Government

WASHINGTON — President Trump is withdrawing the nomination of tech billionaire Jared Isaacman, an associate of Elon Musk, to lead NASA, a person familiar with the decision said Saturday.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the administration’s personnel decisions. The White House and NASA did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

Trump announced last December during the presidential transition that he had chosen Isaacman to be the space agency’s next administrator. Isaacman has been a close collaborator with Musk ever since he bought his first chartered flight on Musk’s SpaceX in 2021.

He is the CEO and founder of Shift4, a credit card processing company. He also bought a series of spaceflights from SpaceX and conducted the first private spacewalk.

Isaacman testified at his Senate confirmation hearing on April 9 and a vote to send his nomination to the full Senate was expected soon.

SpaceX is owned by Musk, a Trump supporter and adviser who announced this week that he is leaving the government after several months at the helm of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Trump created the agency to slash the size of government and put Musk in charge.

Semafor was first to report that the White House had decided to pull Isaacman’s nomination.

Superville and Kim write for the Associated Press.

May 30 (UPI) — A Defense Intelligence Agency worker has been charged with attempting to provide classified information to an officer or agent of a government because he was dissatisfied with the Trump administration, the Justice Department said.

Nathan Laatsch, 28, of Alexandria, Va., was arrested Thursday and was to make his initial court appearance Friday afternoon in the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday, DOJ said.

Thinking he was communicating with a foreign official, Laatch unknowingly was in touch with an undercover FBI agent.

Since 2019, Laatsch was a civilian employee as a data scientist and information technology specialist in the DIA’s Insider Threat Division and held a top secret security clearance, according to the DOJ.

DIA headquarters are located in Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington.

The arrest affidavit didn’t list the name of the foreign country.

After his arrest, he allegedly told authorities he was requesting citizenship in the foreign country because of conditions in the United States.

“I’ve given a lot of thought to this before any outreach, and despite the risks, the calculus has not changed,” the affidavit obtained by Politico said. “I do not see the trajectory of things changing, and do not think it is appropriate or right to do nothing when I am in this position.”

Subsequently, the agency obtained video from the DIA office where Laatsch was seen writing notes and then hid them into his socks, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia obtained by ABC News.

Another DIA employee saw him placing multiple notebook pages in the bottom of his lunchbox, according to the affidavit.

In March, the FBI received a tip that someone was willing to provide classified information to a friendly foreign government. It initially wasn’t known that person was Laatsch.

The FBI obtained an email from someone who didn’t “agree or align with the values of this administration” and was “willing to share classified information” to which he had access. This included “completed intelligence products, some unprocessed intelligence, and other assorted classified documentation,” DOJ said.

Laatsch transcribed classified information to a notepad at his desk and over about three days moved it from his workspace.

A meeting was scheduled with the suspect’s contact.

On May 1, FBI surveillance observed Laatsch go to a specified location at a park in Northern Virginia and left an item. After Laatsch departed, the FBI retrieved a thumb drive, which contained information marked “Secret” or “Top Secret.”

On May 7, Laatsch allegedly sent a message to the undercover FBI agent, which indicated Laatsch was seeking something from the foreign government in return for continuing to provide classified information. On the next day, Laatsch said he was interested in “citizenship for your country” because he did not “expect things here to improve in the long term.”

He told the agent he didn’t need “material compensation.”

Between May 15 and Tuesday, Laatsch again transcribed multiple pages of notes from his work station and put them in his clothing, DOJ said.

On Thursday, the suspect arrived at a prearranged location in northern Virginia. He was arrested when the FBI received the documents.

The FBI Washington Field Office is investigating the case with assistance from the U.S. Air Force Office of Investigations and DIA.

FBI Director Kash Patel posted Thursday on X: “This case underscores the persistent risk of insider threats. The FBI remains steadfast in protecting our national security and thanks our law enforcement partners for their critical support.”

Arab states are accusing Israel of weaponising hunger in Gaza, rejecting its new aid system as illegal. “Starvation is being used as a weapon of war,” said UAE envoy Mohamed Abushahab, speaking on behalf of 22 Arab League members at the UN.

Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement of protest against the head of the United States mission to the island, Michael Hammer.

In a news release published on Friday, the Foreign Ministry accused Hammer, a career diplomat, of “unfriendly and meddling behaviour” since his arrival in Cuba in late 2024.

“By inciting Cuban citizens to commit extremely serious criminal acts, attacking the constitutional order, or encouraging them to act against the authorities or demonstrate in support of the interests and objectives of a hostile foreign power, the diplomat is engaging in provocative and irresponsible conduct,” the Foreign Ministry wrote.

“The immunity he enjoys as a representative of his country cannot be used as cover for acts contrary to the sovereignty and internal order of the country to which he is assigned, in this case, Cuba.”

The Foreign Ministry said the message was delivered by its director of bilateral affairs with the US, Alejandro Garcia del Toro.

Friday’s statement is the latest indication of increasingly rocky relations between Cuba and the US, particularly since President Donald Trump began his second term in January.

A history of tensions

Diplomatic ties between the two countries, however, have been icy for decades, stretching back to the Cold War in the 1960s. After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the US government imposed strict trade restrictions on the island and backed efforts to topple the newly established Communist government.

But there have been efforts to ease the tensions, notably during the administrations of Democratic presidents like Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the US.

In 2016, for instance, Obama sought to normalise relations with Cuba, only to see those efforts rolled back during the first Trump administration, starting in 2017.

Likewise, President Biden – who formerly served as Obama’s vice president – removed Cuba from the US’s list of “state sponsors of terrorism” in the waning days of his term in January.

But upon taking office for his second time on January 20, Trump reversed course once more, putting Cuba back on the list that very same day.

Trump also included in his presidential cabinet several officials who have taken a hardline stance towards Cuba, most notably former Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Born to Cuban immigrants, Rubio is an outspoken supporter of continuing the trade embargo against the island.

The Cuban government, meanwhile, has continued to accuse the US of attempting to destabilise its leadership.

In Friday’s statement, the Cuban Foreign Ministry accused Hammer of “public and insulting manipulation” for his recent visit to the tomb of a 19th-century national hero, Jose Marti.

The US Embassy to Cuba posted a video of the visit with a voiceover of Marti’s words, “Respect for the freedom and thoughts of others, even of the most unhappy kind, is my passion: If I die or am killed, it will be for that.” Critics have interpreted that citation as an implied endorsement of dissent on the island.

Ramping up pressure

In recent months, there have also been signs that Trump plans to once again tighten the screws on the Cuban government, in a return to the “maximum pressure” campaigns that typified foreign policy during his first term.

In February, for instance, the Trump administration announced it would yank visas from anyone who works with Cuba’s medical system, which sends thousands of healthcare workers abroad each year, particularly in the Caribbean region.

Critics have criticised the healthcare programme for its low pay and hefty restrictions on its employees. Trump and Rubio, meanwhile, have claimed the medical system amounts to a form of “forced labour” that enriches the Cuban government. But leaders in Havana have denied that allegation.

Then, in April, the US government condemned Cuba for re-arresting a group of dissidents, among them prominent figures like Jose Daniel Ferrer and Felix Navarro.

Cuba had initially agreed to release Ferrer and Navarro as part of a bargain brokered by the Vatican earlier this year.

Cuba was expected to release 553 prisoners, many of whom were swept up in antigovernment protests, and in exchange, the US was supposed to ease its sanctions against the island. The sanctions relief, however, never came.

An additional measure was taken against Cuba just this month. The Department of State, under Rubio’s direction, determined that “Cuba did not fully cooperate with US counterterrorism efforts in 2024”. It accused Cuba of harbouring 11 fugitives, some of whom faced terrorism-related charges in the US.

“The Cuban regime made clear it was not willing to discuss their return to face justice in our nation,” the State Department wrote in a news release. “The United States will continue to promote international cooperation on counterterrorism issues. We also continue to promote accountability for countries that do not stand against terrorism.”

As punishment, Cuba was labelled as a “not fully cooperating country” under the Arms Export Control Act, a designation that limits its ability to buy weaponry and other defence tools from the US.

Furthermore, Hammer had recently signalled that new sanctions were on the way for the island.

But in the face of Friday’s reprimand, the State Department indicated it was undeterred and would continue to support dissidents against Cuba’s “malign influence”.

United States President Donald Trump has announced his administration is raising tariffs on steel imports from 25 percent to 50 percent.

Speaking to steelworkers and supporters at a rally outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Trump framed his latest tariff increase as a boon to the domestic manufacturing industry.

“We’re going to bring it from 25 percent to 50 percent, the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States,” Trump told the crowd. “Nobody’s going to get around that.”

