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Kilmar Abrego Garcia meets with Maryland senator in El Salvador, weeks after mistaken deportation — Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen says he has met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who immigration officials say was deported by error, in El Salvador on Thursday, Van Hollen's spokesperson confirmed to CBS News.
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Alternet.org, New York Post, MPR News, Sun-Sentinel, Al Jazeera, Washington Times, Mediaite, The Daily Signal, Fox News, UPI, WSVN-TV, The Independent and The Daily Wire
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Trump Administration Live Updates: Senator Meets With Wrongly Deported Maryland Man in El Salvador — The senator's meeting came after he had been denied access to the wrongly deported man. — Senator Chris Van Hollen said on Thursday night that he had met in San Salvador …
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CBS News, CNN, Blaze Media, Axios, New York Post, WSVN-TV, Politico, The Hill, WUSA, Baltimore Sun and USA Today


Abrego Garcia's deportation case exposes a rift among Democrats over how to take on Trump — As some Democrats vocally push for the release of the man the administration says was mistakenly deported, others have sought to steer clear and focus on high prices and economic issues.


Sen. Chris Van Hollen meets with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador
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Rubio Says U.S. to ‘Move On’ From Ukraine Peace Efforts if No Progress Soon — “If it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on,” the American secretary of state said as he departed meetings in Paris. — The United States will abandon efforts to end the war in Ukraine …
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NBC News, Mediaite, The Kyiv Independent, Reuters and Semafor
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Trump ready to ‘move on’ from Ukraine peace talks if no progress, Rubio says — Rubio's remarks appear to reflect the president's frustration with the difficulty of achieving peace in Ukraine after Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion. — PARIS — President Donald Trump is ready to “move on” …
Discussion:
Axios, The National Pulse and Associated Press


US will abandon Ukraine peace push if no progress ‘within a matter of days,’ Rubio says — U.S. President Donald Trump will walk away from trying to broker a Russia-Ukraine peace deal within days unless there are clear signs that a deal can be done, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday.


The State Department is changing its mind about what it calls human rights — The Trump administration is substantially scaling back the State Department's annual reports on international human rights to remove longstanding critiques of abuses such as harsh prison conditions …


With Harvard Threat, Trump Tries to Bend the I.R.S. to His Will — Since the post-Nixon era, the Internal Revenue Service has had a degree of independence from the White House. President Trump is seeking to change that. — In the years after President Richard Nixon enlisted …
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FDA making plans to end its routine food safety inspections, sources say — The Food and Drug Administration is drawing up plans that would end most of its routine food safety inspections work, multiple federal health officials tell CBS News, and effectively outsource this oversight to state and local authorities.
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Reuters, Alternet.org, Mock Paper Scissors, Lawyers, Guns & Money and bluebelly, sun, serpentine


U.S.-born American citizen under ICE hold in Florida after driving from Georgia — Juan Carlos Gomez-Lopez is being held even though a county judge found his birth certificate “authentic” and said there wasn't reason to consider him an “illegal alien.” — A U.S.-born American citizen …
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Inside Higher Ed, Orlando Sentinel, New Republic, KRDO, The Independent and Adventus
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US citizen held by ICE despite judge seeing birth certificate
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Raw Story, KDFX-TV, Alternet.org and Saywhat Politics


What's Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal. — In the beginning there was agony. Under the empires of old, the strong did what they willed and the weak suffered what they must. — But over the centuries, people built the sinews of civilization …
Discussion:
Mediaite, PJ Media, The Guardian, Alternet.org, Raw Story and Politico


The CFPB Has Been Gutted — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau terminated the positions of 1,400 of the agency's 1,700 employees; medical debt and student loans will now be deprioritized. — More than 1,400 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) workers were terminated …
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American Prospect, Talking Points Memo, Fox Business, Meret, USA Today, CBS News, Bloomberg and NPR, more at Techmeme »
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Nearly 90% of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau cut as Trump's government downsizing continues
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Politico, The Hill, Washington Examiner, Engadget and The Verge


House Democrats fume at David Hogg's plan to oust lawmakers — Democratic National Committee vice chair David Hogg's plan to spend $20 million to primary older Democratic incumbents in Congress has sparked intense anger from some lawmakers. — Why it matters: House Democrats told Axios that …
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The Bulwark, So What, HotAir, New Jersey Online and Twitchy
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US Supreme Court to hear Trump bid to enforce birthright citizenship order — The U.S. Supreme Court said on Thursday it will hear arguments next month over Donald Trump's bid to broadly enforce his executive order to restrict automatic birthright citizenship, a key pillar …
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Supreme Court to Hear Arguments on Trump Plan to End Birthright Citizenship
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Instapundit, One America News Network, USA Today, The Western Journal, Bloomberg, Fox News, Washington Times, Blaze Media, UPI, HotAir, ABC News, Politico, The Gateway Pundit, Roll Call, Law Dork, Los Angeles Times, The Hill, SCOTUSblog, Daily Caller News Foundation, NBC News and Daily Mail


