bring the war to a halt in 24 hours — he said that during the campaign — tried to get a ceasefire over the past weeks between Ukraine and Russia, and Putin has ignored that.”

· “Putin continuing his attacks as recently as this Sunday against civilian targets and Trump still isn’t prepared to blame him,” Bolton said “I think Putin reads Trump is an easy mark and he’s getting what he wants.”

-US lowers Ukraine aid estimate in minerals deal talks, Bloomberg News reports: The United States has reduced its cost estimate for the assistance provided to Ukraine since Russia's invasion in 2022 to about $100 billion from $300 billion, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. U.S. President Donald Trump is seeking a bilateral minerals deal as part of a peace push to end Russia's war in Ukraine. Trump also sees it as a way to recover billions of dollars spent on military assistance to Kyiv, although the aid was not a loan. (Reuters)

· Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that talks with the U.S. regarding a minerals deal were “positive”, and that more meetings were expected. The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment.

· Last month, the Trump administration proposed a new, more expansive minerals deal with Ukraine, which gives Ukraine no future security guarantees but requires it to place in a joint investment fund all income from the exploitation of natural resources by state and private enterprises across Ukrainian territory.

-NATO chief reaffirms support for Ukraine during a visit to the port city of Odesa: NATO’s support for Ukraine remains “unwavering,” the alliance’s secretary-general said Tuesday, emphasizing that more than 20 billion euros — over $22 billion — in security assistance has already been pledged by NATO allies in the first three months of the year. Mark Rutte spoke on Tuesday in Ukraine's port city of Odesa, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. His visit came days after two Russian ballistic missiles struck the city of Sumy on Palm Sunday morning, killing at least 35 people, including two children, and injuring 119. (AP)

· “I’m here today because I believe Ukraine’s people deserve real peace, real safety and security in their country, in their homes,” Rutte said during a joint news conference with Zelenskyy. The two met with wounded Ukrainian soldiers at a hospital in Odesa.

· This is Rutte’s first trip to Ukraine since U.S. President Donald Trump assumed the lead in ceasefire negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, which have included several rounds of talks in Saudi Arabia. “These discussions are not easy, not least in the wake of this horrific violence,” Rutte said, referring to the recent strikes. “But we all support President Trump’s push for peace.”

-Italian minister blames Russia for Ukraine truce failures: Russia does not appear serious about seeking peace in Ukraine despite pressure from Washington, Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto told Reuters in an interview in which he also voiced anger over Israeli strikes on Gaza. Italy's conservative government is ideologically aligned with U.S. President Donald Trump and unlike many other European nations, it has refused to criticise his policies. But while Rome has welcomed U.S. efforts to secure an end to the three-year-old war in Ukraine, ministers have expressed alarm in private over the way Trump has treated Kyiv and have openly warned that Russia might try to deceive him. (Reuters)

· "Nothing has changed with the Russians," said Crosetto, who is politically very close to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. "It is clear the Russians want to continue with the attacks as they have over the past three years," he added.

-Slovakia's pro-Russian leader rejects a call by the EU not to attend a military parade in Moscow: Slovakia's populist Prime Minister Robert Fico reacted angrily Tuesday to what he called “disrespectful” remarks by the European Union foreign policy chief who warned European leaders against traveling to Moscow for military celebrations of the end of World War II. Known for his pro-Russian views, Fico has repeatedly vowed to attend the military parade in the Russian capital on May 9 that will mark the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in WW II. (AP)

· Kaja Kallas told reporters in Luxembourg on Monday after a meeting of EU foreign ministers that “what was also discussed and very clearly said by different member states is that any participation in the 9th of May parades, or celebrations, in Moscow will not be taken lightly on the European side, considering that Russia is really waging a full-scale war in Europe.”

· Kallas also said that “We made it very clear that we do not want any candidate country to participate in these events on the 9th of May in Moscow” and called on the member states to send their representatives to the capital of Kyiv instead to show solidarity with Ukraine.

· “I will go to Moscow on May 9,“ Fico said in a statement. “Mrs. Kallas, I would like to inform you that I am a legitimate premier of Slovakia, a sovereign country,“ he said. “Nobody can order me where to go or not to go.“ Fico said he will travel to Moscow to honor the Red Army soldiers who liberated his country and other victims of the Nazis.

-Inside North Korea's vast operation to help Russia's war on Ukraine: North Korean soldiers joined the fight alongside Russian troops late last year, helping their ally turn the tide on a Ukrainian incursion into Russia's western Kursk region. Lacking armored vehicles and drone warfare experience, the Koreans took heavy casualties, but adapted quickly. North Korea has sent an estimated total of 14,000 troops, including 3,000 reinforcements to replace its losses, Ukrainian officials say. (Reuters)

· North Korea has not just offered the lives of its men in Russia. Much more significant for Russia's strategy are the armaments flowing into Ukraine's eastern front. For nearly 20 months, millions of North Korean shells have made their way to the frontlines in shipments by sea and then by train, according to a Reuters investigation in conjunction with the Open Source Centre. At times over the past year, the vast majority of shells fired by some Russian units were from North Korea, Reuters found. The military aid helped Russia sustain its war of attrition in Ukraine at crucial times.

-Ukraine Says Russian Drone Attack Injures Three, Damages Homes In Odesa: A Russian drone attack on the Black Sea port city of Odesa overnight injured three people, sparked fires and damaged homes and civilian infrastructure, officials of the southern Ukrainian region said early on Wednesday. "The enemy has again attacked Odesa with a massive drone attack," Oleh Kiper, governor of the region whose administrative centre is the city of Odesa, said on messaging app Telegram, though the full scale of the attack was not clear. (Reuters)

-Russia Jails Four Journalists Who Covered Navalny: Russia on Tuesday sentenced four journalists it said were associated with late opposition leader Alexei Navalny to five and a half years in a penal colony, intensifying a crackdown on press freedom and Kremlin critics. Navalny -- Putin's main opponent -- was declared an "extremist" by Russian authorities, a ruling that remains in force despite his death in an Arctic penal colony on February 16, 2024. Moscow also banned Navalny's organisations as "extremist" shortly before launching its 2022 Ukraine offensive and has ruthlessly targeted those it deems to have links to him. A judge sentenced the reporters -- Antonina Kravtsova, Konstantin Gabov, Sergei Karelin, and Artem Kriger -- who all covered Navalny to "five years and six months in a general-regime penal colony", an AFP journalist heard. (AFP)

-Spend More On Defence Now To Protect Europe From Russia, Says Lithuania's Defence Minister: Europe must remove borrowing limits for defence spending or face the prospect of war with Russia, Lithuanian Defence Minister Dovile Sakaliene told Reuters on Tuesday. "Defence now is an existential matter, it's more important than structural reforms", said Sakaliene. "If you cannot provide enough ammo for your soldiers, it doesn't really matter what you say," she said in an interview. "We have a chance to prevent our citizens from dying in terrifying numbers from Russian bullets and Russian bombs. But we need to disburse funds for strengthening our military, our defence capabilities, right now." (Reuters)

· Lithuania, a NATO and EU member, which borders both its former overlord Russia and Moscow’s close ally Belarus, has committed to spending 5.5% of its gross domestic product next year on defence, up from 3.9% of GDP earmarked this year.

· European Union finance ministers expressed interest on Saturday in the idea of a joint defence fund that would buy and own defence equipment, partly as a way to address concerns of highly-indebted countries because the debt incurred would not be attached to national accounts. The discussion is part of a European effort to prepare for a potential attack from Russia as EU governments realise they can no longer fully rely on the United States for their security.

-Finland Developing Device To Counter Alleged Russian Satellite Jamming: Finnish researchers are working on a device to counter jamming of satellite positioning systems, which has spiked in the country since 2022, the project leader told AFP on Tuesday. Finland has seen a surge in suspected jammings of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) services such as GPS or Galileo since 2022, which has impacted aviation and marine traffic. The interference, believed to be from Russia, has also disrupted satellite imagery used by Finland's military, border guard service and its forestry sector. (AFP)

· Prompted by an “urgent need” to tackle the attempts, which pose both security and economic risks, Finnish researchers began developing in April a device to identify and mitigate intentional jamming of satellite positioning signals, said Mika Saajasto, a senior research scientist with the national land survey authority. “We will develop algorithmic solutions suitable for our conditions that can identify the interference and warn the end user that there’s something in the air that doesn’t belong there,” said Saajasto, who is leading the project.

· Around 2,000 reports of satellite positioning interference were registered in Finland last year, compared to just 239 reports in 2023, according to the Finnish transport and communications agency Traficom.

-Poland Says Russian Cyberattacks Intensify Ahead Of Vote: Poland's ministry of digital affairs on Tuesday came out against what it said was a growing number of Russian cyberattacks, just one month ahead of the country's presidential election. Authorities in Poland, a staunch ally of neighbouring Ukraine, have warned in recent months that Moscow might seek to interfere with the May 18 election through cyberattacks and disinformation. (AFP)

· “Today we counted almost 2,000 incidents and the day is not over yet,” Krzysztof Gawkowski, Poland’s digital affairs minister, told news channel TVN24, adding that the uptick had begun at the start of the year. “There are 60,000-70,000 attacks a month” of various sizes, he said, reiterating the view that Poland was “in cyberwar with Russia”.

· According to Gawkowski, Russian services are trying to trigger “emotions and panic” by targeting public structures such as water and electricity distribution systems. The minister said that Russian military intelligence was “trying to recruit agents of influence at all costs”, paying them between “3,000 and 4,000 euros ($3,300 to $4,500) for 10 days’ work, to spread disinformation”.

-Vance’s Invectives: Vice President JD Vance praised former French Resistance leader and President Charles De Gaulle today, as he accused Europe of functionally existing in a “vassalship” of the United States. In an interview with British news and opinion website UnHerd, Vance said that de Gaulle was correct in extolling the need for European military independence from the United States. (Politico)

· De Gaulle “loved the United States of America,” Vance said, “but [he] recognized what I certainly recognize, that it’s not in Europe’s interest, and it’s not in America’s interest, for Europe to be a permanent security vassal of the United States.”

· Those comments are just the latest tough words from Vance toward Europe as he prepares for a visit to the continent this week and the Trump administration insists that European countries should ramp up defense spending aggressively.

· Vance also slammed Zelenskyy after the Ukrainian leader accused Vance of “somehow justifying” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Vance said it was “sort of absurd for Zelenskyy to tell the [American] government, which is currently keeping his entire government and war effort together, that we are somehow on the side of the Russians.”