How that tariff increase would affect the free-trade deal with Canada and Mexico – or a separate trade deal struck earlier this month with the United Kingdom – remains unclear.

Also left ambiguous was the nature of a deal struck between Nippon Steel, the largest steel producer in Japan, and the domestic company US Steel. Still, Trump played up the partnership between the two companies as a “blockbuster agreement”.

“ There’s never been a $14bn investment in the history of the steel industry in the United States of America,” Trump said of the deal.

A tariff hike on steel

Friday’s rally was a return to the site of many election-season campaign events for Trump and his team.

In 2024, Trump hinged his pitch for re-election on an appeal to working-class voters, including those in the Rust Belt region, a manufacturing hub that has declined in the face of the shifting industry trends and greater overseas competition.

Key swing states like Pennsylvania and Michigan are located in the region, and they leaned Republican on election day, helping to propel Trump to a second term as president.

Trump, in turn, has framed his “America First” agenda as a policy platform designed to bolster the domestic manufacturing industry. Tariffs and other protectionist policies have played a prominent part in that agenda.

In March, for instance, Trump announced an initial slate of 25-percent tariffs on steel and aluminium, causing major trading partners like Canada to respond with retaliatory measures.

The following month, he also imposed a blanket 10-percent tariff on nearly all trade partners as well as higher country-specific import taxes. Those were quickly paused amid economic shockwaves and widespread criticism, while the 10-percent tariff remained in place.

Trump has argued that the tariffs are a vital negotiating tool to encourage greater investment in the US economy.

But economists have warned that attempting a “hard reset” of the global economy – through dramatic tax hikes like tariffs – will likely blow back on US consumers, raising prices.

Rachel Ziemba, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said the latest tariff hike on steel also signals that negotiating trade deals with Trump may result in “limited benefits”, given the sudden shifts in his policies.

Further, Friday’s announcement signals that Trump is likely to continue doubling down on tariffs, she said.

“The challenge is that hiking the steel tariffs may be good for steel workers, but it is bad for manufacturing and the energy sector, among others. So overall, it is not great for the US economy and adds uncertainty to the macro outlook,” Ziemba explained.

Trump’s tariff policies have also faced legal challenges in the US, where businesses, interest groups and states have all filed lawsuits to stop the tax hikes on imports.

On Thursday, for instance, a federal court briefly ruled that Trump had illegally exercised emergency powers to impose his sweeping slate of international tariffs, only for an appeals court to temporarily pause that ruling a few hours later.

A deal with Nippon Steel

Before the tariff hike was announced, Friday’s rally in Pittsburgh was expected to focus on Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of US Steel, the second largest steel producer in the country.

“We’re here today to celebrate a blockbuster agreement that will ensure this storied American company stays an American company,” Trump said at the outset of his speech.

But the merger between Nippon Steel and US Steel had been controversial, and it was largely opposed by labour unions.

Upon returning to the White House in January, Trump initially said he would block the acquisition, mirroring a similar position taken by his predecessor, former US President Joe Biden.

However, he has since pivoted his stance and backed the deal. Last week, he announced an agreement that he said would grant Nippon only “partial ownership” over US Steel.

Speaking on Friday, Trump said the new deal would include Nippon making a “$14bn commitment to the future” of US Steel, although he did not provide details about how the ownership agreement would play out.

“Oh, you’re gonna be happy,” Trump told the crowd of steelworkers. “There’s a lot of money coming your way.”

The Republican leader also waxed poetic about the history of steel in the US, describing it as the backbone of the country’s economy.

“The city of Pittsburgh used to produce more steel than most entire countries could produce, and it wasn’t even close,” he said, adding: “If you don’t have steel, you don’t have a country.”

For its part, US Steel has not publicly communicated any details of a revamped deal to investors. Nippon, meanwhile, issued a statement approving the proposed “partnership”, but it also has not disclosed terms of the arrangement.

The acquisition has split union workers, although the national United Steelworkers Union has been one of its leading opponents.

In a statement prior to the rally, the union questioned whether the new arrangement makes “any meaningful change” from the initial proposal.

“Nippon has maintained consistently that it would only invest in US Steel’s facilities if it owned the company outright,” the union said in a statement, which noted firmer details had not yet been released.

“We’ve seen nothing in the reporting over the past few days suggesting that Nippon has walked back from this position.”

The rally on Friday comes as Trump has sought to reassure his base of voters following a tumultuous start to his second term.

Critics point out that steel prices have risen in the US by roughly 16 percent since Trump took office, and his Republican Party faces potentially punishing congressional elections in 2026.

United States President Donald Trump has bid goodbye to Elon Musk at a White House event marking the billionaire’s departure from his role in government.

Speaking from the Oval Office on Friday, Trump showered Musk with praise for his work as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an initiative to reduce federal bureaucracy and spending.

“ I just want to say that Elon has worked tirelessly helping lead the most sweeping and consequential government reform programme in generations,” Trump said.

He credited Musk with delivering “a colossal change in the old ways of doing business in Washington” and called Musk’s service “without comparison in modern history”.

Still, the president also assured reporters that DOGE would continue its work even after Musk is gone.

“With Elon’s guidance, [DOGE is] helping to detect fraud, slash waste and modernise broken and outdated systems,” Trump said.

The joint appearance comes as the two men seek to downplay reports of a growing rift, particularly after Musk criticised Trump’s signature budget bill on CBS News. It also coincides with the publication of a New York Times report alleging that Musk has struggled with increasing drug use and personal turmoil behind the scenes.

Musk declined to comment on the Times report during his Oval Office appearance. He also avoided remarking on speculation that his departure was connected to tumbling sales at his car company, Tesla.

Instead, he pointed out that, as a special government employee, he cannot work in the Trump administration for a period exceeding 130 days without facing stricter disclosure and ethics requirements.

He also focused on promoting his work with DOGE and criticising those on the political left who would impede Trump’s agenda.

“This is not the end of DOGE, but really at the beginning,” Musk said, clad in a black T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “The Dogefather”, written in the style of the gangster film The Godfather. “The DOGE team will only grow stronger over time.”

Trump, meanwhile, emphasised that his relationship with the billionaire – a prominent backer of his 2024 re-election campaign – would continue.

“Elon’s really not leaving. He’s going to be back and forth, I think,” Trump said.

Unclear accounting

Despite White House claims about its efficacy, the extent of DOGE’s cost-savings has remained foggy.

As of Friday, the panel claimed it had achieved an estimated $175bn in savings, made up of “asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions”.

But DOGE’s transparency and methodology have been repeatedly questioned. The only accounting made available to the public adds up to less than half of the claimed figure.

An analysis published on Friday by the news agency Reuters also suggests the actual sum is much lower. Using US Treasury summaries, Reuters found that only $19bn in federal spending had been cut, though it noted that some savings may require more time to be reflected in the Treasury Department’s data.

Regardless, all of those figures fall far short of the goal of $2 trillion saved that Musk initially set out to achieve.

When asked about the discrepancy on Friday, Musk maintained that $1 trillion in savings remained a long-term goal.

“I’m confident that over time, we’ll see a trillion dollars of savings, a reduction – a trillion dollars of waste and fraud reduction,” he said.

But critics have questioned if DOGE will continue with the same verve following Musk’s departure.

Musk and DOGE have long been lightning rods for public criticism, as they implemented sweeping changes to the federal government. Since Trump started his second term as president in January, organisations like the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have seen their funding cut and their staffing slashed.

As a result, employees, contractors, labour groups and state officials have sued to block DOGE’s efforts, with varying levels of success.

Behind the scenes, there have also been reports that Musk clashed with members of Trump’s cabinet, who may seek relief from cuts to their departments after Musk’s exit.

Musk’s foray into government has caused blowback for his companies as well, with protests at Tesla dealerships spreading across the country. Profits plunged 71 percent at Tesla in the first three months of the year, with shareholders calling for Musk to return to work.

When asked by a reporter if Musk’s time in government was “worth it”, he was circumspect. He explained that he felt DOGE had become seen as a “boogeyman”, blamed for any effort to overhaul the federal government.

But he reaffirmed his commitment to being a “friend and adviser to the president” and said the experience was worthwhile.

“I think it was. I think [it] was an important thing,” he added. “I think it was a necessary thing, and I think it will have a good effect in the future.”

The ruling means people from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua can be targeted for deportation as lawsuits continue.

The conservative-dominated United States Supreme Court has handed President Donald Trump another major victory, allowing his administration to revoke a temporary legal status from more than 500,000 immigrants as legal challenges continue in lower courts.

Friday’s decision applies to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan people who were granted humanitarian parole under the administration of former President Joe Biden.

