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The Trump administration has launched a legal attack on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), raising questions about the future of other nonprofits at odds with the president.

The center pleaded not guilty Thursday in an unusual case, one that accuses the SPLC of turning its back on its very mission: using a now-defunct informant program to funnel money to the hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) it spent decades fighting.

It’s a claim the SPLC strongly denies — one it says is “not even supported by or contained in the indictment itself.” It also has accused prosecutors of misleading the grand jury to gain an indictment.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, sees the prosecution as a new wave in a long line of cases targeting civil society, an effort he said began with law firms and universities.

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More than 100 people have fallen ill with norovirus on a cruise ship that left Florida last week and is set to return soon, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Caribbean Princess cruise ship left from Port Everglades on April 28 and will be returning to Port Canaveral in Brevard County on May 11, according to Cruise Mapper.

As of Thursday, May 7, there were 102 passengers and 13 crew members on the ship who reported being ill, the CDC said. Those affected by the latest norovirus outbreak have showed the typical symptoms of diarrhea and vomiting.

The virus, which is highly contagious, is the leading cause of foodborne illness in the United States, according to the health agency. Officials said it spreads quickly from sick people and through contaminated food, water or surfaces.

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Israel’s top commander in the occupied West Bank has said the army is killing Palestinians at levels “not seen since 1967”, according to Haaretz.

Avi Bluth, head of the Israeli army’s Central Command, made the remarks in a closed forum, where he also defended looser rules of engagement allowing troops to fire at unarmed Palestinians.

He acknowledged a discriminatory approach whereby Jewish Israeli stone-throwers are not targeted while Palestinians carrying out similar acts are fired at. 

"In three years, we have killed 1,500 terrorists," he said, referring to Palestinians. 

"So how is there no intifada? Why aren’t they taking to the streets? Why is the Palestinian public indifferent? Why are there no disturbances?" Bluth, a settler who has been the Israeli army commander in the West Bank since 2024, added.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine and Russia have agreed to carry out a large‑scale prisoner exchange involving 1,000 detainees on each side, marking a major humanitarian step amid the ongoing war.

The agreement was reached through US‑mediated negotiations, with preparations for the exchange already underway, Zelensky said on Friday in a post on Telegram.

“Ukraine is consistently working to return its people from Russian captivity,” Zelensky said, emphasizing that humanitarian considerations remain central to Ukraine’s position.

The exchange is expected to coincide with a temporary ceasefire from May 9 to May 11, days that align with Russia’s Victory Day celebrations.

Zelensky said Ukraine’s decisions regarding security and military posture are guided by a principle of reciprocity, but that the return of prisoners takes precedence.

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Frustrated by Iran, Trump at last seizes enriched uranium
Donald Trump has succeeded in removing a country’s stash of highly enriched uranium – although that country is not Iran.

On Friday, the US Department of Energy announced that “thanks to President Trump’s decisive leadership” 13.5kg (about 30 pounds) of uranium had been removed from a legacy research reactor in Venezuela.

The department called the joint operation, involving the UK, the US and Venezuela, “a win for America, Venezuela, and the world”.

“The safe removal of all enriched uranium from Venezuela sends another signal to the world of a restored and renewed Venezuela,” Brandon Williams, the administrator of the department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, said.

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A federal judge ruled on Thursday that the terminations of hundreds of humanities grants last year by the Trump administration’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) were unconstitutional and involved “blatant” discrimination. In April last year, Donald Trump’s administration terminated more than 1,400 grants, representing more than $100m in congressionally appropriated funds awarded to scholars, writers, research institutions and other humanities organizations.

The terminations were part of a cost-cutting drive that billionaire Elon Musk was leading at Doge.

“The Government engaged in blatant viewpoint discrimination,” the US district judge Colleen McMahon said in condemning what the Trump administration cast as a crackdown on diversity practices.

The judge said the terminations violated the US constitution’s first amendment, which provides free speech rights, and its fifth amendment’s equal protection component. The ruling also said Doge did not have the legal authority to terminate the grants.

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The US military on Friday said it struck a vessel in the eastern Pacific, killing two people and leaving one survivor in the latest attack on boats suspected of transporting narcotics. This brings the death toll from strikes on such vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific to more than 190 people since September.

A video posted by the US Southern Command shows the vessel traveling through the water being hit by what appears to be a missile. The screen momentarily goes black and then shows the boat engulfed in flames.

The Southern Command said, “the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes” and “was engaged in narco-trafficking operations”. It said the two people killed were men and that it notified the US Coast Guard to start a search and rescue for the sole survivor. No further details were divulged.

The military has attacked multiple alleged drug-running boats in the eastern Pacific in recent weeks, including a strike on Tuesday that killed three people. According to a tally by the Intercept, there have now been 58 such boat strikes since September amounting to a death toll of 193 people with four survivors.

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A Federal Bureau of Investigation agent interviewed a high-ranking Wisconsin state election official in recent days about the 2020 presidential election, according to sources with knowledge of the conversation.

The agent sat down with Wisconsin Elections Commission deputy administrator Robert Kehoe earlier this week and discussed with Kehoe how elections are carried out in Wisconsin and various election theories. Kehoe debunked false claims and clarified how elections work, according to the sources.

One of the sources called the conversation "a professional interview by a career FBI agent."

A spokeswoman for the FBI did not immediately respond to questions. A spokeswoman for the state Elections Commission declined to comment.

The interview comes at a time when Wisconsin and Milwaukee election officials are bracing for potential action from federal authorities over their administration of the 2020 election, which President Donald Trump falsely claims he won.

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