-Italy's Meloni to meet Trump amid U.S.- Europe trade tensions: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is heading to the White House for a meeting on Thursday with President Donald Trump, seeking to ease tensions over U.S. tariffs on European goods and position herself as a bridge between Washington and Brussels. Meloni is walking a tightrope between her ideological affinity to the president and her ties with European allies, who have criticised Trump's tariff hikes and his decision to exclude the EU from talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine. (Reuters)

· While Meloni is under pressure at home to protect Italy's export-driven economy, which last year ran a 40 billion euro ($45.4 billion) trade surplus with the U.S., she must also be seen to defend the interests of the whole 27-nation EU bloc. French government ministers have warned that the nationalist Italian leader might undermine EU unity by going alone to Washington, but the European Commission, which has responsibility for negotiating trade accords, has welcomed Meloni's trip.

-Romania tells US Congress group its presidential vote will be fair, transparent: Romania is committed to ensuring its May presidential vote re-run is fair and transparent, after its election result in December was cancelled, interim President Ilie Bolojan told a U.S. Congress delegation on Wednesday. The European Union and NATO member will repeat its two-round election on May 4 and 18 after the Constitutional Court voided the initial ballot following accusations of Russian meddling - denied by Moscow - in favour of far-right frontrunner Calin Georgescu, who has since been banned from running again. The cancellation put Romania at the centre of a dispute between Europe and U.S. President Donald Trump's incoming administration over free speech and suppressing political opponents. (Reuters)

· "As regards the 2024 election process, the interim president said Romania has learned the necessary lessons and that state institutions are committed to ensuring a fair, transparent election in full agreement with democratic standards," the Romanian presidency said in a statement. Bolojan met a bipartisan delegation of eight U.S. members of Congress, the first U.S. officials to visit Romania since the election was voided.

· Bolojan also underlined the importance of consolidating American troops in Romania and the Black Sea at a time when the Pentagon is considering withdrawing troops from Europe. "We have a lot of companies that come here, create good jobs, we want more good-paying jobs here and more companies, so that's why we're here," Florida Republican Representative Vern Buchanan told reporters after meeting with Romanian lawmakers. "This country is important to us and we want to work together, we've got a lot of things we're going to work on, but it's been a very positive meeting."

-Swedish probe finds no conclusive evidence of deliberate cable damage by Chinese ship: A Swedish probe found no conclusive evidence to suggest that a Chinese ship had deliberately dragged its anchor to damage two Baltic Sea cables, Sweden's Accident Investigation Authority said on Tuesday, though a separate investigation remains under way. The Yi Peng 3 bulk carrier has been under investigation for dragging its anchor and breaching two subsea fibre-optic communications cables in Swedish economic waters, one linking Finland and Germany and the other connecting Sweden to Lithuania, on November 17-18 last year. (Reuters)

-UK Supreme Court rules ‘woman’ means biological female: Britain’s highest court ruled Wednesday that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex. “The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex,” Patrick Hodge, deputy president of the Supreme Court, said as he delivered his judgment on Wednesday. (Politico)

· It will be seen as a landmark victory for gender-critical feminist campaigners who have long argued biological sex is immutable, and a blow for transgender rights activists. The ruling could have far-reaching implications for the provision of single-sex spaces and other gender-specific public services across Scotland, England and Wales.

· The U.K government said the ruling had brought “clarity and confidence” for women and service providers such as hospitals, refuges, and sports clubs. “Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government,” a spokesperson said in a statement following the ruling.

-Britain's race to take control of its last major steel plant from Chinese owner: Britain's parliament is only recalled at times of national crisis. But when lawmakers were brought back from their Easter vacation last weekend, the cause was not a war, terror attack or the death of a monarch – but the potential closure of a steel plant in northern England. The government said the owner of the British Steel complex in Scunthorpe, the Chinese company Jingye, was prepared to cancel orders for the raw materials needed to keep its blast furnaces burning, a step that would leave Britain unable to make virgin steel for the first time since the Industrial Revolution. (CNN)

· Parliament voted to take emergency control of the plant – and even reportedly used the police to deny Jingye staff entry to the site. Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, has said full nationalization of the plant is “likely,” meaning the government could soon have to run a complex and costly manufacturing operation – a task it has long outsourced to private, and often foreign, companies.

· Once a steel giant, Britain is now a minnow. It accounts for just 0.3% of global output and imports large quantities of the alloy to meet domestic demand. But the government’s hasty decision to take back control of the Scunthorpe plant, owned by Jingye since 2020, offers a snapshot of how countries like Britain are navigating an economically uncertain world: on the one hand, remaining committed to the globalization that US President Donald Trump is challenging; on the other, protecting industries that are judged too strategically important to leave to market forces.

-US lawyer says UK intel firm paid for hack operation against him: A New York attorney has accused a British private intelligence firm of paying mercenary hackers who he says tipped a court battle in his opponents' favor. In a legal motion filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court, Daniel Feldman accused the London-based investigations firm Vantage Intelligence of paying the spies who intercepted privileged communications with his attorneys around 2016, 2017, and 2018. Feldman said the hacking occurred when he was in a court battle with Vantage's clients, a group of companies tied to the defunct Russian oil giant Yukos, over allegations of self-dealing. (Reuters)

-Armenia calls on Azerbaijan to investigate ceasefire violations on border: Armenia called on Azerbaijan on Tuesday to investigate ceasefire violations along the two countries' frontier, as a surge of reported incidents of cross-border gunfire raises the prospect of renewed fighting between the long-term rivals. Armenia and Azerbaijan said in March they had agreed the text of a peace treaty to end almost 40 years of conflict over the Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which previously had a largely ethnic Armenian population. But since the text of the still-unsigned treaty was agreed on March 13, authorities on both sides have reported ceasefire violations 26 times. Multiple incidents have been reported on several days in the last month. (Reuters)

-South Korea's Hanwha Aerospace to produce missiles in Poland: Polish defence company WB Electronics and South Korea's Hanwha Aerospace have signed an agreement to form a joint venture producing missiles in Poland, the Polish defence ministry said on Tuesday. South Korea has emerged as a key supplier of military equipment to Poland as Warsaw looks to develop defence production capacity at as an essential step in bolstering its security in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "This is another agreement strengthening the cooperation of both companies," Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on X. "Thanks to the transfer of technology to our industry, the new missiles will also be used by other missile systems used by the Polish army." (Reuters)

-Philippines calls joint US drills 'defense rehearsal' as China tensions simmer: The United States is deploying around 9,000 troops to the Philippines for this year's joint military exercises, as the allies strengthen ties amid tensions with China over its activities in the South China Sea and in Taiwan. The annual drills, which the Philippine military on Tuesday described as a rehearsal for national defense, will include 5,000 Filipino troops, 200 from the Australia Defence Force, and observers from the Japan Self-Defence Force. For the first time, observers from countries like Poland and the Czech Republic will also participate. (Reuters)

· While this year's troop count is lower than 2023's 17,600, it will be more purposeful, Brigadier General Michael Logico, spokesperson for the event, told a press conference. The annual "Balikatan," or "shoulder-to-shoulder" drills reflect deepening defense ties between the two allies, as tensions simmer in the South China Sea and around Taiwan, where China recently held large-scale military exercises.

-India offers cheap loans for arms, targeting Russia's traditional customers: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's bid to transform India into a global factory floor has produced billions of dollars of low-cost iPhones and pharmaceuticals. Now he hopes to add missiles, helicopters and battleships to the shopping carts of foreign governments. The world's largest importer of weapons after Ukraine is expanding the ability of the state-owned Export-Import Bank (EXIM) to offer long-term, low-cost loans to clients, including those whose political or credit risk profiles may limit their access to conventional financing, according to two Indian officials and three industry sources. (Reuters)

· New Delhi will also sharply increase the number of defense attachés in its foreign missions as part of a new program that will see the government directly negotiate some arms deals, four Indian officials said. India is particularly targeting governments which have long relied on Russia for arms, two of the people said.

· India’s plans, which were detailed to Reuters by 15 people and have not been previously reported, mark an unprecedented effort by the government to inject itself into the recruitment and financing of foreign buyers as the world is rearming and longstanding geopolitical relationships are being recast.

-For Australia's conservative party leader, Trump link becomes a liability: A few days after President Donald Trump took office, just as Elon Musk was firing up his chainsaw to carve up American bureaucracy, a similar cost-cutting proposal was taking shape on the opposite side of the globe. Australia's conservative opposition leader, Peter Dutton, promised to tackle government inefficiency if he became prime minister in the looming election, echoing many of the notes Musk hit with his U.S. DOGE Service. Dutton also promised to fire government "cultural diversity and inclusion" officials and to cut similar programs in schools, along the same lines as Trump's anti-DEI agenda. (WP)

· “I think there is going to be a new revolution that comes with the Trump administration in relation to a lot of the woke issues that might be fashionable” in Australia, Dutton told Sky News. Ten weeks later, however, it is the global trading system - and Dutton’s political future - that has undergone a revolution. After leading in the polls for six months, the conservative candidate suddenly finds himself trailing as Australia’s May 3 federal election approaches.

· And while analysts say Dutton’s missteps have played a role, so too has his decision to at times emulate Trump - an already unpopular figure here whose standing has plummeted further after he imposed a 10 percent tariff on goods from Australia, one of Washington’s closest allies.

-'Hard on the body': Canadian troops train for Arctic defense: In normal conditions, Canadian Air Force helicopter pilot Jonathan Vokey uses the treeline to gauge his altitude. But in the Arctic, where the landing zone is an expanse of white snow, he has to adjust. "Operating in the cold, it's hard on the body, but it also can be challenging with the aircraft as well," Captain Vokey told AFP during an exercise aimed at preparing Canadian troops to operate in the country's extreme north, a region fast becoming a military priority. (AFP)

· Canada is making a significant push to boost its military strength in the Arctic, which accounts for 40 percent of its territory. Arctic ice is melting as a result of climate change, opening up the region and increasing the risk of confrontation with rivals like Russia over the area’s natural resources, including minerals, oil and gas, as well as fresh water.

· “If I was to boil it down: you can access the north now more easily than you have ever been able to. And I would say that that’s going to change even more drastically over the next 10, 20 years,” said Colonel Darren Turner, joint task force commander of Operation Nanook, the annual Artic training exercise established in 2007. “Once a route is opened, they will come. And that is something that we need to have an interest in. That is something that we need to have the capabilities to interdict, to stop,” he told AFP.