That parole status allowed them to enter the US due to emergencies or urgent humanitarian reasons, including instability, violence and political repression in their home countries.

But the Supreme Court’s ruling means that the beneficiaries of humanitarian parole could be targeted for deportation prior to a final ruling on whether the revocation of their immigration status is legal.

The ruling by the top court, which is dominated six-to-three by conservatives, reverses a lower court’s order temporarily halting the Trump administration from yanking humanitarian parole from Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans.

The Supreme Court’s decision was unsigned and did not provide reasoning. However, two liberal justices on the panel publicly dissented.

The outcome “undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending”, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote.

She noted that some of the affected individuals had indicated in court filings that they would face grave harm if their humanitarian parole were cut short.

Trump has targeted programmes like humanitarian parole as part of his efforts to limit immigration into the US. His administration has accused Biden of “broad abuse” in his invocation of humanitarian parole: Trump has said Biden was lax on immigration and oversaw an “invasion” of the US from abroad.

Since taking office in January, Trump’s administration has also indefinitely suspended applications for asylum and other forms of immigration relief.

The plaintiffs in Friday’s humanitarian parole case warned the Supreme Court they could face life-threatening conditions if they were not allowed to seek other avenues for immigration and were forced to leave the country.

If they were deported “to the same despotic and unstable countries from which they fled”, lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that “many will face serious risks of danger, persecution and even death”.

Earlier in May, the Supreme Court also allowed Trump to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) — another temporary immigration pathway — for about 350,000 Venezuelans living in the US. TPS allows non-citizens to remain in the US while circumstances in their home countries remain unsafe or unstable.

As with Friday’s case, the Supreme Court’s ruling on TPS allowed the Trump administration to move forward with removals while a legal challenge to Trump’s policy plays out in lower courts.

Biden had encouraged the use of programmes like TPS and humanitarian parole as alternatives to undocumented immigration into the US.

Humanitarian parole, for instance, allowed recipients to legally live and work in the US for two years. Trump’s efforts to end the programme would cut that timeframe short.

The countries in question — Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti — have all experienced significant economic and political crises in recent years.

In Venezuela, for instance, critics have accused President Nicolas Maduro of detaining and disappearing political dissidents and activists, and an economic collapse caused hyperinflation that put basic necessities beyond the means of many Venezuelans. Millions have fled the country in recent years.

One of the other countries, Haiti, has been ravaged by a spike in gang violence since the assassination of President Jovenal Moise in 2021. Federal elections have not been held since, and gangs have used violence to fill the power vacuum.

As much as 90 percent of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, has fallen under gang control, according to the United Nations, and thousands have been killed.

From the beginning, the reforms were controversial. Thousands of court workers went on strike to protest the constitutional amendment. Some protesters even stormed the Senate building.

Critics accused the Morena party of seeking to strengthen its grip on power by electing sympathetic judges. Already, the party holds majorities in both chambers of Congress, as well as the presidency.

Opponents also feared the elections would lead to unqualified candidates taking office.

Under the new regulations, candidates must have a law degree, experience in legal affairs, no criminal record and letters of recommendation.

Candidates also had to pass evaluation committees, comprised of representatives from the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

And yet, some of the final candidates have nevertheless raised eyebrows. One was arrested for trafficking methamphetamine. Another is implicated in a murder investigation. Still more have been accused of sexual misconduct.

Arias suspects that some candidates slipped through the screening process due to the limited resources available to organise the election.

She noted that the National Election Institute had less than 10 months to arrange the elections, since the reforms were only passed in September.

“The timing is very rushed,” she said.

One of the most controversial hopefuls in Sunday’s election is Silvia Delgado, a lawyer who once defended the cofounder of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman.

She is now campaigning to be a judge in Ciudad Juarez, in the border state of Chihuahua.

Despite her high-profile client, Delgado told Al Jazeera that the scrutiny over her candidacy is misplaced: She maintains she was only doing her job as a lawyer.

“Having represented this or that person does not make you part of a criminal group,” she said.

Rather, she argues that it is Mexico’s incumbent judges who deserve to be under the microscope. She claimed many of them won their positions through personal connections.

“They got in through a recommendation or through a family member who got them into the judiciary,” she said.

President Sheinbaum has likewise framed the elections as part of the battle against nepotism and self-dealing in the judicial system.

“This is about fighting corruption,” Sheinbaum said in one of her morning news briefings. “This is the defence of the Mexican people for justice, for honesty, for integrity.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump may seek to deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants who recently entered the United States under a two-year grant of parole, the Supreme Court decided Friday.

Over two dissents, the justices granted an emergency appeal and set aside rulings by judges in Boston who blocked Trump’s repeal of the parole policy adopted by the Biden administration.

That 2023 policy opened the door for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to apply for entry and a work authorization if they had a financial sponsor and could pass background checks. By the time Biden left office, 530,000 people from those countries had entered the U.S. under the program.

Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

“The court plainly botched this,” Jackson said, adding that it should have kept the case on hold during the appeals.

It was the second time in two weeks that the justices upheld Trump’s authority to revoke a large-scale Biden administration policy that gave temporary legal status to some migrants.

The first revoked program gave temporary protected status to around 350,000 Venezuelans who were in this country and feared they could be sent home.

The parole policy allowed up to 30,000 migrants a month from the four countries to enter the country with temporary legal protection. Biden’s officials saw it as a way to reduce illegal border crossings and to provide a safe and legal pathway for carefully screened migrants.

The far-reaching policy was based on a modest-sounding provision of the immigration laws. It says the secretary of Homeland Security may “parole into United States temporarily … on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons any alien” who is seeking admission.

Upon taking office, Trump ordered an end to “all categorical parole programs.” In late March, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that the parole protection would end in 30 days.

But last month, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani blocked DHS’s “categorical” termination of the parole authority. The law said the government may grant parole on a “case-by-case basis,” she said, and that suggests it must be revoked on a case-by-case basis as well.

On May 5, the 1st Circuit Court in a 3-0 decision agreed that a “categorical termination” of parole appeared to be illegal.

Three days later, Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer filed another emergency appeal at the Supreme Court arguing that a judge had overstepped her authority.

The parole authority is “purely discretionary” in the hands of the DHS secretary, he wrote, and the law bars judges from reviewing those decisions.

While the Biden administration “granted parole categorically to aliens” from four counties, he said the Boston-based judges blocked the new policy because it is “categorical.”

He accused the judges of “needlessly upending critical immigration policies that are carefully calibrated to deter illegal entry, vitiating core Executive Branch prerogatives, and undoing democratically approved policies that featured heavily in the November election.”

Immigrants rights advocates had urged the court to stand aside for now.

Granting the administration’s appeal “would cause an immense amount of needless human suffering,” they told the court.

They said the migrants “all came to the United States with the permission of the federal government after each individually applied through a U.S. financial sponsor, passed security and other checks while still abroad, and received permission to fly to an airport here at no expense to the government to request parole.”

“Some class members have been here for nearly two years; others just arrived in January,” they added.

In response, Sauer asserted the migrants had no grounds to complain. They “accepted parole with full awareness that the benefit was temporary, discretionary, and revocable at any time,” he said.

The Biden administration began offering temporary entry to Venezuelans in late 2022, then expanded the program a few months later to people from the other three countries.

In October of last year, the Biden administration announced that it would not offer renewals of parole and directed those immigrants to apply to other forms of relief, such as asylum or temporary protected status.

It’s unclear exactly how many people remained protected solely through the parole status and could now be targeted for deportation. It’s also not clear whether the administration will seek to deport many or most of these immigrants.

But parolees who recently tried to adjust their legal status have hit a roadblock.

In a Feb. 14 memo, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it was placing an administrative hold on all pending benefit requests filed by those under the parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, as well as a program for Ukrainians and another for family reunification.

The memo said USCIS needed to implement “additional vetting flags” to identify fraud, public safety or national security concerns.

“It’s going to force people into an impossible choice,” said Talia Inlender, deputy director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law. Those who stay face potential detention and deportation, she said, while those who willingly leave the U.S. would be giving up on their applications.

The DHS memo said the government could extend the parole for some of them on a case-by-case basis. But Trump’s lawyers said migrants who were here less than two years could be deported without a hearing under the “expedited removal” provisions of the immigration laws.

Inlender said the government should not be allowed to strip people of lawfully granted legal status without sufficient reason or notice. Inlender, who defended the program against a challenge from Texas in 2023, said she expects swift individual legal challenges to the Trump administration’s use of expedited removal.

