During Kennedy Center board meeting, Trump says he will release files on JFK assassination on Tuesday

New York Times

Bryan Bedford, a longtime airline industry executive, was tapped by President Donald Trump on Monday to serve as the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Since 1999, Bedford has been the president and CEO at Republic Airway, which operates flights for the three largest U.S. airlines. In a statement on Truth Social, Trump praised Bradford’s experience in aviation and executive leadership.

“Bryan will work with our GREAT Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, to strongly reform the Agency, safeguard our exports, and ensure the safety of nearly one billion annual passenger movements,” Trump wrote.

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump said he would look to counter China’s economic advantage from coal-based electricity by authorizing his administration to ramp up production of energy from the fossil fuel.

“I am authorizing my Administration to immediately begin producing Energy with BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL,” Trump wrote in a social media post.

It’s not clear what Trump was referring to, or how his social media decree would impact actual US policy. Trump already signed an executive order earlier in his term declaring a national energy emergency and directed the Environmental Protection Agency to boost fossil fuel production and distribution.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said earlier this month that the administration was working on a “market-based” plan to stem the closing of US coal-fired power plants. Coal accounts for about 15% of power generation in the US today, down from more than half in 2000, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

New York Times

When President Trump issued an ultimatum to Columbia University — canceling $400 million in funding and demanding an overhaul of its admissions and disciplinary rules — it launched the institution into an extraordinary crisis.

According to legal scholars, it may have also violated the law and the Constitution.

“Never has the government brought such leverage against an institution of higher education,” said Lee C. Bollinger, the former president of Columbia University, who stepped down in 2023 after a 21-year tenure. “The university is in an incredibly unprecedented and dangerous situation. It is an existential threat.”

Columbia thus far has publicly responded with caution and deference. The university is “committed to working with the federal government to address their legitimate concerns,” Columbia’s interim president, Dr. Katrina Armstrong, wrote in a letter to the university community.

Read the full story.

Washington Post

The Trump administration is set to cut more than 20 percent of the staff at the taxpayer help branch of the IRS, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post, eliminating jobs designed to help people struggling with their finances, identity theft or other tax issues.

The Taxpayer Advocate Service is slated to lose 430 of about 1,900 employees in an initial phase of staff reductions. Those cuts would come in addition to more than 90 employees who took deferred resignation offers or were laid off earlier this year, according to the plan, which the agency is in the final stages of implementing, according to two people familiar with it.

Overall, the tax agency would shed 18 percent of its workforce by mid-May compared with the workforce it had in January, according to the people and internal agency records. The Taxpayer Advocate Service would lose more than a quarter of the staff it had at the beginning of the year.

By the Associated Press

Trump said Monday he was ending “immediately” the Secret Service protection details assigned to Joe Biden’s adult children, which the former president had extended for six months shortly before leaving office in January.

Trump, in a social media posting, objected to what he said were 18 agents assigned to Hunter Biden’s protective detail while he is in South Africa this week. He said Ashley Biden has 13 agents assigned to her detail and that she too “will be taken off the list” for protection.

Former presidents and their spouses receive life-long Secret Service protection under federal law, but the protection afforded to their immediate families over the age of 16 ends when they leave office, though both Trump and Biden extended the details for their children for six months before leaving office.

By the Associated Press

Employees of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have entered the US Institute of Peace despite protests from the nonprofit that it is not part of the executive branch and is instead an independent agency.

The organization’s CEO, George Moose, said, “DOGE has broken into our building.”

The DOGE workers gained access after several unsuccessful attempts Monday and after having been turned away on Friday, a senior U.S. Institute of Peace official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

It was not immediately clear what the DOGE staffers were doing or looking for in the nonprofit’s building.

By the Associated Press

President Donald Trump claimed Monday that pardons recently issued by Joe Biden to lawmakers and staff on the congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot have no force because the-then president signed them with an autopen instead of by his own hand.

Read more about Trump’s autopen accusations.

By the Associated Press

The president of a small US federal agency that invests in businesses in South America and the Caribbean has sued Monday to block her firing last month by the Trump administration.