-US fuel exports to Mexico by land halted by higher scrutiny, sources say: The Mexican government has halted U.S. fuel imports sent into the country by road, as it cracks down on illegal deals, three sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. Trucks carrying gasoline and diesel to Mexico from the U.S. Gulf Coast refining hub are not being permitted to cross the Texas border as the Mexican government investigates import permits and steps up cargo inspections, one of the sources involved in such deliveries said. There was no timeline to resume the trucking trade, the sources said, adding that railway and waterborne deliveries of fuel to Mexico from the U.S. have not been impacted. (Reuters)

-Mexico negotiating with its northern states to send more water to US, Sheinbaum says: Mexico's federal government is negotiating with its northern states to send more water to the United States, the country's president said on Tuesday, after its historic shortfall led President Donald Trump to threaten tariffs and sanctions. Mexico is scrambling for solutions after falling critically behind on its obligatory deliveries to the U.S. under an 81-year-old water-sharing treaty. "Talks are under way with the governors of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Chihuahua to reach a joint agreement to determine how much water can be delivered... without affecting Mexican producers, while also complying with the 1944 treaty," Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said in her daily press conference. (Reuters)

-Ecuador 'would love to have US forces' helping in gang crackdown, president says: Ecuador has talked to the United States about receiving support in its battle against criminal gangs, President Daniel Noboa said in an exclusive interview with CNN, his first since winning Sunday's presidential election. "There are plans … we had conversations, we had a plan, we had options that we would like to follow. And now we just need another meeting, post-election, now as an elected president, to consolidate it," Noboa told CNN's Fernando del Rincon on Tuesday. Ecuador has been requesting foreign military support for months, saying that its fight against gangs is a "transnational war" that requires the contribution of multiple countries. (CNN)

· Noboa said that while his administration "would love to have" US forces in Ecuador, he insisted that they would not be out patrolling the streets. Instead, they would play a supportive role in Ecuador's security operations. "We would like to cooperate with US forces, and I think there are many ways that we can do that, especially in monitoring illegal operations that move out of Ecuador, but the control of the operations will be in the hands of our military and our police," he said.

· Ecuador has been laying the groundwork for US forces to arrive, according to plans obtained by CNN. A high-level Ecuadorian official familiar with the planning told CNN last month that the country is constructing a new naval facility in the coastal city of Manta, with the expectation that it “will be eventually occupied by US troops.” The US has previously carried out operations in that area. From 1999 to 2009, it ran surveillance flights targeting drug routes in the eastern Pacific at the now-defunct Manta Air Base.

· Noboa told CNN on Tuesday he is seeking to reform the constitution to allow foreign military presence in the country again, and is open to having military bases to help control illegal operations such as drug trafficking, illegal fishing and mining. “That would help to keep peace … like we had in the past with the Manta base,” he said.

· He said the US had been waiting until the outcome of Sunday’s election to resume talks. Noboa won the vote decisively against leftist lawyer Luisa Gonzalez, having campaigned on a promise to restore security with a hardline approach and revitalize the economy.

· In March, Noboa also announced a "strategic alliance" to fight organized crime with Erik Prince, the founder of the controversial private defense contractor formerly known as Blackwater.

-Peru court jails ex-President Humala for money laundering; Brazil grants diplomatic asylum to his wife: A Peruvian court on Tuesday sentenced ex-President Ollanta Humala to 15 years in prison for receiving illicit campaign funds from a Brazilian construction firm, making him the nation's latest former leader to head behind bars. Humala and his wife were accused of receiving funds from Brazilian builder Odebrecht, now known as Novonor, in his successful 2011 election campaign. Humala's wife, Nadine Heredia, was also sentenced to 15 years in prison on Tuesday. Peru's foreign ministry said that following the verdict Heredia entered the Brazilian embassy in Lima to request asylum. (Reuters)

-G7 calls for immediate ceasefire in war in Sudan at two-year mark: G7 foreign ministers on Tuesday issued a statement calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Sudan and condemning attacks by Sudan's Rapid Support Forces. The war in Sudan erupted in April 2023, sparked by a power struggle between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, shattering hopes for a transition to civilian rule. (Reuters)

-Protests erupt in Tunisian town after three students die in school wall collapse: Hundreds of Tunisians protested on Tuesday, demanding accountability, after three students died on Monday following a school wall collapse in the central town of Mazzouna, an incident that provoked widespread anger and accusations of negligence against officials. The collapse of a dilapidated wall led to the death of three teenaged students preparing for their baccalaureate exams, and two others were seriously injured, the Civil Defense said. For demonstrators, the tragedy reflects the deterioration of public service in Tunisia and the neglect of maintenance of the country's aging infrastructure, amid a worsening economic and social crisis. (Reuters)

-US condemns Sudan's RSF for attacks on civilians, calls for accountability: The Trump administration on Tuesday condemned attacks by Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on civilians in North Darfur and called for parties in the country's civil war to be held accountable for breaches of international humanitarian law. "We are deeply alarmed by reports the RSF has deliberately targeted civilians and humanitarian actors in Zamzam and Abu Shouk," U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters, referring to two camps in the region where hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced in recent days, according to the U.N. "The belligerents must uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law and must be held accountable," Bruce added. (Reuters)

-Rape used systematically as a weapon of war in Sudan, UN agency warns: Rape is being used systematically as a weapon of war in Sudan, a UN agency warned on Tuesday, as the conflict marks its second year. "We have seen a 288% increase in demand for life saving support for rape and sexual violence survivors. We are beginning to see the systematic use of rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war," Anna Mutavati, the regional director of UN Women, told reporters in Geneva via video link from Port Sudan. "Women's bodies have turned into a battleground," she said, without saying which side in Sudan's war was responsible. (Reuters)

-Sudanese paramilitary group says its forming a rival government: A notorious paramilitary group fighting against the Sudanese military announced that it was forming a rival government, which will rule parts of the country controlled by the group including the western Darfur region where the United Nations says recent attacks by the group have killed over 400 people. Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the Rapid Support Forces, announced the move in a speech on Tuesday as the northeastern African nation marked two years of civil war. (AP)

· “On this anniversary, we proudly declare the establishment of the Government of Peace and Unity,” Dagalo said in a recorded speech, adding that other groups have joined the RSF-led administration, including a faction of the Sudan’s Liberation Movement, which controls parts of Kordofan region.

· Dagalo, who is sanctioned by the U.S. over accusations that his forces committed genocide in Darfur, said that he and his allies were also establishing “a 15-member Presidential Council” representing all of Sudan’s regions. The move came as the RSF suffered multiple battlefield setbacks, losing the capital, Khartoum and other urban cities in recent months. The paramilitary group has since regrouped in its stronghold in the sprawling region of Darfur.

· It raises concerns that Sudan is heading towards partition, or a prolonged conflict like that one in neighboring Libya where two rival administrations have been fighting for power for over a decade. The nation of South Sudan won independence from Sudan in a 2011 referendum that followed a war in which Janjaweed militias, a predecessor to the RSF, fought on behalf of the government. The Janjaweed were accused of mass killings, rapes and other atrocities.

-Mozambique carried out a brutal crackdown on post-election protests, Amnesty says: Mozambique's security forces carried out a brutal, three-month crackdown on protesters after the country's election last year, a leading international rights group said Wednesday, citing local activists who alleged that more than 300 people were killed and more than 3,000 were injured in the unrest. In its new report, Amnesty International called on Mozambican authorities to investigate the killings and all rights violations in the wake of the election, and to bring law enforcement officials responsible to justice. (AP)

-South Africa's new US envoy called Trump racist, homophobic and narcissistic in a 2020 speech: South Africa's new special envoy to the United States is already under scrutiny for calling U.S. President Donald Trump a racist, homophobic and narcissistic "right-winger" in a speech in 2020. Mcebisi Jonas, a former deputy finance minister, was appointed Monday by President Cyril Ramaphosa as his representative to Washington, tasked with rebuilding South Africa's deteriorating relationship with the U.S. under Trump. (AP)

· The Trump administration expelled the South African ambassador last month. Trump has singled out South Africa, issuing an executive order in February suspending all U.S. funding to the country over what he claimed are its anti-white and anti-American policies.

· South Africa’s ambassador was expelled from the U.S. for saying during a webinar that the politics of Trump and the Make America Great Again movement were partly the result of a “supremacist instinct.” The Trump administration called the ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, a “race-baiting politician” who hated Trump. South Africa hasn’t named a new ambassador.

· The new South African envoy’s speech criticizing Trump and his first term was delivered on Nov. 8, 2020, five days after the election where Joe Biden defeated Trump. His comments have been circulated in the media. “Right now, the U.S. is undergoing a watershed moment, with Biden the certain winner in the presidential race against the racist, homophobic Donald Trump,” Jonas said. “How we got to a situation where a narcissistic right-winger took charge of the world’s greatest economic and military powerhouse is something that we need to ponder over. It is something that all democracies need to ponder over.”

· Jonas was delivering South Africa’s annual Ahmed Kathrada Lecture, where public figures are invited to give a speech for the foundation of Kathrada, one of the anti-apartheid activists put on trial by the white minority government in the 1960s and imprisoned alongside Nelson Mandela. Jonas’ speech largely focused on inequality, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and promoting the ideas of globalism and international trade. “Hopefully the defeat of Trump will deal a blow to the deglobalization lobby,” he said.

-Mali closes office of Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold in tax spat: Mali on Tuesday closed the Bamako office of Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold over a tax dispute, Malian authorities and the company told AFP. The firm had been in dispute for some weeks with Bamako accusing the Canadians of failing to pay due taxes relating to their operations at Loulo-Gounkoto, one of the world's largest gold mines in which the Canadians have an 80 percent stake and in which the Malian state holds the remaining 20 percent. The military junta running the country has been tightening regulations on a sector key to the country's economy, introducing a new industry code last year granting the government a bigger share of profits from mining activities in the name of national sovereignty. (AFP)

-Al Shabaab attacks strategic Somalia town as it presses offensive: Al Shabaab fighters attacked a town in central Somalia on Wednesday that government forces have been using as a staging area for their efforts to drive back the militants, who have been gaining ground in recent weeks, residents said. Advances by the al Qaeda affiliate, which included briefly capturing villages within 50 km (30 miles) of Mogadishu last month, have left residents of the capital on edge amid rumours al Shabaab could target the city. The army has recaptured those villages, but al Shabaab has continued to advance in the countryside, leading the government to deploy police officers and prison guards to support the military, soldiers have told Reuters. (Reuters)

BORDER

-US transfers land on Mexican border to the Army to prevent illegal crossings: The Trump administration announced an emergency transfer of nearly 110,000 acres of federal land along the U.S.-Mexico border to the Army to help prevent illegal immigration, the Interior Department said on Tuesday. The move is part of President Donald Trump's sweeping immigration crackdown. He declared illegal immigration a national emergency in January and tasked the U.S. military with aiding in border security. (Reuters)

· The land, which crosses Hidalgo, Luna and Dona Ana counties in New Mexico, will be transferred to the Department of the Army for three years, the agency said, allowing for patrols by federal personnel and construction of infrastructure to prevent illegal crossings.