“So many people’s lives are on the line,” Inlender said. “These people did everything right — they applied through a lawful program, they were vetted. And to pull the rug out from under them in this way should be, I think, offensive to our own idea of what justice is in this country.”

The bombings mark a sharp escalation by the armed group, which views the new government in Damascus as illegitimate.

ISIL (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for an attack on the Syrian army, representing the armed group’s first strike at government forces since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, according to analysts.

In a statement released late on Thursday, ISIL said its fighters had planted an explosive device that struck a “vehicle of the apostate regime” in southern Syria.

The bombing appears to mark an escalation by ISIL, which views the new government in Damascus as illegitimate but has so far concentrated its activities against Kurdish forces in the north.

The blast, in the al-Safa desert region of Sweida province on May 22, reportedly killed or wounded seven Syrian soldiers.

A second bomb attack, claimed by ISIL earlier this week, targeted fighters from the United States-backed Kurdish-led Free Syrian Army in a nearby area. ISIL said one fighter was killed and three injured.

There has been no official comment from the Syrian government, and the Free Syrian Army has yet to respond.

Members of the new Syrian government that replaced al-Assad after his removal in December once had ties to al-Qaeda – a rival of ISIL – but broke with the group nearly a decade ago.

However, over the past several months, ISIL has claimed responsibility only for attacks against the Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast.

The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the convoy blast was the first ISIL-claimed operation targeting the new Syrian military.

ISIL was territorially defeated in Syria in 2019 but maintains sleeper cells, particularly in the country’s central and eastern deserts.

While the group’s capacity has been diminished, the latest attacks suggest it may be seeking to reassert itself amid shifting alliances and weakening state control.

Residents of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank retrieve their belongings from their homes before they’re demolished by the Israeli military. Tens of thousands have already been forced out. This comes as Israel approves 22 illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, the largest expansion in decades.

By contrast, about six out of 10 LGBTQ adults said gay and lesbian people are generally accepted in the US. 

A new poll by the Pew Research Centre has found that transgender people experience less social acceptance in the United States than those who are lesbian, gay or bisexual, according to LGBTQ adults.

About six out of 10 LGBTQ adult participants in the poll said there is “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of social acceptance in the US for gay and lesbian people, according to “The Experiences of LGBTQ Americans Today” report released on Thursday.

Only about one in 10 said the same for non-binary and transgender people — and about half said there was “not much” or no acceptance at all for transgender people.

The survey of 3,959 LGBTQ adults was conducted in January, after US President Donald Trump’s election, but just before his return to office when he set into motion a series of policies that question transgender people’s existence and their place in society.

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order calling on the government to recognise people as male or female based on the “biological truth” of their future cells at conception, rejecting evidence and scientific arguments that gender is a spectrum.

Since then, Trump has barred transgender women and girls from taking part in female sports competitions, pushed transgender service members from the military and tried to block federal funding for gender-affirming care for transgender people under age 19.

A poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in May found that about half of US adults approve of the way Trump is handling transgender issues.

Transgender people are less likely than gay or lesbian adults to say they are accepted by all their family members, according to the Pew poll. The majority of LGBTQ people said their siblings and friends accepted them, though the rates were slightly higher among gay or lesbian people.

About half of gay and lesbian people said their parents did, compared with about one-third of transgender people. Only about one in 10 transgender people reported feeling accepted by their extended family, compared with about three in 10 for gay or lesbian people.

According to the Pew poll, about two-thirds of LGBTQ adults said the landmark US Supreme Court ruling that legalised same-sex marriage nationally on June 26, 2015, increased acceptance of same-sex couples “a lot more” or “somewhat more”.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule in the coming weeks on whether Tennessee can enforce a ban on gender-affirming care for minors in what is seen as a major case for the transgender community.

Billionaire and Tesla chief Elon Musk has stepped down from his role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), in which he was charged with reducing federal spending, as he nears the maximum limit for his tenure as a special government adviser.

His departure comes just after his first major public disagreement with President Donald Trump over the administration’s much-touted tax-and-spending budget bill, which was passed by the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives on May 22 by a single vote.

In a post on X on Wednesday, Musk said his time with the administration had “come to an end”.

“I would like to thank President Donald Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” the SpaceX founder wrote.

As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.

The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 29, 2025

Musk, who was appointed by Trump to lead DOGE, has seen his tenure in the White House marred by controversy, in particular sparked by his attempt to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID), an agency dedicated to distributing foreign aid.

With Musk’s departure, what will become of DOGE? And what legacy does the Tesla CEO leave behind?

How long was Musk at DOGE?

Musk’s term as a “special government employee” in the Trump administration meant he was only entitled to serve for 130 days in any 365-day period, and is barred from using government roles for any monetary gain.

Musk’s term has lasted just over four months, a few days short of the maximum legal limit.

In late April, Musk said he would soon shift his focus back to his own business enterprises and that his “time allocation” at DOGE would “drop significantly” starting in May.

However, Musk did note that he would spend “a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the President would like me to do so, as long as it is useful”.

Why does Musk disagree with Trump’s tax-and-spending bill?

In a clip from an interview with news channel CBS’s Sunday Morning programme, released on Tuesday, Musk revealed he was “disappointed to see the massive spending bill”.

According to him, the wide-ranging budget bill, also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill”, increases the budget deficit and undermines his work at DOGE.

“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful. But I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion,” Musk told journalist David Pogue.

On Wednesday, Trump staunchly defended the bill. “We will be negotiating that bill, and I’m not happy about certain aspects of it, but I’m thrilled by other aspects of it,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “That’s the way they go.”

The budget bill spans more than a thousand pages and outlines various domestic policy goals favoured by the Trump administration.

Among its provisions are measures that extend tax cuts introduced during Trump’s first presidential term in 2017. The bill also boosts funding for Trump’s proposed “mass deportation” initiative and for security along the US-Mexico border.

The disagreement over the tax-and-spending bill was one of several challenges Musk has encountered during his time at the White House.

What else has Musk disagreed with the Trump administration about?

Musk ran afoul of several Trump officials during his stint at the White House, including the president’s chief trade adviser, Peter Navarro, whom he called a “moron” over Trump’s sweeping increase in trade tariffs across the globe. Musk has also stated publicly that he would be more in favour of “predictable tariff structures”, in addition to “free trade and lower tariffs”.

In April, the SpaceX founder expressed hopes for “a zero-tariff situation” between the US and Europe. Instead, Trump has threatened to impose a 50 percent tariff on imported goods from the European Union unless the two sides can agree to a trade deal. 

What will happen to DOGE now?

Trump established DOGE by executive order the day he was sworn into office on January 20. With Musk’s departure, it’s unclear what fate awaits the agency, as Trump has yet to appoint anyone to replace him.

Musk was given a mandate to reduce federal funding, which included downsizing the government’s workforce, terminating government contracts and attempting to close down entire agencies. In February, he and Trump both claimed they had unearthed billions of dollars worth of fraud related to diversity and climate schemes within the government. This was proved to be largely untrue or misleading.

In his post on Wednesday, Musk said: “The DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”

However, Colleen Graffy, a former US diplomat and professor of law at Pepperdine University in California, said DOGE’s future was on shaky ground. “The power of DOGE came from the world’s richest man, Musk, having the ear of the world’s most powerful person, Trump,” she told Al Jazeera. “DOGE will likely struggle along for a while, but without Musk, and with pending court cases against it, its days are numbered. It would be a poisoned chalice appointment for anyone to take. Trump’s tax cuts will dwarf any savings.”

What will Musk’s DOGE legacy be?

Musk’s role in the Trump administration has sparked a large amount of controversy.

He has overseen major reductions in the number of federal employees and the dismantling of multiple government-funded programmes – moves that have drawn widespread criticism.

“Elon Musk’s DOGE was like one of his rockets exploding soon after liftoff, thereby demonstrating how not to do things,” Graffy told Al Jazeera.

“The difference is that for one, the learning experience is paid in money; for the other, the price is paid in human lives,” she added.

A major point of criticism directed at Trump and Musk centred on their decision to severely scale back USAID’s operations.

By late February, the main offices of the agency in Washington, DC, had been essentially shut down.

Following the dismissal of roughly 1,600 employees and the placement of approximately 4,700 more on leave, staff were given just 15 minutes to gather their belongings and exit the building.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio later revealed that 83 percent of all contracts managed by USAID had been closed.

In March, a federal judge in Maryland stated that DOGE had “likely violated” the US Constitution by attempting to dismantle the agency. The judge authorised a temporary injunction to stop DOGE from proceeding with USAID-related staff reductions, building closures, contract terminations, or the destruction of USAID materials.

Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, a consumer rights advocacy group, described DOGE as a “mantra of destruction”.