After Sara Aviel was fired from the Inter-American Foundation, a Trump appointee declared himself the acting president and laid off almost the entire staff. Since then, the administration has canceled essentially all of the agency’s contracts.

“This wholesale gutting of the IAF by the Government flies in the face of the law,” Aviel said in her suit.

The Trump administration also targeted three other independent federal agencies for closure.

By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

The Trump administration notified three public agencies in Maine they are violating federal civil rights law by allowing transgender students to participate alongside girls on sports teams.

The Office of Civil Rights, part of the Department of Education, identified the targets as the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals Association, the state’s governing body for school sports, and Greely High School in Cumberland.

In a statement, the Office of Civil Rights said the three are in violation of Title IX since Trump issued an executive order “on keeping men out of women’s sports” earlier this year.

READ MORE

By the Associated Press

In a marked departure from the previous administration, Trump gave US Central Command the ability to take action when it deems appropriate.

The Biden administration had required White House approval to conduct offensive strikes such as the ones over the weekend. It did allow US forces to launch defensive attacks whenever necessary, including the authority to take out weapons that appeared to be ready to fire.

Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said delegating the authority for an offensive mission to the regional commander “allows us to achieve a tempo of operations where we can react to opportunities that we see on the battlefield in order to continue to put pressure on the Houthis.”

He said the expanded authorities also allow the US to hit a broader array of targets.

US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Trump made the decision last week.

By the Associated Press

Thousands of Food and Drug Administration employees are returning to the office to find overflowing parking lots, cramped workspaces and missing equipment.

The FDA is the latest federal agency scrambling to meet the Trump administration’s return-to-office mandate. Monday was the first day that all FDA staffers were required to report to the agency’s headquarters in Maryland.

Staffers who spoke with The Associated Press described long lines to park and get through security, followed by hours of hunting for office space and supplies. Employees also confronted broken desks, missing chairs and locked offices for which they didn’t have keys.

By the Associated Press

Trump, after he was sworn into office, ordered the release of the remaining classified files related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

While at the Kennedy Center, Trump told reporters his administration will release 80,000 files on Tuesday, though it’s not clear how many of those are among the millions of documents that have already been made public.

“We have a tremendous amount of paper. You’ve got a lot of reading,” Trump said to reporters.

He also said he doesn’t believe anything will be redacted from the files.

“I said, ‘Just don’t redact. You can’t redact,’” he said.

By Alyssa Vega, Globe Staff

Trump claimed that former president Biden’s pardons for members of the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attacks are “void” and “vacant,” because they were signed using an autopen, a device that reproduces signatures.

In one of his final acts as president, Biden granted preemptive pardons to members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Biden said the move was intended to protect the House committee members from potential retaliation under a second Trump administration.

“The ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen,” Trump wrote on Truth Social late Sunday night.

While a president has Constitutional authority to issue pardons, there is no power for the subsequent president to undo them for any reason.

READ MORE

By the Associated Press

The White House used the song in a deportation video on social media showing a man with his wrists handcuffed and shackled to his waist as he’s patted down. The video was captioned with the song’s lyrics “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.”

“We did not authorize or condone the White House’s use of our song in any way. And no, they didn’t ask. The song is about joy and possibilities and hope, and they have missed the point entirely,” the power pop trio said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Asked about it Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said “our entire government clearly is leaning into the message of this president.” US Customs and Border Protection retweeted the White House’s post on X with the caption “It’s closing time. We are making America safe again.”

Semisonic joins a long list of performers who’ve objected to Trump using their songs.

By the Associated Press

Military leaders say the US airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi targets have struck more than 30 targets since Saturday, including headquarters locations, drone launch sites and weapons storage facilities.

Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated those strikes have killed “dozens” of militants and would continue in the coming days.

The strikes targeted headquarters positions and drone sites where militants the Pentagon identified as “key leaders” for the Houthis’ drone program were located, Grynkewich told reporters Monday.

During the attacks, the Houthis claimed to fire one-way attack drones and ballistic missiles in response.

At a news briefing, both Grynkewich and Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the responses “didn’t come anywhere near” US assets in the region, including the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman.

By the Associated Press

“He’ll be coming in the not too distant future,” Trump said during a meeting of the new Kennedy Center board.