· The transfer will help curb drug and human trafficking and migrant smuggling, but is also aimed at protecting ecologically sensitive areas that can be harmed by foot traffic, it said. This is not the first time Trump has made such a move. In 2019, during his first term as president, the Interior Department made a similar transfer of 560 acres along the southern border to the Army to build a wall.

-Troops ready for more work at US-Mexico border, adapt to Trump’s call for military zone as illegal crossings slow down: In the month that Army Sgt. 1st Class Carlos Zamora has been deployed from Fort Carson, Colo., to the border with Mexico, he has seen the number of migrants trying to cross into the U.S. without authorization dwindle. Zamora, a noncommissioned officer for the 1st Battalion of the 41st Infantry Regiment, said Friday that he supervises soldiers operating two Stryker combat vehicles positioned in Santa Teresa, N.M. (Stars and Stripes)

· But for the Strykers used at the border, the weapon normally mounted atop the vehicle has been removed, leaving only its camera to monitor a two-mile radius that spans the dusty desert junction of New Mexico, El Paso and the Rancho Anapra neighborhood of Juarez, Mexico. The Strykers maintain a fixed position, though the troops have permission to conduct mobile patrols, if needed. “[Strykers are] built for this kind of terrain,” Zamora said.

· When soldiers see people moving near the border, they notify Customs and Border Protection agents with the precise distance and direction provided by the thermal camera mounted on the eight-wheeled armored vehicle. The images produced by the Stryker’s camera are so crisp and clear, soldiers recently detected and reported a group of men walking with guns strapped to their backs, Zamora said.

· But soldiers are seeing less activity at the border, and their calls to border agents of people moving in the area have dropped. Still, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division has another 1,000 soldiers waiting to join the 2,400 already deployed to the Joint Task Force Southern Border, the official name of the military mission.

-Border deployment vehicle accident kills two service members, third in critical condition: Two service members deployed to the U.S. Southern border were killed and a third is in serious condition after a vehicle accident near Santa Teresa, New Mexico, the military announced late Tuesday. The region where the accident took place is just over the state line and west of Fort Bliss, a major Army installation in West Texas that has played a critical role in dispatching military deportation flights and served as a touchpoint for thousands of soldiers and pieces of equipment now deployed along the border. The troops are deployed there in support of President Donald Trump’s executive order to secure the U.S.-Mexico border. (AP)

· A defense official speaking on the condition of anonymity to provide additional details not yet made public said the accident occurred in a civilian vehicle, but no civilians were harmed in the incident. The incident did not involve any of the scores of Stryker vehicles the Pentagon has sent down to the border to perform patrols, the official said. The accident occurred around 8:50 a.m. MDT Tuesday; the names of the deceased will not be released until the next of kin are notified.

-Trump officials are using federal agencies to make life in the U.S. difficult for undocumented immigrants: The Trump administration is waging a concerted pressure campaign against undocumented immigrants — as well as hundreds of thousands here legally whose status it is trying to revoke. The measures threaten to make daily life more untenable for millions as President Donald Trump aims to carry out the immigrant purging he promised during his campaign. (NBC News)

· Trump has escalated his clampdown on immigrants beyond what was done during his first presidential term, which included separating children from their parents at the border, working to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico and curbing legal immigration through fewer visas and refugee admissions.

· This time around, on top of immigration raids and arrests, the administration is inflicting hardship on immigrants by pulling multiple levers of government to undercut their day-to-day lives.

· The administration is threatening criminal charges against immigrants without legal status who do not register with the government. It has given Immigration and Customs Enforcement access to previously confidential taxpayer information to locate immigrants and canceled Social Security numbers of thousands of immigrants by marking “illegal immigrants” as being dead. Officials have canceled parole that the Biden administration granted to some groups. A federal judge has blocked the revocations temporarily.

· “What we are seeing now is this full-court press by the government on immigration,” said Michael Lukens, executive director of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, a nonprofit immigrant rights advocacy organization whose funding to provide legal help to unaccompanied immigrant children Trump cut.

· The many actions are all parts of the administration’s strategy to subtract as many immigrants from the United States as possible without having to go through more cumbersome deportation processes. The Trump actions build on an “attrition through enforcement” strategy tried in 2010 with state anti-immigration laws, a strategy pushed by Kris Kobach, a former attorney general of Kansas who has championed conservative causes.

· Data obtained by NBC News shows that the Trump administration’s deportations are running slightly behind deportations under President Joe Biden at the same time last year, even though Trump has made mass deportations one of his main priorities since he assumed office.

-Trump says he plans stipends as part of self-deportation program: U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview aired on Tuesday that he planned to roll out a new program offering money for immigrants in the country illegally to leave voluntarily. Trump said such a "self-deportation program" would include some financial assistance and the prospect of re-entering the country later legally. (Reuters)

-Judge orders Trump officials to testify about efforts to return wrongly deported man: A U.S. judge on Tuesday demanded U.S. officials provide documents and answer questions under oath about what it had done to secure the return of a man wrongly deported to El Salvador, ramping up an inquiry into whether the Trump administration defied a court order. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said at a hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland that she would not immediately hold the government in contempt of court, but said the documents and closed-door testimony would help her weigh the Trump administration's compliance with her earlier order to "facilitate" Kilmar Abrego Garcia's return. (Reuters)

-DOT Sec Sean Duffy finalizes $150M grant to build new port of entry on southern border: U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy announced Tuesday that a $150 million federal grant had been finalized to construct a new port of entry facility and road for the San Diego-Baja California border. As part of the agreement for the grant, Green New Deal requirements from the Biden administration, including a zero-emission vehicle charging provision, will be removed. The DOT called the requirements a waste of taxpayer funds, taking away from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) mission toward national security. (Fox News)

· The Otay Mesa East Port of Entry project was awarded a grant from the Nationally Significant Multimodal Freight and Highway Projects program in September 2022, though the project never moved forward.

· "Thanks to the prior administration’s lack of focus, this critical project sat in limbo for two years. No more. We moved to finalize this deal so we can help protect our Southern border and crack down on drug trafficking while preventing tax dollars subsidizing pointless Green New Deal priorities," Duffy said. "This department will continue to clear the previous administration’s unprecedented grants backlog and deliver results."

-As the Border Wars Recede, a Park on the Rio Grande Reopens to the Public: On Monday morning, as temperatures rose toward sweltering, Dora Flores warily approached the entrance of a modest park in the border city of Eagle Pass, Texas, wanting to see for herself whether the armed guards and concertina wire that had kept residents out for over a year had actually disappeared. “Is the park really open?” Ms. Flores, 73, wondered aloud. “This used to look like a jail.” (NYT)

· The sudden reopening of Shelby Park in Eagle Pass this month was another sign of the changing of the guard in Washington, D.C., being felt far, far beyond the Beltway. In the last year, the large but humble tract along the U.S.-Mexican border had served as a backdrop for political fights. Republicans had used it to showcase the “invasion” of migrants. Democrats converged to decry what they saw as overly aggressive immigration tactics. In January 2024, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas took it over in a show of force, castigating the border policies of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. while keeping people like Ms. Flores away.

· In recent days, to the relief of local residents, Shelby Park — with its soccer and baseball fields and a boat ramp into the Rio Grande — has become just a park again, almost. Citing record-low crossings, the state of Texas has quietly abandoned the park gates, rolled up most of the concertina wire there and left only a small crew by the river. “We’re happy the park has returned to the city,” said the town’s mayor, Rolando Salinas Jr.

· The semblance of normalcy underscores how the battle over immigration has migrated inland, to street corners of university towns, Democratic-led cities far from the southern border and courtrooms all over the country — as well as one enormous prison in El Salvador.

GUNS

-Emergency rooms treat a gunshot wound every half-hour: U.S. emergency room doctors treat a gunshot wound every half-hour, a new study has found. What's more, firearm injuries appear to follow specific patterns throughout the year, with gun violence occurring more often at certain times, according to research from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (HealthDay News)

· Firearm injury Emergency Department visit rates were highest during evenings, weekends, summer months and holidays, noted the research team led by Dr. Adam Rowh, an epidemic intelligence service officer at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.

· For the study, researchers analyzed ER gun injury visits that took place between January 2018 and August 2023 in nine states and the District of Columbia. The states were Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia.

· They found more than 93,000 firearm-related ER visits during that five-year period, which amounted to about 74 cases for every 100,000 visits—roughly one every 30 minutes.

· Results also showed that gun injury ER visits gradually increase from the afternoon into the night, and hit their average peak between 2:30 and 3 a.m.

· Average daily rates were highest on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, researchers found. The most dangerous day was New Year's Eve, and the most dangerous month was July. Other holidays with high rates of ER-treated gun injuries included Independence Day, Memorial Day and Halloween.

-Permit requirement for gun purchases clears Washington Senate: The Washington state Senate on Monday approved legislation to require a new state permit to buy guns. The debate over House Bill 1163 has been one of the most contentious this legislative session. Conservatives and gun owners think it puts an unconstitutional barrier to the right to bear arms. Democrats see it as one more step the state can take to reduce gun violence, after banning bump stocks and prohibiting sales of high-capacity magazines and semi-automatic firearms. (Washington State Standard)

· “As the son and grandson and nephew and cousin of responsible gun owners, I know that the Second Amendment is critical to our freedom that’s cherished by Washingtonians around the state,” said Sen. Marko Liias, D-Edmonds, in floor debate Monday, “but I know that gun owners across Washington are united in their desire to make sure that only those who are legally authorized to have firearms should have access to them.”

· The bill moves beyond the state’s existing background check system. It would require gun buyers to apply for a five-year permit from the Washington State Patrol. To qualify, applicants must have completed a certified firearms safety training program within the past five years, with some exceptions, and pay a fee.

· If the applicant has completed the safety course, the state would have to approve the permit unless the person is barred from having guns, out of custody on bond awaiting trial or sentencing on felony charges, or the subject of an arrest warrant.

· Troopers would issue the permit within 30 days, or 60 days if the applicant doesn’t have a state ID. State patrol anticipates receiving at least 100,000 applications per year, with over 40 employees tasked with handling them.

· The agency expects the new program will cost nearly $20 million in the 2027-29 budget cycle. Fees collected for fingerprinting and background checks would offset the cost, according to a fiscal analysis. The system could bring in $31 million in the 2027-29 budget.

-Finally, a Second Amendment task force: April has been a good month for freedom-loving Americans. On April 7, the Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives announced the repeal of the onerous Biden-era Enhanced Regulatory Enforcement policy, aka the “Zero Tolerance Policy,” which amounted to a de facto war on gun dealers, aiming to strip them of their livelihoods. The very next day, in a stunning one-two punch to the anti-gun community, the Justice Department announced the creation of a Second Amendment enforcement task force, a working group charged with protecting and promoting the Second Amendment and continuing the implementation of President Trump’s “Protecting Second Amendment Rights” executive order, signed in February. (Washington Times op-ed | Brandon Combs is the president and founder of the Firearms Policy Coalition.)