“The legacy of Elon Musk is lost livelihoods for critical government employees, hindered American education, loss of funding for scientists and the violation of Americans’ personal privacy, all in the service of corrupt tech-bro billionaire special interests,” she told Al Jazeera.

“The carnage is even more horrifying internationally, as Musk’s chainsaw will lead to the pointless and needless deaths of likely millions of people in the developing world.”

Max Yoeli, senior research fellow in the US and the Americas Programme at Chatham House, said Musk’s brief tenure has “irrevocably altered US government”.

“DOGE’s weakening of state capacity and disruption of America’s research and development ecosystem pose lasting risks to US economic prospects and resilience, even as courts still grapple with legal issues his approach raised,” Yoeli told Al Jazeera.

United States President Donald Trump commuted the federal drugs-and-extortion sentence of former Chicago gang leader, Larry Hoover, on Wednesday. Hoover has been serving multiple life sentences following both state and federal convictions over the past five decades.

For his federal conviction, Hoover is currently being held at the ADX Florence prison, a federal prison formally known as the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, in Florence, Colorado.

Commuting a sentence means reducing its length or severity, or ending it entirely. The US president has the power to commute federal sentences, but not state sentences.

Here is what we know.

Who is Larry Hoover and why was his sentence commuted?

Hoover, 74, is the cofounder of Gangster Disciples, one of Chicago’s most powerful gangs.

In a two-page order issued on Wednesday, the Trump administration commuted his federal sentence, considering it served “with no further fines, restitution, probation or other conditions” and ordering his immediate release, according to a copy of the document from Hoover’s legal team seen by The Chicago Tribune.

Hoover’s lawyers said the order was a vindication of their attempts to have their client’s sentence reduced.

Lawyers Jennifer Bonjean and Justin Moore said in a statement: “The Courts have demonstrated a complete unwillingness to consider Mr Hoover’s considerable growth and complete rehabilitation. Despite the Court’s unwillingness to do the right thing, Mr Hoover has been able to keep his voice alive through the incredible work of many advocates and supporters. Thankfully, Mr Hoover’s pleas were heard by President Trump who took action to deliver justice for Mr Hoover.”

Lobbying for Hoover’s pardon has mounted since Trump appointed Alice Johnson as his “pardon tsar” in February this year. Johnson was a non-violent drug offender and was sentenced to life in prison in a drug conspiracy case, but was pardoned by Trump in 2020.

What was Hoover convicted of?

Hoover has been convicted on both state charges and federal charges. A federal crime is a violation of the US Constitution, possibly spanning multiple states, while a state crime is one that breaks a state law.

He was convicted in 1973 on state charges in Illinois for the murder of 19-year-old drug dealer William “Pooky” Young and sentenced to 200 years in prison.

Online state prison records show that Hoover was an inmate at Dixon Correctional Center in western Illinois from 1974. He was accused of continuing to direct the Gangster Disciples from behind bars.

In 1997, Hoover was convicted on federal charges of extortion, federal drug conspiracy and continuing to engage in a criminal enterprise. Hoover has spent nearly three decades in solitary confinement at ADX Florence, a maximum security prison in Colorado, according to his lawyers.

What crimes has the Gangster Disciples gang been involved in?

According to court documents, Hoover was one of the leaders of the gang between 1970 and 1995. The documents state that under Hoover, the Gangster Disciples sold “great quantities of cocaine, heroin, and other drugs in Chicago”.

As of 1995, the gang was believed to have 30,000 members in Chicago and had spread to at least 35 other states, according to an article published by the US Department of Justice that year.

However, little is publicly known about the activities of the Gangster Disciples in recent years.

What are the conditions in the ADX Florence prison?

ADX Florence in Colorado is a super-max prison, or an administrative maximum (ADX) prison, a control unit prison with the highest level of security.

The prison opened in 1994. Prisoners are held in solitary confinement in 12-by-7ft (3.6-by-2 metre) cells with thick concrete walls, and cannot see each other. Inmates sleep on a thin mattress atop a concrete slab. The cells also have a sink, toilet and automated shower.

Prisoners may have access to televisions, books or arts-and-crafts materials. Human interaction is very limited in ADX prisons.

Is Larry Hoover free to leave prison now?

No, Hoover is still serving his 200-year state sentence following the 1973 Illinois murder conviction.

It is not known if or when Hoover might be moved to another prison – such as the Dixon Correctional Center, a medium-security prison in Illinois that opened in 1983 – now that his federal conviction has been commuted, to serve out his state convictions. In the past, Illinois Department of Corrections officials have suggested that Hoover complete his state sentence in federal prison, citing security concerns.

Is Hoover eligible for parole?

The online records at Dixon Correctional Center say that Hoover will not be eligible for parole until October 2062, when he will be 111 years old. It is not clear whether his parole date can be advanced.

Presidential clemency is reserved for federal crimes, and not state crimes, according to the US Congress website, so Trump cannot intervene. The power to commute state crimes rests in the hands of the governor of the state. The governor of Illinois is Democrat JB Pritzker, who has so far not spoken about Hoover, nor of any plans to grant him clemency.

What role have public figures played in this case?

Performer Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has long advocated for the pardon of Hoover. In 2018, during Trump’s first term, Ye requested Trump pardon Hoover. On Ye’s 2021 album, Donda, a track called “Jesus Lord” features a vocal snippet from Hoover’s son, Larry Hoover Jr, thanking Ye for bringing up his father’s case in the Oval Office. “Free my father, Mr Larry Hoover Sr,” the junior Hoover is heard saying.

Rapper Drake also advocated for Hoover’s freedom. In 2021, Ye and Drake set personal tensions aside and collaborated on a “Free Hoover” concert in Los Angeles.

“WORDS CAN’T EXPRESS MY GRATITUDE FOR OUR DEVOTED ENDURING PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP FOR FREEING LARRY HOOVER,” Ye posted on X after the commutation order.

WORDS CAN’T EXPRESS MY GRATITUDE FOR OUR DEVOTED ENDURING PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP FOR FREEING LARRY HOOVER

— ye (@kanyewest) May 28, 2025

Why is Trump pardoning people now?

The exact reasoning for Hoover’s commutation is unclear. However, it comes amid a spree of commutations and pardons granted by Trump.

On Wednesday, Trump issued a pardon for former Republican Congressman Michael Grimm, who was convicted of tax fraud in 2015 and sentenced to several months in prison.

On Tuesday, the president pardoned reality television couple Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were convicted of tax evasion and defrauding banks of at least $30m in 2022. Todd Chrisley received a 12-year prison sentence, while his wife was sentenced to seven years.

WASHINGTON — A Starship spun out of control in suborbital flight on Tuesday, failing to meet critical testing goals set by SpaceX in its plans for a mission to Mars. A poll released last week showed the national brand reputation for Tesla, once revered, had cratered. And later that same day, House Republicans passed a bill that would balloon the federal deficit.

It has been a challenging period for Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who not long ago thought he had conquered the private sector and could, in short order, do the same with the federal government. That all ended Wednesday evening with his announcement he is leaving the Trump administration.

“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk wrote on X, his social media platform.

The mission of the program he called the Department of Government Efficiency “will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government,” he added.

Musk’s departure comes on the heels of a ruling from a federal judge in Washington on Wednesday questioning Musk’s initial appointment as a temporary government employee and, by extension, whether any of his work for DOGE was constitutional.

“I thought there were problems,” Musk said in a recent interview with the Washington Post, “but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least.”

Growing conflicts with Trump

Musk’s role as an omnipresent advisor to President Trump began to wane weeks ago, amid public backlash against DOGE’s cuts to treasured government programs — from cancer research to the National Park Service — and after Trump bucked Musk’s counsel on economic policy, launching a global trade war that jolted supply chains and financial markets.

But the entrepreneur has grown increasingly vocal with criticism of the Trump administration this week, stating that a megabill pushed by the White House proposing an overhaul to the tax code risks undermining his efforts to cut government spending.

Musk responded to a user on X, his social media platform, on Monday lamenting that House Republicans “won’t vote” to codify DOGE’s cuts. “Did my best,” he wrote.

“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk explained further in an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” later in the week. “I think a bill can be big, or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion.”

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” would increase border security and defense spending, renew tax cuts passed in 2017 and extend a new tax deduction to seniors, while eliminating green energy tax benefits and cutting $1 trillion in funding to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Despite the cuts, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would add so much money to the debt that Congress may be forced to execute cuts across the board, including hundreds of billions to Medicare, in a process known as sequestration.

