Thursday, May 01st
Last update08:16:57 AM GMT
Letters went out to hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) on Thursday, informing them their jobs had been terminated – again.
The probationary employees, many who performed important roles at the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency, have spent weeks in limbo after being dismissed in late February, only to be rehired and put on administrative leave in mid-March following a federal court order.
Mahmoud Khalil’s attorneys on Thursday blasted a court filing from Secretary of State Marco Rubio claiming he has the ability to remove noncitizens for their speech and beliefs, a filing that came after an immigration judge demanded the government present evidence against the former Columbia University student as it seeks to deport him.
In his memo, obtained by The Associated Press, Rubio cited a rarely used provision of law that says the secretary of State can deport a noncitizen if they pose a threat to foreign policy.
Rubio argues if Khalil remains in the country, it would harm “U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.”
The memo came after Louisiana Judge Jamee Comans ordered the federal government on Wednesday to produce evidence against Khalil within 24 hours, saying she would make a ruling on whether or not he could be deported on Friday.
A federal judge declined to toss a defamation lawsuit against President Trump over his remarks last year about five Black and Hispanic men wrongly convicted of a 1989 rape, dubbed the Central Park Five.
U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone on Thursday ruled the lawsuit, which stems from Trump’s remarks about the men at a 2024 presidential debate, can move forward. She said Trump’s commentary can be “‘objectively determined’ to be false,” as reason for the challenge to continue.
However, she did dismiss a claim contending the president intentionally caused the men emotional distress.
The Central Park Five — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise — were teenagers when they were wrongfully convicted of the 1989 rape and assault of a white woman jogging in New York City’s Central Park. They spent years in prison before the true culprit confessed, backed by DNA evidence, resulting in their 2002 exoneration.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched a “massive testing and research effort” that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said will determine the cause of rising childhood autism rates in the country.
During a meeting of President Trump’s Cabinet on Thursday, Kennedy said the process will involve “hundreds of scientists around the world” and answers will come this fall.
“By September we will know what has caused the autism epidemic,” Kennedy said. “And we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.”
A Spanish family of five on an aerial sightseeing tour of New York City died along with their pilot when their helicopter crashed upside down into the Hudson River.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the single-engine Bell 206 helicopter operated by sightseeing company New York Helicopter crashed into the river separating Manhattan from New Jersey shortly after 3:15 p.m. on April 10.
Adams said the victims were five members of a Spanish family — two adults and three children — and the pilot. Divers helped remove the victims from the water. Four were pronounced dead at the scene, while two others were taken to area hospitals where they died, officials said.
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia may finally be reunited with his family a month after he was deported over an "administrative error.”
In a unanimous ruling on Thursday, the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of the Maryland man who was erroneously deported to a prison in El Salvador.
All nine jurors upheld a district court ruling demanding his return, acknowledging his deportation to the Center for Terrorism Confinement, or CECOT, was unlawful.
“The United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal …was therefore illegal,” the order read, adding that the ruling “requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.”
More...
At least 29 Palestinians, including children, have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a multi-storey residential building in the east of Gaza City, a local hospital says.
The Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said warplanes targeted the area near al-Hawashi mosque in the Shejaiya neighbourhood on Tuesday morning.
It initially reported that 23 people were killed but warned its first responders were searching for two dozen others under the rubble. In the evening, it announced 15 bodies had been recovered, without giving an updated death toll.
The Israeli military said it had struck a "senior Hamas terrorist" who was responsible for planning and executing attacks in the area.
TVNL Comment: Lies and more lies. Israel takes down a residential building in a move to kill more civilians, and, as usual, claims they targeted a terrorist. More war crimes.
Ukraine's key allies meet Thursday to continue hashing out the details of any peacekeeping mission sent to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal with Russia.
They'll be led by France's Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu and his British counterpart John Healey, who will meet with their fellow defense ministers from the so-called coalition of the willing that includes many European countries, Canada and Australia but not the United States at NATO HQ in Brussels.
Chiefs of defense staff of both the United Kingdom and France were in Ukraine last week and briefed their counterparts earlier this week, the French Armed Forces Ministry said.
The meetings are helping flesh out what Kyiv would like from a peacekeeping mission — something it sees as critical to prevent Russia from attacking again, especially as the U.S. and other countries have blocked its hopes of being invited to join NATO.
In yet another Trump administration attack on migrants, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Monday announced that nearly 1 million migrants who entered the country legally using a Customs and Border Protection mobile application must leave "immediately" or face consequences including potential criminal prosecution.
DHS notified migrants who were granted temporary parole protection after entering the country using the CBP One app—which was launched by the Biden administration in 2020 and upgraded in 2023—that "it is time for you to leave the United States."
The department "mis now exercising its discretion to terminate your parole," the agency said in an email to affected—and more than 200,000 unaffected—migrants. "Unless it expires sooner, your parole will terminate seven days from the date of this notice."
"If you do not deport from the United States immediately you will be subject to potential law enforcement actions that will result in your removal," the notice continues. "You will be subject to potential criminal prosecution, civil fines, and penalties, and any other lawful options available to the federal government."
Page 16 of 1152