· A proverb says, “No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.” We have weathered the long, cold winter of the patently anti-freedom Biden era, a season marked by relentless assaults on our fundamental rights. With the Trump administration, it seems a new season has begun, one of hope, determination and the possibility of progress. Leading this renewal is the Justice Department task force, which has the potential to lead an era of transformative change.

· Although I’m encouraged by the pro-Second Amendment momentum since Mr. Trump’s inauguration, I remain concerned about whether the entire federal government has the commitment and resolve to fully seize this critical window of opportunity. It’s a skeptical perspective, but in the world of politics and policy, skepticism feels less like pessimism and more like self-preservation.

· Since founding the Firearms Policy Coalition in 2012, I’ve seen this movement endure four presidential administrations, eight U.S. congresses and nine ATF directors. That’s a revolving door of power and a frightening spectrum of interpretations about how the Constitution should or shouldn’t be upheld. As the leader of a national membership organization devoted to advancing the right to keep and bear arms and other critical freedoms, it’s not just my instinct to be skeptical; it’s my responsibility.

· The first order of business should be the appointment of a Second Amendment czar, a dedicated official within the White House or Justice Department responsible for overseeing and advocating for policies that protect the right to keep and bear arms. This role would serve as a critical liaison among government departments, firearm owners and advocacy organizations with a specialized understanding of strategy, law and history to ensure concerns are appropriately and consistently addressed at the highest levels.

· Next, the task force should establish a fundamental rights protection office within the Justice Department’s civil rights division, with this section specifically tasked with addressing laws, policies and enforcement practices that deny, delay or discourage peaceable people from exercising their constitutionally protected rights. This office would work to litigate or unwind unconstitutional restrictions, defend lawful gun ownership and challenge overreach by anti-rights governments. What a sea change it would be for Americans to finally have some peace of mind, knowing that a dedicated government entity exists solely to protect their rights, not infringe upon them.

· Another critical step would be to conduct a comprehensive review of how the government interprets, enforces and implements the National Firearms Act. Reforms should prioritize removing risk to peaceable firearms owners, cutting red tape and maximizing access to these constitutionally protected arms.

· The task force should also direct the ATF to immediately address Mr. Biden’s disastrous 2022 “Frame or Receiver” rule after the deeply misguided Supreme Court decision upholding it last month. This is an opportunity to give American gun owners, manufacturers and retailers the clarity they need to exercise their rights without violating the law.

AMERICAN MANUFACTURING

-Trump Eyes Tech to Speed Up Permitting: A new directive from President Donald Trump aims to bolster the use of technology in the environmental review and permitting process for infrastructure developments, as part of a broader administration effort to cut red tape and speed the approval of new projects. Trump has vowed to help expedite permitting for companies willing to invest in the US, as well as bolster domestic manufacturing and energy production. (Bloomberg)

· The memorandum signed Tuesday calls on the chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, after consulting with the National Energy Dominance Council and other relevant agencies, to issue a Permitting Technology Action Plan for modernizing the technology used for federal permitting and environmental reviews. And it directs the CEQ chair to establish and lead an interagency Permitting Innovation Center that will design and test prototypes to boost the effort to harness technology.

· Earlier Tuesday, Trump pointed to plans by Nvidia, the dominant player in chips for AI, to produce $500 billion worth of AI infrastructure in the US and pledged, in a post to his Truth Social network, that “All necessary permits will be expedited and quickly delivered.”

-US tariffs may cost chip equipment makers more than $1 billion, industry estimates: U.S. President Donald Trump's new tariffs could cost U.S. semiconductor equipment makers more than $1 billion a year, according to industry calculations discussed with officials and lawmakers in Washington last week, two sources familiar with the matter said. Each of the three largest U.S. chip equipment makers - Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA - may suffer a loss of roughly $350 million over a year related to the tariffs, the sources said. Smaller rivals such as Onto Innovation may also face tens of millions of dollars in extra spending. (Reuters)

· The potential billion-dollar cost to the chip equipment industry and talks between industry executives and U.S. officials over several days about those costs are reported here for the first time. The companies build some of the world’s most highly sought-after chipmaking equipment that can require thousands of specialized parts.

· Chip equipment makers have already lost billions in revenue after former U.S. President Joe Biden implemented a series of export controls aimed at curbing the shipment of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment to Chinese entities.

· The Trump administration has largely paused the reciprocal tariffs it announced in April. But to spur more U.S. manufacturing, it is weighing further duties on the chip industry and initiated a probe into their imports on Monday.

· The estimated costs discussed last week in Washington include lost revenue, primarily for missed sales of less sophisticated equipment to overseas rivals, and the costs of finding and using alternative suppliers for the complex components of chipmaking tools. The estimate also includes tariff compliance costs, such as adding personnel to handle the complexities of following the rules.

-Trump’s China Ship Fees Set to Hit Global Shipping Giants: Container ships, the workhorses of global trade transporting almost 90% of the world’s manufactured goods, have become a target in President Donald Trump’s trade war with China — and none of the major carriers stand to escape the extra costs. (Bloomberg)

· Trump wants to punish operators of Chinese ships in order to help stimulate the creation of a US shipbuilding industry. Among the proposals is a fee of at least $1 million each time a Chinese-operated or Chinese-built ship enters a US port. The levies could theoretically generate between $40 billion and $52 billion for US coffers, according to Clarksons Research Services, a unit of the world’s largest shipbroker.

· Major shipping lines, including MSC and Maersk, will quickly rack up costs from the potential port fees, unless they take extraordinary measures, said Peter Sand, chief analyst at Oslo-based freight analytics platform Xeneta. Not knowing where US levies will eventually land, several shipping lines have started re-positioning by moving made-in-China vessels away from US-bound trade loops. Liners could also call at fewer US ports to avoid levies, increasing the risk of congestion and higher freight rates.

-UAW members at General Dynamics' electric boat unit authorize strike: Union members at General Dynamics Electric Boat unit voted to authorize a strike, the United Auto Workers said on Tuesday. The move comes amid an ongoing labor dispute post the expiration of the members' contract on April 4 at Electric Boat, a part of the defense contractor's marine systems segment, which assembles nuclear-powered submarines for the U.S. Navy. The union represents over 2,400 marine drafters, who design submarines at the unit and are fighting to win cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) to keep up with inflation, along with affordable healthcare. The union members are also seeking the restoration of pensions, as they argue that General Dynamics is pushing for increases of 52% to 161% in weekly medical insurance costs. (Reuters)

-Wanted: Huge, Spy-Proof Facilities: Leasing for defense and aerospace start-ups is up as global tensions and conflicts buoy investments in manufacturing. Looking for a site where workers can weld the panels of a space station together and then shoot bullets at them to see if they can withstand meteoroid hits? You're not alone. Defense and aerospace companies leased 11.3 million square feet in 2024, up from 7.1 million in 2022, said Tom Taylor, who manages the aerospace and defense practice at JLL, a real estate firm. ''We do believe the aerospace and defense industries, in particular, are going to be one of the demand drivers for new industrial space,'' Mr. Taylor said. (NYT)

· The leased spaces typically have large open-floor plans for machinery and manufacturing, high ceilings for cranes and special assembly gear, sterile and air-filtered rooms, and lots of power for heavy-duty machines to build—and sometimes blow up—weapons, rockets and drones.

· Besides manufacturing space, there’s office space. From the end of 2023 to the end of 2024, roughly 426,786 square feet of office leases came from the defense and aerospace sectors, triple what the legal industry leased, according to data that CBRE, a real estate services firm, shared with The New York Times.

· The flurry of real estate activity in the defense sector has been buoyed by global conflicts that have accelerated the production of weapons. The Department of Defense’s budget was $841 billion in the 2024 fiscal year, up from $816 billion in 2023, both record amounts. And while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants to cut 8 percent from defense budgets in each of the next five years, he is putting a priority on spending on drones and autonomous weapon systems.

· That has opened up opportunities for defense tech start-ups, which can typically move their innovations to the battlefield more quickly than traditional defense contractors can, theoretically saving the government time and money.

-U.S. Plans to Use Tariff Negotiations to Isolate China: The Trump administration plans to use ongoing tariff negotiations to pressure U.S. trading partners to limit their dealings with China, according to people with knowledge of the conversations. The idea is to extract commitments from U.S. trading partners to isolate China’s economy in exchange for reductions in trade and tariff barriers imposed by the White House. U.S. officials plan to use negotiations with more than 70 nations to ask them to disallow China to ship goods through their countries, prevent Chinese firms from locating in their territories to avoid U.S. tariffs, and not absorb China’s cheap industrial goods into their economies. (WSJ)

· Those measures are meant to put a dent in China’s already rickety economy and force Beijing to the negotiating table with less leverage ahead of potential talks between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The exact demands could vary widely by nation, given their degree of involvement with the Chinese economy.

· U.S. officials have broached the idea in early talks with some countries, people familiar with the discussions said. Trump himself hinted at the strategy on Tuesday, telling the Spanish-language program “Fox Noticias” he would consider making countries choose between the U.S. and China in response to a question about Panama deciding not to renew its role in the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s global infrastructure program for developing nations.

· One brain behind the strategy is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has taken a leading role in the trade negotiations since Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for most nations—but not China—on April 9.

· Bessent pitched the idea to Trump during an April 6 meeting at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s club in Florida, said people familiar with the discussion, saying that extracting concessions from U.S. trading partners could prevent Beijing and its companies from avoiding U.S. tariffs, export controls and other economic measures, the people said.

-What tariffs mean for security in Southeast Asia: President Donald Trump has argued that many of the tariffs he’s imposed on U.S. allies and partners are needed to promote U.S. “national and economic security.” But harsh trade measures may be driving would-be allies in China’s backyard away from Washington and back into the arms of Beijing. (Politico)

· Look no further than Vietnam, where Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his Vietnamese counterparts have been lavishing love on each other this week. Some former U.S. officials worry the tariffs could wipe out gains made by both Trump and former President Joe Biden to shore up ties with Vietnam, which like other Southeast Asian countries, faces Chinese provocations in disputed waters. Hanoi receives hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. foreign military financing, and the U.S. has worked to transfer excess aircraft, cutters and patrol boats to the Vietnamese military.

· The tariffs could also sour a decades-long security partnership with Malaysia that dates back to the Cold War and incentivize Cambodia to further deepen its military and defense ties with China. Xi is headed to Kuala Lumpur and Phnom Phen later this week, and China’s emphasizing that it’s keen to shore up ties in its neighborhood in the face of U.S. tariffs.