Hours after the CBS interview aired, the White House appeared to respond directly to Musk with the release of a press release titled “FACT: One, Big, Beautiful Bill Cuts Spending, Fuels Growth.” And Trump responded directly from the Oval Office, noting Democratic opposition and the challenges of unifying a fractious GOP caucus. Negotiations with the Senate will result in changes to the legislation, Trump said.

“My reaction’s a lot of things,” Trump said. “I’m not happy about certain aspects of it, but I’m thrilled by other aspects of it.”

“That’s the way they go,” he added. “It’s very big. It’s the big, beautiful bill.”

Cuts in question

It is unclear whether Musk succeeded in making the government more efficient, regardless of what Congress does.

While the DOGE program originally set a goal of cutting $2 trillion in federal spending, Musk ultimately revised that target down dramatically, to $150 billion. The program’s “wall of receipts” claims that $175 billion has been saved, but the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service has documented an increase in spending over last year.

“DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,” Musk said in the Post interview this week. “So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.”

Musk had been brought into the Trump administration designated as a special government employee, a position limited to 130 days that does not require Senate approval.

But the legal case making its way through the Washington courtroom of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is questioning the entire arrangement.

The White House attempted to “minimize Musk’s role, framing him as a mere advisor without any formal authority,” Chutkan wrote, while granting him broad powers that gave him “unauthorized access” to “private and proprietary information,” like Social Security numbers and medical records. Those actions, Chutkan added, provide the basis for parties to claim Musk inflicted substantial injury in a legal challenge.

‘I think I’ve done enough’

Musk was scheduled to speak on Tuesday after SpaceX’s Starship test launch, setting out the road ahead to “making life multiplanetary.” But he never appeared after the spacecraft failed early on in its planned trajectory to orbit Earth.

The SpaceX Starship rocket is launched Tuesday in Texas. It later disintegrated over the Indian Ocean, officials said.

(Sergio Flores / AFP / Getty Images)

Starship is supposed to be the vehicle that returns Americans to the moon in just two years. NASA, in conjunction with U.S. private sector companies, is in a close race with China to return humans to the moon for the first time since the end of the Apollo program.

But none of Musk’s endeavors has suffered more than his electric car company, Tesla, which saw a 71% plunge in profits in the first quarter of 2025 and a 50% drop in stock value from its highs in December. An Axios Harris Poll released last week found that Tesla dropped in its reputation ranking of America’s 100 most visible companies to 95th place, down from eighth in 2021 and 63rd last year.

The reputational damage to Tesla, setbacks at SpaceX and limits to his influence on Trump appear to be cautioning Musk to step back from his political activity.

“I think in terms of political spending, I’m going to do a lot less in the future,” Musk told Bloomberg News on May 20, during the Qatar Economic Forum. “I think I’ve done enough.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: 217 days and counting: Trump’s rules slow the release of migrant children to their families
The deep dive: Villaraigosa, despite climate credentials, pivots toward oil industry in run for governor
The L.A. Times Special: Supreme Court clears way for massive copper mine on Apache sacred land

More to come,
Michael Wilner

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WASHINGTON — Dressed in a pink pullover, the 17-year-old girl rested her head in her hands, weighing her bleak options from the empty room of a shelter in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

During a video call into an immigration courtroom in Manhattan, she listened as a lawyer explained to a judge how new regulations imposed by President Trump’s administration — for DNA testing, income verification and more — have hobbled efforts to reunite with her parents in the U.S. for more than 70 days.

As the administration’s aggressive efforts to curtail migration have taken shape, including unparalleled removals of men to prisons in other countries, migrant children are being separated for long periods from the relatives they had hoped to live with after crossing into the U.S.

Under the Trump rules, migrant children have stayed in shelters an average of 217 days before being released to family members, according to new data from the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. During the Biden administration, migrant children spent an average of 35 days in shelters before being released to relatives.

“Collectively, these policy changes have resulted in children across the country being separated from their loving families, while the government denies their release, unnecessarily prolonging their detention,” lawyers for the National Center for Youth Law argued in court documents submitted May 8.

The Trump administration, however, has argued that the new rules will ensure the children are put in safe homes and prevent traffickers from illegally bringing children into the country.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health secretary, told lawmakers in Congress this month: “Nobody gets a kid without showing that they are a family member.”

The family situation for the 17-year-old, and her 14-year-old brother who came with her from the Dominican Republic, is complicated. Their parents, who were living apart, were already in the U.S. Their children were trying to reunite with them to leave behind a problematic living situation with a stepmother in their home country.

After 70 days in detention, the teen girl seemed to wonder if she would ever get back to her mother or father in the U.S. If she agreed to leave America, she asked the judge, how quickly would she be sent back to her home country?

“Pretty soon,” the judge said, before adding: “It doesn’t feel nice to be in that shelter all the time.”

The siblings, whom the Associated Press agreed not to identify at the request of their mother and because they are minors, are not alone. Thousands of children have made the trek from Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico and other countries, often alone on the promise of settling with a family member already in the U.S.

They’ve faced longer waits in federal custody as officials perform DNA testing, verify family members’ incomes and inspect homes before releasing the children. The new rules also require adults who sponsor children to provide U.S.-issued identification.

The federal government released only 45 children to sponsors last month, even as more than 2,200 children remained in custody.

Child stays in shelter as Trump requires DNA testing

Under the Biden administration, officials tried to release children to eligible adult sponsors within 30 days, reuniting many families quickly. But the approach also yielded errors, with some children being released to adults who forced them to work illegally, or to people who provided clearly false identification and addresses.

Trump’s Republican administration has said its requirements will prevent children from being placed in homes where they may be at risk for abuse or exploited for child labor. Officials are conducting a review of 65,000 “notices of concerns” that were submitted to the federal government involving thousands of children who have been placed with adult sponsors since 2023.

Already, the Justice Department indicted a man on allegations he enticed a 14-year-old girl to travel from Guatemala to the U.S., then falsely claimed she was his sister to gain custody as her sponsor.

DNA testing and ID requirements for child protection are taking time

Immigration advocacy groups have sued the Trump administration seeking to block the more rigorous requirements on behalf of parents and adult siblings who are waiting to bring migrant children into their homes.

“We have a lot of children stuck … simply because they are awaiting DNA testing,” immigration lawyer Tatine Darker, of Church World Service, told the Manhattan judge as she sat next to the Dominican girl.

Five other children appeared in court that day from shelters in New York and New England, all saying they experienced delays in being released to their relatives.

The Trump administration’s latest guidance on DNA testing says the process generally takes at least two weeks, when accounting for case review and shipping results.

But some relatives have waited a month or longer just to get a test, said Molly Chew, a legal aide at Vecina. The organization is ending its work supporting guardians in reunification because of federal funding cuts and other legal and political challenges to juvenile immigration programs. DNA Diagnostics Centers, which is conducting the tests for the federal government, did not respond to a request for comment.

Plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit filed by the National Center for Youth Law have also cataloged long wait times and slow DNA results. One mother in Florida said she had been waiting at least a month just to get a DNA appointment, according to testimony submitted to the court.

Another mother waited three weeks for results. But by the time those came through in April, the Trump administration had introduced a new rule that required her to provide pay stubs she doesn’t have. She filed bank statements instead. Her children were released 10 weeks after her application was submitted, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

Many parents living in the U.S. without work authorization do not have income documents or U.S. identification documents, such as visas or driver’s licenses.

The siblings being held at the Poughkeepsie shelter are in that conundrum, said Darker, the New York immigration lawyer. They crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in March with their 25-year-old sister and her children, who were quickly deported.

Their mother said she moved to New Jersey a few years ago to earn money to support them. She couldn’t meet the new income reporting requirements. Their father, also from the Dominican Republic, lives in Boston and agreed to take them. But the DNA testing process has taken weeks. The AP could not reach him for comment.

She said her children are downcast and now simply want to return to the Dominican Republic.

“My children are going to return because they can’t take it anymore,” the mother said in Spanish. She noted that her children will have been in the shelter three months on Sunday.

Attanasio and Seitz write for the Associated Press.

United States President Donald Trump has brushed aside criticism of his wide-ranging budget bill — known as the One Big Beautiful Bill — from a high-profile source, government adviser Elon Musk.

On Wednesday, at a swearing-in ceremony in the Oval Office, Trump faced questions about Musk’s comments, which suggested the bill would balloon the national debt.

The Republican leader responded with a degree of ambivalence, though he staunchly defended the bill’s tax cuts.

“We will be negotiating that bill, and I’m not happy about certain aspects of it, but I’m thrilled by other aspects of it,” Trump said. “That’s the way they go.”

The budget bill clocks in at over a thousand pages, and it contains a range of domestic policy priorities for the Trump administration.