Trump mentioned the Xi visit as he said he’s had foreign leaders visiting him at the White House in recent weeks and has been asking them how Washington looks.

Trump says he’s “cleaning up Washington,” including trying to clear tents used by the homeless and graffiti.

By the Associated Press

The president said he took time out of his day Monday afternoon to go to the performing arts center because it “represents a very important part of D.C. and actually our country.”

“I think it’s important to save this structure and this building,” he said.

He said his message to Americans was “Come here and see a show.” But then he immediately followed up by saying, “I was never a big fan, I never liked ‘Hamilton’ very much.” The popular Broadway musical canceled planned shows at the center after Trump took over the institution’s leadership.

By the Associated Press

The Environmental Protection Agency says it reinstated about 419 employees in response to the ruling Thursday night that ordered agencies across the government to bring back workers fired by the Trump administration.

Most of the affected EPA employees have been placed on administrative leave, an agency spokesperson said in an email Monday.

Tens of thousands of probationary workers were let go in mass firings across multiple agencies as part of Trump’s dramatic downsizing of the federal government. Two judges separately found legal problems with the way the terminations were carried out and ordered the employees at least temporarily brought back on the job.

By the Associated Press

The flood of workers at the main campus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention caused extreme traffic back-ups and other delays Monday morning.

Employees said driving the last two miles took as long as 40 minutes. One said a CDC administrator greeted employees coming back with a card that said; “YOU ARE APPRECIATED!”

Many CDC employees began working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the Trump administration ordered that employees who live within 50 miles of the office had to show up in-person starting Monday.

Many CDC workers have been dreading the return, in part because the CDC in the last few years has been reducing the amount of office space it leases in the Atlanta area, meaning fewer desks and parking spaces.

By the Associated Press

The steady trading may be short-lived, though, with a decision by the Federal Reserve on interest rates coming later in the week and worries continuing about President Trump’s trade war.

The S&P 500 was 1 percent higher in afternoon trading, coming off its fourth straight losing week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 483 points, or 1.1 percent, as of 2:34 p.m., and the Nasdaq composite was 0.8 percent higher.

Stocks have been tumbling recently on worries that Trump’s rat-a-tat announcements on tariffs and other policies are creating so much uncertainty that they’ll push US households and businesses to freeze their spending, which would hurt the economy.

By the Associated Press

She was asked by a reporter about a video of the deportations the White House shared on its X account Monday showing a man with his wrists handcuffed and shackled to his waist as he was patted down. The video was set to the Semisonic song, “Closing Time.”

“I think the White House and our entire government clearly is leaning into the message of this president. And we are unafraid to double down and to take responsibility and ownership of the serious decisions that are being made,” Leavitt said said.

By the Associated Press

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wouldn’t get into details about Tuesday’s scheduled call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. But she sounded optimistic that the talks can help push Russia closer to a deal to end it’s three-year war in Ukraine.

“I won’t get ahead of those negotiations, but I can say we are on the 10th yard line of peace,” Leavitt told reporters Monday. “And we’ve never been closer to a peace deal than we are in this moment. And the president, as you know, is determined to get one done.”

By the Associated Press

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday again said the Trump administration did not violate a court order when it deported more than 200 immigrants to El Salvador even as a federal judge ordered the deportations to be temporarily stopped.

“All of the planes that were subject to the written order of this judge departed US soil, US territory, before the judge’s written order,” Leavitt said at a news briefing.

Leavitt said there are questions about whether the judge’s verbal order “carries the same weight as a legal order, as a written order.”

By the Associated Press

The announcement from the Department of Veterans Affairs said the change was in response to Trump’s executive order declaring there are two sexes, male and female. The VA has never offered gender-affirming surgery, but has provided hormones, voice training and prosthetics to a small number of patients.

The VA will continue to offer hormone therapy to veterans already receiving such care and those who become eligible for VA care who were receiving hormones in the military. Veterans with gender dysphoria will continue to receive other types of care.

VA Secretary Doug Collins said transgender veterans “will always be welcome at VA,” but if veterans want “to attempt to change their sex, they can do so on their own dime.”