· “One of the most important things for maintaining influence in Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific more broadly is showing that the U.S. is a reliable and predictable partner that will be there for the long term,” argued Henrietta Levin, who was deputy China coordinator at the State Department during the Biden administration. “The approach to tariffs at this time has made it much more difficult for America to be seen as that reliable partner.”

· Not everyone is as concerned about how tariffs will affect U.S. standing in the region. Thomas Duesterberg, senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute think tank in Washington, said that while Trump’s trade war “does put on pause” U.S. efforts to expand its security relationships in Southeast Asia, he still anticipated countries including Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam could be open to expanding such ties in the future. “In the long run I would wager that they’re more interested in having the United States keeping some sort of military presence in that part of the world, so they can have a little bit of patience,” he said.

· Craig Singleton, senior director for China at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington, said Trump’s tariffs gambit could pull off an even bigger feat: building a new anti-China coalition via the network of trade deals. “Not all the deals will be earth-shattering, but a lot of them will be and they’ll tighten ties,” explained Singleton. “Trump’s tariffs are blunt, but they’re forcing overdue realignments and they’re borne out of a recognition that China isn’t sitting still, and we shouldn’t be either.”

-Trump says will meet Japan tariff envoy on Wednesday: US President Donald Trump said he will attend a meeting on Wednesday to negotiate trade tariffs with an envoy from Japan, the biggest investor into the United States. "Japan is coming in today to negotiate Tariffs, the cost of military support, and 'TRADE FAIRNESS.' I will attend the meeting, along with Treasury & Commerce Secretaries. Hopefully something can be worked out which is good (GREAT!) for Japan and the USA!" he posted on his Truth Social platform. (AFP)

-Trump orders critical minerals probe that may bring new tariffs: US President Donald Trump ordered a probe Tuesday that may result in tariffs on critical minerals, rare-earth metals and associated products such as smartphones, in an escalation of his dispute with global trade partners. Trump has upended markets in recent weeks with his sweeping on-off levies, and this investigation could see him impose further tariffs if it shows that imports of critical minerals and their derivatives endanger US national security. China dominates global supply chains for rare metals. (AFP)

· Without naming any other countries, the order says that the United States is dependent on foreign sources that “are at risk of serious, sustained, and long-term supply chain shocks.” It states that this dependence “raises the potential for risks to national security, defense readiness, price stability, and economic prosperity and resilience.” The imports targeted include so-called critical minerals like cobalt, lithium and nickel, rare-earth elements, as well as products that partly require these resources, such as electric vehicles and batteries.

· The order states that critical minerals and their derivatives are essential for US military and energy infrastructure, noting their use in jet engines, missile guidance systems and advanced computing, among others. The Department of Commerce will have up to 180 days to deliver its report to Trump, the order says, adding that any recommendations for action should consider the imposition of tariffs.

· It follows a similar “national security” investigation that Trump ordered Monday into pharmaceutical imports, and another on semiconductors and chip-making equipment. The process is based on a 1962 law that was seldom used before Trump, during his first 2017-2021 term, called on it to justify imposing taxes on steel and aluminum imports.

-White House threatens Colombia over regulations affecting US auto exports: The White House is urging Colombia to halt the implementation of new auto safety regulations that could jeopardize American car exports to Colombia, as both nations prepare to discuss tariffs recently imposed on Colombian products including coffee, avocados, flowers and oil. In a letter to Colombia’s Ministry of Commerce, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that plans by Colombia to change certification requirements for cars and auto parts entering the country could lead to the “total cessation” of U.S. automotive exports to Colombia, which were worth almost $700 million last year. (AP)

· The letter, dated April 11, was leaked to Colombian media outlets Tuesday and a copy was also obtained by The Associated Press. In it Greer warns that if Colombia does not change its plans, it would be conducting an “unfair trading practice that may generate swift enforcement action by the United States.” Colombian Minister of Commerce Cielo Rusinque refused to comment on the letter, but in a radio interview Tuesday she said the safety regulations would be among several issues that will be up for consideration when representatives of both nations meet to discuss tariffs later this month.

ECONOMY

-The Stock Market Is Looking Up. It Could Get Ugly Again: The Trump tariffs whacked stocks. Wall Street knew they were coming, but an average rate of almost 30% on trillions of dollars worth of imports was a gut punch. After almost two weeks, the market is recovering. The S&P 500 dropped 19% in six weeks—from its record close of 6144 on Feb. 19 to 4982 on April 8. Today, it has bounced 9% to just over 5400, roughly the middle of its range, on a 90-day tariffs pause by the White House. (Barron’s)

· So the market seems, at a glance, fairly calm—but not exactly. It could get rattled again. For investors, the best approach right now: Don’t be fooled by the lull. There’s still tremendous uncertainty about tariffs, especially surrounding China, and how much they might hurt the economy.

· The doubt is pervasive. Because of the tariffs, Americans worry about higher prices and a recession that would cost jobs—so they’ll probably pull back on their spending.

· Companies rightly worry about falling demand and disappointing sales. They wouldn’t be able to cut all costs, so profit margins would shrink and expected earnings would drop by double digits.

· So, the state of business in the U.S. is anything but business as usual. The market still has plenty of economic and corporate news to absorb—and there’s no way of knowing whether the tremors will be more like 3.4 on the Richter scale or 6.7.

-Investors dodge U.S. dollar and Treasurys, scared by Trump's trade war: The U.S. dollar is an early casualty of President Donald Trump's us-against-the-world trade war. The dollar has lost almost 10 percent of its value since Inauguration Day, with more than half of that decline coming this month after the president's decision to lift taxes on imported goods to their highest level since 1909. The weaker dollar — now near a three-year low against the euro — is bad news for Americans traveling abroad and could also aggravate inflation by making foreign goods more expensive. U.S. exporters, however, should gain. (WP)

· The drop is especially striking because countries that impose tariffs usually see their currency rise. But the wobbly rollout of Trump’s tariff plans — with the president and his aides contradicting themselves about key details — left investors doubting the administration’s competence.

· “The administration’s approach to policy and its lack of transparency in terms of motivations have all led to a distinct sense of unease in financial markets,” said David Page, head of macro research for Axa Investment Managers in London, which manages $1 trillion in investments. “It doesn’t look like what we have been used to in terms of well-thought-out policy.” Those concerns last week sent investors fleeing from the dollar and U.S. government securities, historically a haven during financial crises.

-Eye on the Economy: Though happening in Chicago, it still counts as a big Washington event: a speech today by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Powell’s comments will be closely scrutinized for changes in the central bank official’s views on inflation and the outlook for the US economy, after President Donald Trump’s tariffs roiled stock markets and changed the cost of doing business. His speech comes a day after the administration flexed its power in a way that dinged the profitability of a Silicon Valley company. The government is imposing export restrictions on an Nvidia chip because over concerns it could “be used in, or diverted to, a supercomputer in China,” according to a regulatory filing. (Bloomberg)

-Tariffs, Slowing Growth, and Higher Inflation: What to Look for in Powell’s Speech: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is set to speak Wednesday afternoon in his second public appearance since President Donald Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs on U.S. imports on April 2. Powell will deliver prepared remarks on the economy at 1:30 p.m. Eastern at the Economic Club of Chicago, followed by a moderated discussion. (Barron’s)

· Trump introduced a 90-day suspension on April 9 for some trading partners, and hinted this past weekend at exemptions for select technologies. He said Monday that he is considering a pause on certain auto-related tariffs.

· The back-and-forth has jolted markets and heightened uncertainty about the inflation and economic outlook. Fed officials are now weighing whether they can continue to take a wait-and-see approach to policy, or whether market volatility and recession fears will require a more immediate response.

· The Fed’s policymakers, who typically rely on hard data to gauge the economy’s strength, have recently placed more emphasis on anecdotal insights from businesses and consumers. Investors will be looking for clues as to how Powell and his colleagues are factoring that softer data into their decisions ahead of the May 6-7 Federal Open Market Committee meeting.

· While Powell is unlikely to offer explicit guidance, key phrases such as “wait and see” or “transitory” could signal his stance. Any mention of stagflation, a combination of high inflation and weak growth, will likely rattle markets.

-US import prices unexpectedly fall in March on cheaper energy goods: U.S. import prices unexpectedly fell in March, pulled down by decreasing costs for energy products, but the trend is unlikely to be sustained amid an escalation in trade tensions. Import prices dipped 0.1% last month after a downwardly revised 0.2% gain in February, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Tuesday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast import prices, which exclude tariffs, unchanged following a previously reported 0.4% increase in February. (Reuters)

-March Retail Sales Could Be Strong. The Real Tariff Test Comes Later: Spending to get ahead of tariffs likely made March a sunnier month for retail sales, but uncertainty about the import taxes continues to cloud the outlook. The consensus call among economists polled by FactSet is that retail sales rebounded in March after a sluggish start to the year, rising 1.3% from February. The report is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Eastern Wednesday. (Barron’s)

· The increase should reflect “sharply higher auto sales,” wrote a team of Goldman Sachs economists on Sunday. Roughly 1.5 million cars were sold in March, according to data from S&P Global, compared with 1.2 million in February. “Auto makers, by way of incentives, and savvy consumers are likely attempting to get ahead of future uncertainty surrounding auto pricing levels by taking advantage of March deals,” said Chris Hopson, principal analyst at S&P Global Mobility, in a news release at the end of March.

-Nvidia kept some China customers in the dark about new US chip clampdown, sources say: Nvidia did not warn at least some major customers in advance about new U.S. export rules it was told about a week ago requiring it to obtain licenses to sell its China-focused artificial intelligence chip, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The U.S. chipmaker disclosed on Tuesday that American officials had informed the company on April 9 that its H20 chip would require an export license for sales to China. The move to restrict H20 shipments marks Washington's latest effort to limit China's access to advanced semiconductors, as the United States seeks to maintain its edge in AI technology. (Reuters)

· Major Chinese cloud companies were still anticipating H20 deliveries by year-end, unaware of the impending restrictions, according to the two sources, who said Nvidia's China sales team also did not appear to be informed ahead of the public announcement. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

· The export controls threaten Nvidia’s business in China, one of its largest markets. Nvidia had secured $18 billion of H20 orders since the start of the year, according to one of the two sources and a third source. China generated $17 billion in revenue, or 13% of Nvidia’s total sales, in its last fiscal year that ended on January 26.

· Nvidia shares fell 6% in after-hours trading on Tuesday after it said it would take up to $5.5 billion of charges in the first quarter ending April 27 due to the licensing requirement, which the U.S. government told it on Monday would be indefinite.