A deadly E. coli outbreak hit 15 states, but the FDA chose not to publicize it — The outbreak linked to romaine lettuce killed one person and sickened at least 88 more, including a 9-year-old boy who nearly died of kidney failure. — An E. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce ripped across 15 states …
Discussion:
New York Daily News, Esquire and The Independent


Gwen Walz on RFK Jr. comments: People with autism ‘contribute more to this nation than this man ever will’ — Minnesota's first lady, Gwen Walz, slammed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert. F Kennedy Jr. over comments he made about autism on Wednesday.
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RFK Jr. Says There Are No Autistic Poets. We Asked an Autistic Poet.
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Washington Post, Boston Herald, ANMLY, Scientific American, Metro.co.uk, Axios, Variety and The Independent


Strange sell-off in the dollar raises the specter of investors losing trust in the US under Trump — Among the threats tariffs pose to the U.S. economy, none may be as strange as the sell-off in the dollar. Currencies rise and fall all the time because of inflation fears, central bank moves and other factors.
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, Financial Times, The Economist and Wall Street Journal


Trump's newest grift: Building a cryptocurrency empire while destroying its regulators — Listen to me read this post here (not an AI-generated voice!), subscribe to the feed in your podcast app, or download the recording for later. — In an unprecedented abuse of presidential power …


Trump's United States of Emergency — In his first 100 days, President Trump has declared more national emergencies — more creatively and more aggressively — than any president in modern American history. — Why it matters: Powers originally crafted to give the president flexibility …
Discussion:
Al Jazeera


Trump's War on Measurement Means Losing Data on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change and More — More children ages 1 to 4 die of drowning than any other cause of death. Nearly a quarter of adults received mental health treatment in 2023, an increase of 3.4 million from the prior year.


DOGE begins to freeze health-care payments for extra review — DOGE is putting new curbs on billions of dollars in federal grants, requiring officials to manually review and approve payments that were previously routine. — The U.S. DOGE Service is putting new curbs on billions of dollars …


Appeals court won't lift order to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia's return in blistering opinion — The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday declined to lift a judge's order that the Trump administration “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, admonishing the Justice Department in the ruling.
Discussion:
Politico, Reason, Associated Press, NPR, Rolling Stone, Law Dork, Breitbart, Raw Story, KRQE NEWS 13, The Gateway Pundit, Blaze Media, New York Post, New Republic, USA Today, WUSA, The Independent and CBS News


U.S. intelligence contradicts Trump's justification for mass deportations — The determination is the most comprehensive assessment to date undercutting the president's rationale for deporting suspected gang members without due process. — The National Intelligence Council …
Discussion:
Persuasion, Associated Press and IJR


Trump Has for Months Privately Discussed Firing Fed Chair Powell — The president hasn't made a decision on whether to try to oust Powell, and some of his advisers have warned against the move — WASHINGTON—President Trump has for months privately discussed firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell …
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SCOTUS Can Let the President Break the Law; They Can't Change It … We are now cranking up another edition of the “will he or won't he” Trump song and dance, this time about firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Trump manages to add an additional pungency to these dramas by trying to fire the guy who is actually his own Fed Chair.


Trump is punishing immigrants for following the rules — The federal government's assault on immigrants is pushing them to live in the shadows. … Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student at Columbia University, went into a US Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Vermont on Monday for his scheduled naturalization interview.


Prominent ultra-processed food researcher leaves NIH, alleges censorship — Kevin Hall, a leading expert on ultra-processed foods, has raised concerns about the future of nutrition research and science at NIH. — Six years ago, Kevin Hall led a landmark study providing the most compelling evidence …
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HuffPost, The Hill, The Independent, Washington Examiner, CBS News, Axios, Fox News, New York Times and CNN


Google's digital ad network declared an illegal monopoly, joining its search engine in penalty box — Google has been branded an abusive monopolist by a federal judge for the second time in less than a year, this time for illegally exploiting some of its online marketing technology to boost …
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How Corey Lewandowski Became Kristi Noem's Gatekeeper at DHS — Trump's former campaign chief is working as her de facto chief of staff despite White House concerns about their relationship — WASHINGTON—Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem toured a new high-tech hub …