By the Associated Press

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom said the US has been “extremely generous” over the years and “of course, it’s within its rights to decide what it supports and to what extent.”

“But the US also has a responsibility to ensure that if it withdraws direct funding for countries, it’s done in an orderly and humane way that allows them to find alternative sources of funding,” the U.N. health agency chief told reporters in Geneva.

In his first day back in the Oval Office in January, Trump issued an executive order announcing a US pullout from WHO — which takes a year to take effect — and called for a pause of US funding for the agency. Sweeping cuts to funding through the US Agency for International Development has hit many aid providers hard.

By the Associated Press

Hey, America: Give the Statue of Liberty back to France. So says a French politician who’s making headlines in his country for suggesting the US is no longer worthy of the monument that was a gift from France nearly 140 years ago.

As a member of the European Parliament and co-president of a small left-wing party in France, Raphaël Glucksmann cannot claim to speak for all of his compatriots.

But his assertion in a speech this weekend that some Americans “have chosen to switch to the side of the tyrants” reflects the broad shockwaves Trump’s seismic shifts in foreign and domestic policy are triggering in France and elsewhere in Europe.

By The New York Times

In the closing minutes of his podcast, right-wing provocateur Dan Bongino made a promise. Joining the FBI as its deputy director, he acknowledged, would require a stark change in approach after years of making his name as a pugilistic pundit.

“I have to stay out of the political space because it’s the right thing to do and it’s the rules,” he said during his last episode Friday. He added, “I’m not going there to be some partisan.”

His arrival Monday as the FBI’s second in command will test that promise, cementing a major shift at the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, where he will join its director, Kash Patel, in overseeing a bureau of about 38,000 people. It puts two staunch Trump loyalists in charge of an agency long known for its tradition of independence. Collectively, they have the least leadership experience of any pair overseeing the FBI since its founding more than a century ago.

READ MORE

By the Associated Press

New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney met with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday during his first official overseas trip, seeking support from one of Ottawa’s oldest allies as Trump attacks Canada’s sovereignty and economy.

Macron did not address Trump’s attacks on Canada ahead of the talks but noted tariffs only bring inflation.

“In the current international context, we want to be able to develop our most strategic projects with our closest, more loyal partners,” Macron said, adding that “we are stronger together, better able to ensure the respect of our interests, the full exercise of our sovereignty.”

Carney was sworn in Friday. After Paris, his next stop was London, where he was due to hold talks with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and King Charles III, the head of state in Canada.

By the Associated Press

The federal lawsuit seeks to to block enforcement of executive orders Momodou Taal fears could lead to his deportation.

Taal, 31, is a Ph.D. student in Africana studies at Cornell University and is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Gambia.

He was temporarily suspended last fall after participating in a demonstration on the Cornell campus in upstate New York. He has limited access to campus for research, medical and religious reasons as he continues his studies remotely, according to the lawsuit.

The suit filed Saturday by Taal and two of his allies at the Ivy League school cite the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student, as well as a statement by President Trump promising more arrests at universities across the country.

By the Associated Press

The measure, approved by Republican majorities in the House and Senate, eliminates a federal fee on companies that release high levels of methane, a planet-warming “super pollutant.”

The fee, which hadn’t gone into effect, was expected to bring in more than $7 billion over the next decade and lower US methane emissions, averting thousands of early deaths and tens of thousands of asthma attacks and lost school days every year.

Methane is a much stronger global warming gas than carbon dioxide, especially in the short term. Oil and gas producers are among the biggest US methane emitters.

Republicans said the fee would inflate energy prices, reduce domestic energy production and empower US adversaries.

By the Associated Press

After Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool was no longer welcome in the US and posted his decision Friday on social media, South African embassy staff were summoned to the State Department and given a formal diplomatic note explaining the move, the department said.

“We made the embassy aware that Ambassador Rasool has been found unacceptable by the United States to be a representative of his country,” the department said.

It said Rasool’s diplomatic privileges and immunities expired Monday and he would be required to leave the United States by March 21. It isn’t clear if he’s in the US now.

Rubio announced his decision in a post on X, accusing Rasool of being a “race-baiting politician” who hates President Trump.