-US House committee seeks testimony from 23andMe co-founder after bankruptcy: A U.S. House committee on Tuesday asked 23andMe's co-founder to testify next month as it launched an investigation into the risk of genetic data being transferred to potential buyers amid the DNA testing company's bankruptcy. James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky and the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to 23andMe's Anne Wojcicki, seeking her testimony on May 6 as well as documents and information from the genomics firm. (Reuters)

-China's economy grows at a 5.4% annual pace in January-March as Beijing touts open trade: China's economy expanded at a robust 5.4% annual pace in January-March, supported by strong exports ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s rapid increases in tariffs on Chinese exports. Analysts forecast that the world’s second largest economy will slow significantly in coming months, however, as tariffs as high as 145% on U.S. imports from China take effect. Exports were a strong factor in China’s ability to attain a 5% annual growth rate in 2024 and the official target for this year remains at about 5%. Beijing has hit back at the U.S. with 125% tariffs on American exports, while also stressing its determination to keep its own markets open to trade and investment. (AP)

GOVERNMENT NEWS OF NOTE

-Top Tax Bracket Talk: Republicans are looking at creating a new tax bracket for the ultra-wealthy, drafting analysis in the House, Senate, and White House on what that might look like—signaling that Trump, too, would be open to taxing the rich more. A proposal in the House sets a new rate at 40% for taxpayers earning $1 million or more a year, people familiar with the proposal said. (Bloomberg)

· Economic policy aides in the Senate and in the administration are studying the idea, though a White House official emphasized that the higher rate should kick in far above the $1 million threshold. Creating a higher top rate would likely get some pushback from owners of business entities like pass-throughs who pay their company’s taxes based on the individual rates in the tax code.

-Trump Wants Congress to Change Biden Drug Price Policy: President Donald Trump is throwing his support behind changing a Medicare drug price policy that allows certain drugs more time on the market before they’re subject to government pricing. Trump directed his health secretary to work with Congress to end the differential treatment in the Inflation Reduction Act. The law makes small molecule drugs — typically pills — face Medicare price negotiations after seven years on the market, while more complex biologics get 11 years of protection. (Bloomberg)

· A change to the so-called pill penalty has been on drug lobbyists’ wish lists for years, but would require Congress to adjust the law. Bipartisan legislation already exists to fix the so-called “pill penalty,” which North Carolina Reps. Greg Murphy ®, Don Davis (D) and Richard Hudson ® introduced in February (H.R. 1492).

· The directive came in an executive order Trump signed at the White House on Tuesday. The order was light on specifics and included a grab-bag of other health policy goals, John Tozzi, Madison Muller, and Stephanie Lai report. The order also aims to align Medicare’s payment rates for drugs with hospitals’ cost to acquire them.

-Inside Trump’s Plan to Halt Hundreds of Regulations: At the Department of Health and Human Services, Trump administration officials want to reverse a regulation that has required nursing homes to have more medical staff on duty. At the Mine Safety and Health Administration, powerful lobbying groups have asked the administration to eliminate a rule to protect miners from inhaling the dust of crystalline silica, a mineral that is used in concrete, smartphones and cat litter but that can be lethal in the lungs.And at the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates radio and television broadcasting and satellite communications, President Trump’s appointees published a seemingly exuberant notice asking for suggestions on which rules to get rid of, titled “DELETE, DELETE, DELETE.” (NYT)

· Across the more than 400 federal agencies that regulate almost every aspect of American life, from flying in airplanes to processing poultry, Mr. Trump’s appointees are working with the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting initiative headed by Elon Musk and also called DOGE, to launch a sweeping new phase in their quest to dismantle much of the federal government: deregulation on a mass scale.

· Usually, the legal process of repealing federal regulations takes years — and rules erased by one administration can be restored by another. But after chafing at that system during his first term and watching President Joseph R. Biden Jr. enact scores of new rules pushed by the left, Mr. Trump has marshaled a strategy for a dramatic do-over designed to kill regulations swiftly and permanently.

· At Mr. Trump’s direction, agency officials are compiling the regulations they have tagged for the ash heap, racing to meet a deadline next week after which the White House will build its master list to guide what the president called the “deconstruction of the overbearing and burdensome administrative state.”

· The approach, overseen by Russell T. Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, rests on a set of novel legal strategies in which the administration intends to simply repeal or just stop enforcing regulations that have historically taken years to undo, according to people familiar with the plans. The White House theory relies on Supreme Court decisions — some recent and at least one from the 1980s — that they believe give them the basis for sweeping change.

· The broad scope of the effort has created a major opportunity for businesses and their allies, who have long lobbied Washington to soften regulations and now have willing and even eager partners spread across the administration — including many agency appointees with close ties to industries — to help rewrite the rules they live by.

-Trump Flirts With Defying Court Orders: The Trump administration's compliance with court orders started with foot-dragging, moved to semantic gymnastics and has now arrived at the cusp of outright defiance. Large swaths of President Trump's agenda have been tied up in court, challenged in scores of lawsuits. The administration has frozen money that the courts have ordered it to spend. It has blocked The Associated Press from the White House press pool despite a court order saying that the news organization be allowed to participate. And it ignored a judge's instruction to return planes carrying Venezuelan immigrants bound for a notorious prison in El Salvador. (NYT)

· But Exhibit A in what legal scholars say is a deeply worrisome and escalating trend is the administration’s combative response to the Supreme Court’s ruling last week in the case of a Salvadoran immigrant. The administration deported the immigrant, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, to El Salvador despite a 2019 ruling from an immigration judge specifically and directly prohibiting that very thing.

· Until recently, none of this was in dispute. “The United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal,'' the Supreme Court said on Thursday in an unsigned and to all appearances unanimous order.

-In latest media crackdown, White House limits newswire access to Trump: Wire services including Reuters and Bloomberg News will no longer hold a permanent slot in the small pool of reporters who cover President Donald Trump, the White House said on Tuesday, as it moves to exert greater control over who gets to ask him questions and report on his statements in real time. The decision comes after the Trump administration last week lost a court challenge brought by another wire service, the Associated Press, over its earlier exclusion from the press pool. (Reuters)

· The pool typically consists of around 10 outlets that follow the president wherever he goes, whether it is a meeting in the Oval Office where he makes statements or answers questions, or trips at home or abroad. Under the new policy, wire services will lose their customary spot in the pool and will instead be part of a larger rotation with about 30 other newspaper and print outlets.

· Given their mission to deliver real-time information to other news organizations and readers, wire services tend to cover the president and the White House more closely on a daily basis than most outlets. Other media customers, particularly local news organizations that have no presence in Washington, rely on the wires for up-to-date reporting, video and audio. Financial markets are also dependent on the wire services’ real-time reports of statements the president makes.

· “Reuters news coverage reaches billions of people each day, mostly through the thousands of news organizations around the world that subscribe to Reuters services,” a Reuters spokesperson said. “It is essential to democracy that the public have access to independent, impartial and accurate news about their government. Any steps by the U.S. government to limit access to the president threatens that principle, both for the public and the world’s media.” Reuters remains committed to covering the White House in an impartial, accurate and independent way, the spokesperson added.

· AP said the administration’s actions were a grave disservice to the American people. “We are deeply disappointed that the administration has chosen to restrict the access of all wire services, whose fast and accurate White House coverage informs billions of people every single day, rather than reinstate The Associated Press to the wire pool,” spokesperson Lauren Easton said in a statement to Reuters. Bloomberg did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

-After Harvard rejects US demands, Trump adds new threat: U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status on Tuesday and said the university should apologize, a day after it rejected what it called unlawful demands to overhaul academic programs or lose federal grants. Beginning with Columbia University, the Trump administration has rebuked universities across the country over their handling of the pro-Palestinian student protest movement that roiled campuses last year following the 2023 Hamas-led attack inside Israel and the subsequent Israeli attacks on Gaza. (Reuters)

-Harvard's challenge to Trump administration could test limits of government power: On one side is Harvard, the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, with a brand so powerful that its name is synonymous with prestige. On the other side is the Trump administration, determined to go further than any other White House to reshape American higher education. Both sides are digging in for a clash that could test the limits of the government’s power and the independence that has made U.S. universities a destination for scholars around the world. On Monday, Harvard became the first university to openly defy the Trump administration as it demands sweeping changes to limit activism on campus. (AP)

-Trump’s Threats Stoke Nonprofit Worries: President Donald Trump’s threat to take away Harvard University’s tax-exempt status is fueling worries among nonprofit groups that the White House crusade against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs could make them targets of the IRS and courts.It’s giving some flashbacks to the unpleasant history of politicizing IRS work, and it’s leading some organizations to scrub websites of diversity, equity, and inclusion references, lawyers said. Some groups are left wondering whether Trump’s January executive order calling for a crackdown on “illegal DEI” applies to them. (Bloomberg)

· Those worries are being compounded by actions in Congress as lawmakers put the tax-exempt sector under a microscope and Republicans seek offsets to extend the GOP’s 2017 tax law.

· “This looks like the president is directing an agency he does not have control over to attack who he perceives as his political enemy,” said Philip Hackney, a professor in tax-exempt law at the University of Pittsburgh. “This is not the rule of law but the rule by whim of a president.”

-Judge blocks most of Trump order against Susman Godfrey, laments law firms 'capitulating': A federal judge on Tuesday blocked most of Donald Trump's executive order targeting law firm Susman Godfrey, part of the Republican U.S. president's campaign against the legal industry, and lamented that other firms have been "capitulating" to what she called his coercion and abuse of power. Washington-based U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan issued a temporary restraining order halting provisions of Trump's directive that threatened to cancel federal contracts held by Susman Godfrey's clients and restricted access by its lawyers to government buildings and officials. (Reuters)

-Over 22,000 IRS workers take Trump's latest buyout offer, agency sources say: More than 22,000 employees at the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service have accepted the Trump administration's latest buyout offer, two agency sources said on Tuesday. The move this month, called a deferred resignation program, offers workers full pay and benefits until September 30, with most being told they won't have to work during their final months. (Reuters)

-Whistleblower org says DOGE may have caused 'significant cyber breach' at US labor watchdog: A whistleblower complaint says that billionaire Elon Musk's team of technologists may have been responsible for a "significant cybersecurity breach," likely of sensitive case files, at America's federal labor watchdog. The complaint, addressed to Republican Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton and his Democratic counterpart Mark Warner and made public Tuesday by the group Whistleblower Aid, draws on the testimony of Daniel Berulis, an information technology staffer at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). (Reuters)

-Kratsios Calls for ‘Creative’ R&D Amid Cuts: President Donald Trump’s new science and technology chief said the US will need to make “smart choices” with public funding, as the administration’s budget cuts leave research organizations to make do with less. “We must be more creative in our use of public research and development money and shape a funding environment that makes clear what our national priorities are,” Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said at a tech conference in Austin in his first public remarks since his confirmation. (Bloomberg)

· As the new OSTP director, Kratsios must find ways to spur US competitiveness, while federal budget cuts threaten funding to various science and technology research projects. For example, a wave of layoffs at the National Science Foundation has affected groups deploying grants for AI.