That includes legislation cementing some of the tax cuts Trump championed during his first term as president, in 2017. It would also increase the funds available for Trump’s “mass deportation” effort and heightened security along the US-Mexico border.

Some $46.5bn, for instance, would be earmarked to renew construction of the southern border wall and other barriers, another hallmark of Trump’s first term in office.

But to pay for those tax cuts and policy priorities, the bill proposes measures that remain controversial on both sides of the political spectrum.

One provision, for instance, would increase the federal debt limit by $4 trillion. Others would impose strict work requirements on programmes like Medicaid — a government health insurance for low-income Americans — and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), sometimes known as food stamps.

Those work requirements are expected to bar thousands of people from accessing those safety-net programmes, allowing for cost savings. But critics fear those barriers will drive some families deeper into poverty.

In a preview of an interview with the TV show CBS Sunday Morning, Musk expressed frustration with the sheer cost of the bill, echoing criticism from fiscal conservatives.

He also accused the “Big Beautiful Bill” of setting back the progress he made as leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a task force Trump established to pare back “wasteful” spending.

“I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk told CBS, dressed in an “Occupy Mars” T-shirt.

“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful,” he added. “I don’t know if it could be both. My personal opinion.”

This is not the first time that Musk has spoken out against a US budget bill. In December, under former President Joe Biden, Musk rallied public outrage against another piece of budget legislation that weighed in at over a thousand pages, calling on Congress to “kill the bill“.

Musk’s latest comments, however, signal a potentially widening fracture between himself and the Trump White House.

Up until recently, Musk, a billionaire thought to be the world’s richest man, has played a prominent role in Trump’s government. He even helped him secure a second term as president.

In 2024, Musk endorsed Trump’s re-election effort, joined him on the campaign trail and donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the Republican leader and his political allies.

For his part, Trump returned Musk’s warm embrace. Days after he won a second term as president, Trump announced that Musk would join his incoming administration as head of DOGE.

But Musk’s role in the White House has remained ambiguous, and highly controversial. Though Musk is a regular presence at presidential cabinet meetings, he has not had to undergo a Senate confirmation hearing.

The White House has described him as a “special government employee”, a temporary role given to consultants from business fields. Normally, those employees can only work with the government for 130 days per year, and they are barred from using their government roles for financial gain.

But critics have argued that the length of Musk’s tenure at the White House has not been clearly established and that he has indeed leveraged his position for personal profit. In March, for instance, Trump held a news conference to show off models from Musk’s car company Tesla.

Musk’s other business ventures, including the rocket company SpaceX and the satellite communications firm Starlink, have also raised conflict-of-interest questions, given that they are competitors for government contracts.

Media reports have indicated that there have been behind-the-scenes clashes between Musk and other members of the Trump White House that may have cooled relations between the president and his billionaire backer. But Trump has so far avoided criticising Musk publicly.

On Wednesday, for instance, Trump pivoted from the question about Musk’s comments to attacking Democratic members of Congress, who refuse to back his signature budget bill.

“ Remember, we have zero Democrat votes because they’re bad people,” Trump said. “There’s something wrong with them.”

A version of the budget bill narrowly passed the House of Representatives last week. Currently, it is being considered by the Senate. But with a 53-seat majority in the 100-person chamber, Senate Republicans can only afford to lose three votes if they hope to pass the bill.

Trump renewed his call for party unity on Wednesday, despite concerns from his fellow Republicans.

“We have to get a lot of votes,” Trump said. “We need to get a lot of support, and we have a lot of support.”

Some Republicans have voiced opposition to the increase in the national debt. Others fear the effects that Medicaid restrictions might have on their constituents.

Trump himself has said he opposes any cuts to Medicaid. But he has tried to frame the bill’s tax cuts as a boon to lower-income people, though critics point out those cuts are poised to deliver the biggest savings to the wealthy.

“We’ll have the lowest tax rate we’ve ever had in the history of our country,” Trump said. “Tremendous amounts of benefits are going to the middle-income people of our country, low- and middle-income people of our country.”

The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to hear an Apache religious challenge to the construction of a massive copper mine on Oak Flat, a swath of untouched federal land in Arizona that tribe members consider sacred and irreplaceable.

The decision, which leaves intact a lower court’s ruling against the tribe members, marked a major loss for Apache Stronghold, a group that has long argued that the mine’s construction would violate their religious rights by permanently wiping out a unique sacred site used for Apache religious ceremonies.

It allows the U.S. Forest Service to move forward with plans to issue a final environmental impact report and hear a last round of public comment before issuing a decision on transferring the land to Resolution Copper, a joint venture by the multinational mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP Group.

Wendsler Nosie Sr., an Apache elder and leader of the Apache Stronghold, said in a statement that his group would continue to defend the land about 70 miles east of Phoenix — including through other court battles challenging the mine and an appeal to Congress to intervene.

“We will never stop fighting — nothing will deter us from protecting Oak Flat from destruction,” Nosie said. “We urge Congress to take decisive action to stop this injustice while we press forward in the courts.”

Vicky Peacey, Resolution Copper’s general manager, said in a statement that the company was pleased the lower court’s decision will stand.

“The Resolution Copper mine is vital to securing America’s energy future, infrastructure needs, and national defense with a domestic supply of copper and other critical minerals,” Peacey said.

She said the project has “significant community support” and “the potential to become one of the largest copper mines in America, add $1 billion a year to Arizona’s economy, and create thousands of local jobs in a region where mining has played an important role for more than a century.”

The high court’s majority did not articulate a stance in the case, but by declining to hear it sided with a heavily divided panel of judges in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled against the Apache in March 2024.

However, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote a dissent — joined by his fellow conservative, Justice Clarence Thomas — saying the majority’s decision not to take the case was “a grievous mistake” and “one with consequences that threaten to reverberate for generations.”

Gorsuch said he had “no doubt” that the high court would have heard the case “if the government sought to demolish a historic cathedral” rather than a Native American sacred site.

“Faced with the government’s plan to destroy an ancient site of tribal worship, we owe the Apaches no less,” Gorsuch wrote. “They may live far from Washington, D.C., and their history and religious practices may be unfamiliar to many. But that should make no difference.”

Gorsuch said no one could “sensibly” argue against the significance of the case. “As the government has made plain, it intends to clear the way for Resolution Copper to begin the destruction of Oak Flat imminently,” he wrote.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., another conservative, did not participate in the conversation or decision in the case, though a reason was not provided.

The case touches on a host of politicized issues, including federal land use, religious liberty and efforts to balance corporate interests with limited natural resources and environmental degradation. It also has confounded traditional political divides, including by uniting conservative religious organizations and liberal environmental groups behind the Apache.

The fight between Apache Stronghold and Resolution Copper has been ongoing for years.

Nosie and other Stronghold members have traveled the country since the 9th Circuit ruling against them to raise awareness about their effort. Resolution Copper has continued billions of dollars’ worth of preparations for the mine in the surrounding area, where it has other mining operations, and provided substantial financial support to local officials in the nearby town of Superior, Ariz. — which is braced for an influx of mining employees and their families and the accompanying strains on infrastructure.

At the core of the Apache challenge to the mine is their argument that the mine would not just hamper their ability to practice their religion, but obliterate it.

Oak Flat, on the edge of the Tonto National Forest about an hour outside Phoenix and not far from the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, is used by the Apache for sweats and for coming-of-age ceremonies known as Sunrise Dances, where young girls are ushered into womanhood. The Apache believe the land is blessed by their creator and home to spiritual guardians akin to angels, and researchers have found the site is archaeologically significant not just to the Apache but to Hopi, O’odham, Yavapai and Zuni tribes.

(Paul Duginski / Los Angeles Times)

Oak Flat also sits atop one of the world’s largest untapped copper ore deposits — with enough estimated copper to supply up to a quarter of U.S. copper demand. Such demand has exploded with the proliferation of telecommunications networks, electric vehicles and other technologies that use the element.

The land in question had been under federal protection for decades, until Republicans added language allowing the federal government to sell or swap the land to the mining companies into a must-pass defense bill in 2014. Federal planning records show that extracting the deposit would over the course of several decades turn Oak Flat — which the Apache call Chí’chil Bildagoteel — into a nearly two-mile-wide, 1,000-foot-deep industrial crater.

(Paul Duginski / Los Angeles Times)

Resolution Copper has said it has worked closely with Native American advisors and worked to avoid important Apache sites in its planning, including nearby Apache Leap. Peacey said the company has been working for more than a decade to “preserve and reduce potential impacts on Tribal, social, and cultural interests,” and will continue to do so.

