Intelligence community rejects Trump’s claim that Venezuela controls Tren de Aragua

Intelligence community rejects Trump’s claim that Venezuela controls Tren de Aragua

The New York Times reports: A newly declassified memo released on Monday confirms that U.S. intelligence agencies rejected a key claim President Trump put forth to justify invoking a wartime statute to summarily deport Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador. The memo, dovetailing with intelligence findings first reported by The New York Times in March, states that spy agencies do not believe that the administration of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, controls a criminal gang, Tren de Aragua. That determination…

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Judge demands Trump officials promptly detail legal grounds for deporting Mahmoud Khalil

Judge demands Trump officials promptly detail legal grounds for deporting Mahmoud Khalil

The New Arab reports: A federal judge instructed the Trump administration on Wednesday to detail the legal precedent for its plan to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist whose presence in the country the government alleges could harm U.S. foreign policy interests. District Court Judge Michael Farbiarz in Newark, New Jersey, ordered the administration to supply a catalogue of every case in which U.S. officials have employed the law being used against Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student. The judge…

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India’s strikes on Pakistan show how warfare has been normalised again

India’s strikes on Pakistan show how warfare has been normalised again

Dan Sabbagh writes: India’s string of attacks on Pakistan overnight – a response, Delhi says, to the killing of 26 in a terror attack in Kashmir last month – comes at a time when warfare has become increasingly normalised internationally and the restraints of the global diplomatic system weakened. Though flare-ups between the two south Asian powers are nothing new, India’s Operation Sindoor is already notably more aggressive than recent military actions launched by Delhi against its neighbour in 2016…

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U.S. pushes nations facing tariffs to approve Elon Musk’s Starlink, cables show

U.S. pushes nations facing tariffs to approve Elon Musk’s Starlink, cables show

The Washington Post reports: Less than two weeks after President Donald Trump announced 50 percent tariffs on goods from the tiny African nation of Lesotho, the country’s communications regulator held a meeting with representatives of Starlink. The satellite business, owned by billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, had been seeking access to customers in Lesotho. But it was not until Trump unveiled the tariffs and called for negotiations over trade deals that leaders of the country of roughly…

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David Attenborough: ‘If we save the ocean, we save ourselves’

David Attenborough: ‘If we save the ocean, we save ourselves’

  Oceanographic reports: “After almost 100 years on the planet, I now understand the most important place on Earth is not on land, but at sea,” says Sir David Attenborough, a man who – having spent his working life documenting the world of natural history – is about to launch what he has called “one of the most important films of his career” on the eve of entering his one hundredth year. Perhaps for the first time in those 100…

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Trump says ‘we just want to be friends’ as Canada’s prime minister torpedoes 51st state idea

Trump says ‘we just want to be friends’ as Canada’s prime minister torpedoes 51st state idea

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump has said he “just want[s] to be friends with Canada” after his first post-election meeting with the country’s prime minister, Mark Carney – who used the gathering to shoot down any prospect of his country becoming the 51st state. Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump praised Carney – whose Liberal party won the federal election last week – for one of the “greatest political comebacks of all time”, and described the prime minister’s visit as…

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Trump team urged Ukraine to accept U.S. deportees amid war, documents show

Trump team urged Ukraine to accept U.S. deportees amid war, documents show

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration earlier this year urged the Ukrainian government to accept an unspecified number of U.S. deportees who are citizens of other countries, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post, an extraordinary request of a nation at war and dependent on American military and financial support for its survival. The documents do not indicate how officials in Kyiv responded to the late-January proposal, relayed by a senior U.S. diplomat, that called for sending third-country…

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Trump strikes a ceasefire deal with the Houthis

Trump strikes a ceasefire deal with the Houthis

Reuters reports: President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday the U.S. will stop bombing the Houthis in Yemen, saying that the Iran-aligned group had agreed to stop interrupting important shipping lanes in the Middle East. After Trump made the announcement, Oman said it had mediated the ceasefire deal, marking a major shift in Houthi policy since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023. Under the agreement, neither the U.S. nor the Houthis would target the other, including U.S….

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Tesla sales plunge across Europe

Tesla sales plunge across Europe

CNN reports: Tesla’s sales continue to dive across Europe even as car buyers there increasingly buy electric vehicles. Tesla sales were down sharply in April in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal, as well Sweden and France, according to monthly sales figures. Just like in the United States, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s politics has inspired backlash and protests across Europe. Musk has backed some far-right political candidates in Germany and the UK. And given his high-profile role in…

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DNI Tulsi Gabbard appears to be a security clutz

DNI Tulsi Gabbard appears to be a security clutz

Wired reports: Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, used the same easily cracked password for different online accounts over a period of years, according to leaked records reviewed by WIRED. Following her participation in a Signal group chat in which sensitive details of a military operation were unwittingly shared with a journalist, the revelation raises further questions about the security practices of the US spy chief. WIRED reviewed Gabbard’s passwords using databases of material leaked online created by the…

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A militia says NWS Doppler radars are ‘weather weapons.’ It’s trying to destroy them

A militia says NWS Doppler radars are ‘weather weapons.’ It’s trying to destroy them

CNN reports: National Weather Service offices around the country are on guard after recent threats to agency infrastructure — specifically Doppler weather radars — from a violent militia-style group, emails from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s security office show. The group Veterans on Patrol, which the Southern Poverty Law Center defines as an anti-government militia organization, views the NWS’ network of Doppler radars as “weather weapons,” according to an internal NOAA email sent Monday and seen by CNN. A…

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New evidence prompts researchers to rethink humanity’s origin story

New evidence prompts researchers to rethink humanity’s origin story

By Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias This article was originally published on SAPIENS As a university student in the early 2010s, I recall how beautifully simple our origin story was: Homo sapiens evolved in East African savannas around 150,000 years ago. Then, sometime around 70,000 years ago, a mutation occurred that endowed these individuals with the capacity for complex, symbolic behavior. This set them apart from any other species and allowed them to leave Africa and take over the world, replacing all other humans they encountered….

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Naomi Klein on Trump, Musk, the far right and ‘End Times fascism’

Naomi Klein on Trump, Musk, the far right and ‘End Times fascism’

  ‘The rise of end times fascism‘ by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor was published in The Guardian on April 13. The movement for corporate city states cannot believe its good luck. For years, it has been pushing the extreme notion that wealthy, tax-averse people should up and start their own high-tech fiefdoms, whether new countries on artificial islands in international waters (“seasteading”) or pro-business “freedom cities” such as Próspera, a glorified gated community combined with a wild west med…

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Trump is carrying out a ‘personal vendetta’ against law firms

Trump is carrying out a ‘personal vendetta’ against law firms

  It was nearly impossible to get anyone on camera for this story because of the fear now running through our system of justice. In recent weeks, President Trump has signed orders against several law firms — orders with the power to destroy them. That matters because lawsuits have been a check on the president’s power. Many firms and attorneys have been targeted, among them Marc Elias, a long time opponent of Trump who is the only lawyer the president…

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