· Kratsios told Bloomberg News that his office could boost R&D efforts by working with the Office of Management and Budget to plan research funding across agencies. “We have to be the place where these breakthroughs ultimately happen,” he said in an interview, when asked about supporting AI development.

-FDA Cuts Threatens Drug Approvals Lag: The Trump administration said forcing out thousands of FDA staff wouldn’t impact the scientists who ensure US medical products are safe and effective. But within a few short weeks, those very reviewers and inspectors said it’s already hobbling their work. Paperwork Hampering Science: From finding their own translators for foreign inspections to poring over medical journals and grappling with IT woes, drug and device reviewers at the Food and Drug Administration said they’re so mired in paperwork that it’s hampering their scientific evaluations. (Bloomberg)

· It’s “no longer hypothetical” that drug reviews will slow, a drug reviewer who expects to miss a legal deadline due to last month’s reduction-in-force told Nyah Phengsitthy. A device reviewer expressed concern that “innovation is slowed, which may result in less access to life-saving devices and treatments.”

· The reductions broadly hit staff working in program management, human resources, technology, policy, communications, and several top leaders with years of institutional knowledge as part of a broader overhaul to reduce the federal workforce. “Even if product reviewers are not terminated, other FDA staff are critical facilitators of product review work,” Eva Temkin, a former FDA acting drug policy director, said.

-HHS Opposes States’ Bid to Restore $11 Billion in Health Grants: The US Department of Health and Human Services urged a federal court to refrain from ordering it to reinstate about $11 billion in public health care grants to 23 states and the District of Columbia. The states aren’t likely to win their suit over the cancellation of grants that date back to the Covid-19 pandemic because the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island doesn’t have subject matter jurisdiction over the lawsuit, the agency said Monday. The US Supreme Court recently paused an order requiring the restoration of education-related grants, saying the suit likely belonged in the US Court of Federal Claims, it said. (Bloomberg)

· This is one of myriad lawsuits growing out of the Trump administration’s cancellation of grants and awards already appropriated to pay for various state priorities, including public health-care related to vaccinations, disease-tracking tools, and substance abuse screening.

· The grants at issue here originally were funded in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and most of the money already has been spent, the agency led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said. The terminations, moreover, allow states to collect funds for expenses already validly incurred, it said.

-HHS, Red States Want Doctors, Liberal Cities Out of Abortion Row: The Trump administration and over a dozen states are trying to keep a physicians group from stepping into a legal battle that could alter Biden-era privacy protections on abortion records. Doctors for America and the cities of Madison, Wis., and Columbus, Ohio, can’t intervene in the litigation “based on mere speculation that the Federal Government might, in the future, decide to stop defending the challenged federal regulation,” Missouri said in a Monday court filing. (Bloomberg)

· Missouri’s filing comes in its lawsuit against the US Department of Health of Human Services over a 2024 rule applying Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) privacy protections to abortion and other reproductive services’ records.

-US CDC advisers to review vaccine guidelines after months-long delay: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's outside expert panel will convene on Tuesday after a nearly two-month delay and expects to review guidelines for several vaccines including recommendations for the next generation of COVID-19 shots. The two-day meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices also plans to discuss the ongoing U.S. measles outbreak that has infected over 700 people this year, mostly among unvaccinated people in Texas and New Mexico. (Reuters)

-Texas Measles Cases Appear to Slow as RFK Jr. Downplays Vaccine: Texas reported 20 new confirmed measles cases on Tuesday, a 4% increase from Friday’s data as the virus’ spread appears to be slowing in the hardest-hit US state. The new case count was smaller than what the state reported on April 11 (36), April 8 (24), April 4 (59) and April 1 (22). Texas now has 561 total cases. In a news conference in Indiana, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said there was “no reason” children should die of measles if hospitals treat the disease and that the US should not rely on the vaccine. There is no cure for measles. Two unvaccinated children have died in Texas since the outbreak began this year. (Bloomberg)

OTHER DOMESTIC NEWS OF NOTE

-Biden re-emerges to defend Social Security as Trump cuts agency staff: Democratic former President Joe Biden on Tuesday made his first major speech since leaving the White House in January, defending the Social Security Administration as the Trump administration cuts agency staff and shutters some of its offices. Biden's speech in Chicago to disability advocates marked a major re-emergence onto America's political landscape, as President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, run by tech billionaire Elon Musk, makes massive cuts to the federal workforce. (Reuters)

-California is first state to sue Trump on tariffs: California Gov. Gavin Newsom is suing Donald Trump over tariffs in an aggressive move to end the president’s stranglehold on global commerce. Newsom’s lawsuit, announced Wednesday morning with California Attorney General Rob Bonta, is the first challenge from a U.S. state against Trump’s signature foreign policy cudgel. California, the world’s fifth largest economy, stands to lose billions to tariffs with major state industries from Silicon Valley to agriculture heavily dependent on global trade. (Politico)

· “President Trump’s unlawful tariffs are wreaking chaos on California families, businesses, and our economy — driving up prices and threatening jobs,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re standing up for American families who can’t afford to let the chaos continue.”

· The lawsuit is Newsom’s most direct legal challenge to Trump’s agenda since the president retook office in January. The move instantly reignites California’s war with Trump and cements its place atop the resistance, after Newsom spent months appealing to the president for federal disaster relief.

· It’s also notable as a unilateral challenge, underscoring the singular importance of the issue in California. Bonta has worked closely with other blue states on previous lawsuits challenging Trump’s immigration policies and federal funding cuts.

· Newsom and Bonta’s argument targets the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, the law Trump is using to impose tariffs without congressional approval. The two Democrats argue Trump lacks the authority to levy tariffs under the law, mirroring a similar case filed Monday by a group of U.S. businesses.

-NAACP sues US Education Department over DEI school funding cuts: The NAACP sued the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday to stop its alleged illegal effort to cut off funding to schools that use diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and prevent Black students from receiving equal education opportunities. In a complaint filed in Washington, D.C., the largest U.S. civil rights group faulted the Trump administration for targeting programs that offer "truthful, inclusive curricula," policies to give Black Americans equal access to selective education opportunities, and efforts to foster a sense of belonging and address racism. (Reuters)

-Law students sue US civil rights agency over crackdown on law-firm DEI policies: Three law students on Tuesday sued a U.S. civil rights agency, claiming that its probe into diversity policies at 20 large law firms is illegal and could expose the personal information of lawyers and job applicants. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., is the latest pushback against President Donald Trump's efforts to rein in major law firms and eradicate workplace diversity, equity and inclusion programs. (Reuters)

-The Oklahoma City bombing was 30 years ago. Some survivors worry America didn’t learn the lesson: Thirty years after a truck bomb detonated outside a federal building in America's heartland, killing 168 people in the deadliest homegrown attack on U.S. soil, deep scars remain. From a mother who lost her first-born baby, a son who never got to know his father, and a young man so badly injured that he still struggles to breathe, three decades have not healed the wounds from the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995. (AP)

· The bombers were two former U.S. Army buddies, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who shared a deep-seated hatred of the federal government fueled by the bloody raid on the Branch Davidian religious sect near Waco, Texas, and a standoff in the mountains of Ruby Ridge, Idaho, that killed a 14-year-old boy, his mother and a federal agent.

· And while the bombing awakened the nation to the dangers of extremist ideologies, many who suffered directly in the attack still fear anti-government rhetoric in modern-day politics could also lead to violence. A 30-year anniversary remembrance ceremony is scheduled for April 19 on the grounds of the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum.

-New York prison guards indicted in connection with an inmate's death, governor says: Multiple New York prison guards have been indicted in connection with the “disturbing” death of an inmate last month during a wildcat officers’ strike, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Tuesday. Messiah Nantwi, a prisoner at the Mid-State Correctional Facility, died at a hospital March 1 following what other prisoners said was a severe beating by several guards. (AP)

· At the time, the state’s prisons were in a state of crisis caused by the walkout of thousands of prison personnel during an unauthorized 22-day strike that had forced the governor to call in the National Guard. “The tragic death of Mr. Nantwi at the hands of correction officers who are responsible for protecting the incarcerated population is deeply, deeply disturbing,” Hochul said in a brief video message. The governor didn’t immediately say how many guards had been indicted or reveal details about the charges. Her office did not respond to an email seeking more information.

· A special prosecutor investigating Nantwi’s death, Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, said earlier Tuesday that a “noteworthy development” in the case will be presented to a judge in Utica on Wednesday—a signal that criminal charges might be imminent.

-Gambian man convicted by US jury for role in torture program: A man who was accused of being part of a Gambian armed unit run by former dictator Yahya Jammeh has been convicted in the United States for torture, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. A Colorado jury convicted the Gambian national, Michael Sang Correa, for his participation in the torture of numerous victims in The Gambia in 2006, including through beating and flesh burning, because of the victims' purported involvement in a coup plot against the then-president, the Justice Department added. (Reuters)

· The case marked the first known time that someone faced criminal prosecution over the role of the feared armed group known as "the Junglers" in Gambia's police state during the rule of Jammeh, who seized power in 1994 and foiled several attempts to overthrow him before he lost an election in late 2016. Correa was arrested in 2020 under a law which makes it a crime for anyone in the United States to commit torture abroad.

-Sarah Palin's New York Times defamation case retrial heads to opening statements: Opening statements are set to begin on Tuesday in the retrial of Sarah Palin's lawsuit accusing the New York Times of defaming the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate in a 2017 editorial about gun control. Palin, 61, who was unsuccessful in her 2008 bid for the second-highest U.S. office along with running mate John McCain, lost her first trial against the Times and former editorial page editor James Bennet in 2022. But the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan last August decided that the verdict was tainted by several rulings by the presiding judge, and ordered a retrial. (Reuters)

-Harvey Weinstein faces new sex crimes trial in New York: Harvey Weinstein is set to stand trial on rape and sexual assault charges in Manhattan on Tuesday, a year after a state appeals court overturned the former movie mogul's 2020 conviction. Weinstein, 73, faces one rape count and two criminal sexual act counts in the jury trial, with Superior Court justice Curtis Farber presiding. Weinstein, who co-founded the Miramax studio and was once one of Hollywood's most influential producers, has pleaded not guilty and has denied ever assaulting anyone or having non-consensual sex. (Reuters)