By the Associated Press

Plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed to halt deportations under a rarely-used 18th century wartime law invoked by President Trump asked a federal judge Monday to force officials to explain under oath whether they violated his court order by removing more than 200 people from the country after it was issued and celebrating it on social media.

The motion marks another escalation in the battle over Trump’s aggressive opening moves in his second term, several of which have been temporarily halted by judges. Trump’s allies have raged over the holds and suggested he doesn’t have to obey them, and some plaintiffs have said it appears the administration is flouting court orders.

By the Associated Press

McGregor appeared in the briefing room alongside press secretary Karoline Leavitt, where he criticized his country’s government as having “abandoned the voices of the people of Ireland.” He said there was “zero action with zero accountability,” and complained about the “illegal immigration racket.”

His comments come days after Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin visited the White House to meet with President Trump.

McGregor has faced legal problems of his own. He was ordered to pay $257,000 to a woman who sued him for sexual assault. McGregor denied the accusations.

By the Associated Press

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer was planning to promote his new book, “Antisemitism in America: A Warning,” but is rescheduling after some liberal groups shared plans to stage protests.

A representative for Schumer’s book, Risa Heller, said that the tour would be rescheduled “due to security concerns.”

The cancellations of events in Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and other cities came amid widespread criticism from the party’s liberal base over Schumer’s vote to move forward with Republican spending legislation last week.

Schumer said the bill was “terrible” but that a shutdown would have been far worse, and difficult to get out of, as Trump has already slashed jobs and funding for agencies across the government.

By the Associated Press

US shoppers stepped up their spending a just bit in February after a sharp pullback the previous month, signaling Americans are shopping more cautiously as concerns about the direction of the economy mount.

Retail sales rose just 0.2 percent in February, a small rebound after a sharp drop of 1.2 percent in January, the Commerce Department said Monday. Sales rose at grocery stores, home and garden stores, and online retailers. Sales fell at auto dealers, restaurants, and electronics stores.

The small increase suggests Americans may be growing more wary about spending as the stock market has plunged and Trump’s tariff threats and government spending cuts have led to widespread uncertainty among consumers and businesses.

By the Associated Press

The Sunday meeting came two days after Jeffries publicly criticized Schumer over a vote to move forward on Republican spending legislation.

The two New Yorkers met in Brooklyn, according to a person familiar with the meeting.

Schumer announced Thursday that he would join with Republicans on a key procedural vote to move the spending legislation to final passage. He said that the bill was “terrible” but that a shutdown would be far worse, and Democrats would not have an “off ramp” to get out of it.

Jeffries strongly disagreed and repeatedly declined to answer questions Friday about whether he has confidence in Schumer.

“We do not want to shut down the government. But we are not afraid of a government funding showdown,” Jeffries said.

The meeting was first reported by Punchbowl News.

By the Associated Press

The Trump administration’s tariffs on imported goods from Canada, Mexico and China — some already in place, others set to take effect in a few weeks — are already driving up the cost of building materials used in new residential construction and home remodeling projects.

The tariffs are projected to raise the costs that go into building a single-family home in the US by $7,500 to $10,000, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Such costs are typically passed along to the homebuyer in the form of higher prices, which could hurt demand at a time when the US housing market remains in a slump and many builders are having to offer buyers costly incentives to drum up sales.

By the Associated Press

But the calm may not last with a decision coming this week on interest rates from the Federal Reserve and worries continuing about President Trump’s trade war.

The S&P 500 was up 0.2 percent early Monday. The index is coming off its fourth straight losing week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 97 points, and the Nasdaq composite was up 0.1 percent.

Stocks have been tumbling on worries that Trump’s rat-a-tat announcements on tariffs and other policies are creating so much uncertainty that they’ll push US households and businesses to freeze their spending.

By the Associated Press

The Houthi rebels started attacking military and commercial ships in one of the world’s busiest shipping corridors shortly after the war in Gaza began between Hamas and Israel in October 2023.

The Houthis said they were targeting vessels on the Red Sea with links to Israel or its allies — the United States and the U.K. — in solidarity with Palestinians, but some vessels had little or no link to the war.

The Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels and killing four sailors, until the current ceasefire in Gaza took effect in mid-January. Other missiles and drones were intercepted or failed to reach their targets, which included Western military ones.