Apache Stronghold asked the Supreme Court to take up the case after an 11-judge panel of 9th Circuit judges split 6-5 in favor of the federal government’s right to use its land as it chooses. Such splits in circuit decisions often get the attention of the high court, but not always.

Judge Daniel P. Collins, an appointee of President Trump, authored the majority opinion. He wrote that Apache Stronghold’s religious claims failed because, while the federal government’s transfer of Oak Flat to Resolution Copper might interfere with the Apaches’ practice of their religion, it did not “coerce” them into acting contrary to their beliefs, “discriminate” or “penalize” them, or deny them privileges afforded to other citizens.

He wrote that Apache Stronghold had essentially asked the government to give them “de facto” ownership of a “rather spacious tract” of public land, which had to be rejected.

Collins was joined by four other Trump appointees and an appointee of President George W. Bush.

In his dissent Tuesday, Gorsuch wrote that the 9th Circuit “encompasses approximately 74% of all federal land and almost a third of the nation’s Native American population,” so its ruling that the government could destroy a sacred native site on federal land would now govern most if not all “sacred-site disputes” in the country moving forward.

He said that ruling would not just threaten native sites, but all religious sites on federal land — including many churches.

Luke Goodrich, an attorney for Apache Stronghold and senior counsel at the religious rights law firm Becket, said it was “hard to imagine a more brazen attack on faith than blasting the birthplace of Apache religion into a gaping crater,” and the court’s “refusal to halt the destruction is a tragic departure from its strong record of defending religious freedom.”

Times staff writer David G. Savage in Washington contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is asking federal agencies to cancel contracts with Harvard University worth about $100 million, a senior administration official said Tuesday, intensifying the president’s clash with the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university.

The government already has canceled more than $2.6 billion in federal research grants for the Ivy League school, which has pushed back on the administration’s demands for changes to several of its policies.

A draft letter from the General Services Administration directs agencies to review contracts with the university and seek alternate vendors. The administration plans to send a version of the letter Tuesday, the official said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.

The New York Times first reported on the letter.

President Trump has railed against Harvard, calling it a hotbed of liberalism and antisemitism. The school filed a lawsuit April 21 over the administration’s calls for changes to the university’s leadership, governance and admissions policies. Since then, the administration has slashed the school’s federal funding, moved to cut off enrollment of international students and threatened its tax-exempt status.

Contracts include scientific research, executive training

The administration has identified about 30 contracts across nine agencies to be reviewed for cancellation, according to another administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly and provided details on the condition of anonymity.

The contracts total roughly $100 million. They include executive training for Department of Homeland Security officials, research on health outcomes related to energy drinks and a contract for graduate student research services.

Agencies with contracts that are deemed critical are being directed not to halt them immediately, but to devise a plan to transition to a different vendor other than Harvard.

The letter applies only to federal contracts with Harvard and not its remaining research grants.

Trump threatens to give Harvard’s funding to trade schools

Trump laid into Harvard on social media over the weekend, threatening to cut an additional $3 billion in federal grants and give it to trade schools across the United States. He did not explain which grants he was referring to or how they could be reallocated.

The president also accused Harvard of refusing to release the names of its foreign students. In a new line of attack, he argued that students’ home countries pay nothing toward their education and that some of the countries are “not at all friendly to the United States.” International students are not eligible for federal financial aid, but Harvard offers its own aid to foreign and domestic students alike.

“We are still waiting for the Foreign Student Lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country,” Trump said on social media.

It wasn’t clear exactly what he was demanding. The federal government already has access to visa information and other records on foreign students at Harvard and other universities.

The Department of Homeland Security has demanded that Harvard turn over a trove of files related to its foreign students, including disciplinary records and records related to “dangerous or violent activity.”

Harvard says it complied, but the agency said its response fell short and moved to revoke the university’s ability to enroll foreign students. A federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the move after Harvard sued.

Other nations respond

Japan’s government said Tuesday that it’s looking for ways to help Harvard’s foreign students. Education Minister Toshiko Abe told reporters she planned to ask Japanese universities to compile measures to support international students.

The University of Tokyo, Japan’s top school, is considering temporarily accepting some Harvard students hit by the Trump sanctions.

Superville and Binkley write for the Associated Press.

OTTAWA, Ontario — King Charles III said Canada is facing unprecedented challenges in a world that’s never been more dangerous as he opened the Canadian Parliament on Tuesday with a speech widely viewed as a show of support in the face of annexation threats by President Trump.

Trump’s repeated suggestion that the U.S. annex Canada prompted Prime Minister Mark Carney to invite Charles to give the speech from the throne outlining his governments priorities for the new session of Parliament. The king is the head of state in Canada, which is a member of the Commonwealth of former colonies.

“We must face reality: since the Second World War, our world has never been more dangerous and unstable. Canada is facing challenges that, in our lifetimes, are unprecedented,” Charles said in French.

He added that “many Canadians are feeling anxious and worried about the drastically changing world around them.”

It’s rare for the monarch to deliver what’s called the speech from the throne in Canada. Charles’ mother, Queen Elizabeth II, did it twice before in 1957 and 1977.

”I have always had the greatest admiration for Canada’s unique identity, which is recognized across the world for bravery and sacrifice in defense of national values, and for the diversity and kindness of Canadians,” he said.

Charles, on his 20th visit to Canada, noted that it has been nearly 70 years since his mother first opened Parliament.

“In the time since, Canada has dramatically changed: repatriating its constitution, achieving full independence, and witnessing immense growth. Canada has embraced its British, French, and Indigenous roots, and become a bold, ambitious, innovative country that is bilingual, truly multicultural,” the monarch said.

He said when his late mother opened a new session of Canadian Parliament in 1957, World War II remained a fresh, painful memory and said the Cold War was intensifying.

“Freedom and democracy were under threat,” he said. “Today, Canada faces another critical moment. Democracy, pluralism, the rule of law, self-determination, and freedom are values which Canadians hold dear, and ones which the government is determined to protect.”

Charles also said that the Canadian government “will protect Canada’s sovereignty by rebuilding, rearming, and reinvesting in the Canadian Armed Forces.

“It will stimulate the Canadian military industry by participating in the ‘ReArm Europe’ plan and will thus contribute, together with European partners, to trans-Atlantic security. And it will invest to strengthen its presence in the North, as this region, which is an integral part of the Canadian nation, faces new threats,” the king said.

Former Canadian Prime Ministers Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper were among those in attendance.

The speech isn’t written by the king or his U.K. advisers as Charles serves as a nonpartisan head of state. He read what was put before him by Canada’s government, but makes some remarks of his own.

Carney, the new prime minister and a former head of the Bank of England, and Canada’s first Indigenous governor general, Mary Simon, the king’s representative in Canada, met with Charles on Monday.

Canadians are largely indifferent to the monarchy, but Carney has been eager to show the differences between Canada and the United States. The king’s visit clearly underscores Canada’s sovereignty, he said.

Carney won the job of prime minister by promising to confront the increased aggression shown by Trump.

The king said that Canada can build new alliances and a new economy that serves all Canadians. More than 75% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S. and Carney is eager to diversify trade.

The new U.S. ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, said that sending messages to the U.S. isn’t necessary and Canadians should move on from the 51st state talk, telling the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that if there’s a message to be sent, there are easier ways to do that, such as calling him or calling the president.

“There are different ways to ‘send a message’ and a phone call is only of them,” said Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University. “The king would normally add his own short introductory remarks and observers will be listening to them very carefully with the issue of Canada’s sovereignty in mind.”

The king said that among the priorities for the government is protection of the French language and Quebec culture, which are at the heart of Canadian identity.

“They define the country that Canadians, and I, love so much. Canada is a country where official and Indigenous languages are respected and celebrated,” he said.

“The government is committed to protecting the institutions that promote these cultures and this identity throughout the world, such as CBC/Radio-Canada.”

He also said the Canada must protect Quebec’s dairy supply management industry. Trump attacked the industry in trade talks.

A horse-drawn carriage took king and queen to the Senate of Canada Building for the speech. It will accompanied by 28 horses, 14 before and 14 after. He will receive the Royal Salute from the 100-person guard of honor from the 3rd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment before entering the chamber for his speech.

The king will return to the U.K. after the speech and a visit to Canada’s National War Memorial.

Justin Vovk, a Canadian royal historian, said the king’s visit reminds him of when Queen Elizabeth II opened the Parliament in Grenada, a member of the commonwealth, in 1985.

A U.S.-led force invaded the islands in October 1983 without consulting the British government following the killing of Grenada’s Marxist prime minister, Maurice Bishop.

Gillies writes for the Associated Press.