By the Associated Press

President Trump on Saturday invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since World War II, granting himself sweeping powers under a centuries-old law to deport people associated with a Venezuelan gang. Hours later, a federal judge halted deportations under Trump’s order.

The act is a sweeping wartime authority that allows non-citizens to be deported without being given the opportunity to go before an immigration or federal court judge.

Trump repeatedly hinted during his campaign that he would declare extraordinary powers to confront illegal immigration and laid additional groundwork in a slew of executive orders on Jan. 20.

His proclamation Saturday identified Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang as an invading force. US District Judge James E. Boasberg, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, blocked anyone from being deported under Trump’s proclamation for two weeks and scheduled a Friday hearing to consider arguments.

By the Associated Press

The crown jewel of El Salvador’s aggressive anti-crime strategy — a mega-prison where visitation, recreation and education aren’t allowed — became the latest tool in Trump’s crackdown on immigration Sunday, when hundreds of immigrants facing deportation were transferred there.

The arrival of the immigrants, alleged by the US to be members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, took place under an agreement for which the Trump administration will pay the government of President Nayib Bukele $6 million for one year of services.

Bukele has made the Central American country’s stark, harsh prisons a trademark of his fight against crime. In 2023, he opened the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where the immigrants were sent over the weekend even as a federal judge issued an order temporarily barring their deportations under an 18th century wartime declaration targeting Venezuelan gang members.

By the Associated Press

It’s a move that could represent a possible pivot point in the conflict and an opportunity for President Trump to continue reorienting American foreign policy.

Trump disclosed the upcoming conversation to reporters while flying from Florida to Washington on Air Force One on Sunday evening, while the Kremlin confirmed Putin’s participation Monday morning.

“We will see if we have something to announce maybe by Tuesday. I will be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday,” Trump said. “A lot of work’s been done over the weekend. We want to see if we can bring that war to an end.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday morning confirmed the plans for the two leaders to speak Tuesday, but refused to give details, saying “we never get ahead of events” and “the content of conversations between two presidents are not subject to any prior discussion.”

By the Associated Press

According to the White House press office, Trump will participate in a board meeting for the John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center at 3:00 p.m.

Trump is currently the chair of the Kennedy Center’s board. He announced his election as chair in February, after he ousted the arts institution’s leadership and filled the board of trustees with his supporters. Some artists have responded by canceling appearances.

Also on Monday’s schedule is the daily White House press briefing, which is scheduled for 1:00 p.m.

By the Associated Press

The Trump administration has transferred hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador even as a federal judge issued an order temporarily barring the deportations under an 18th century wartime declaration targeting Venezuelan gang members, officials said Sunday. Flights were in the air at the time of the ruling.

US District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order Saturday temporarily blocking the deportations, but lawyers told him there were already two planes with immigrants in the air — one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras. Boasberg verbally ordered the planes be turned around, but they apparently were not and he did not include the directive in his written order.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a statement Sunday, responded to speculation about whether the administration was flouting court orders: “The administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from US territory.”

The acronym refers to the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump targeted in his unusual proclamation that was released Saturday.

By The New York Times

The Justice Department has quietly informed European officials that the United States is withdrawing from a multinational group created to investigate leaders responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, including President Vladimir Putin of Russia, according to people familiar with the situation.

The decision to withdraw from the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, which the Biden administration joined in 2023, is the latest indication of the Trump administration’s move away from President Joe Biden’s commitment to holding Putin personally accountable for crimes committed against Ukrainians.

The group was created to hold the leadership of Russia, along with its allies in Belarus, North Korea and Iran, accountable for a category of crimes -- defined as aggression under international law and treaties that violates another country’s sovereignty and is not initiated in self-defense.

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By the Associated Press

President Trump said he would speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday as he pushes to end the war in Ukraine.

The US leader disclosed the upcoming conversation to reporters while flying from Florida to Washington on Air Force One on Sunday evening.

“We will see if we have something to announce maybe by Tuesday. I will be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday,” Trump said. “A lot of work’s been done over the weekend. We want to see if we can bring that war to an end.”

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