Paramilitary shelling on Sudan’s besieged city of El-Fasher, in the western region of Darfur, killed more than 30 civilians and wounded dozens more, activists said on Monday.
The attack, which took place on Sunday, involved “heavy artillery shelling” and targeted the city’s residential neighbourhoods, said the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across Sudan.
Since April 2023, the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been locked in a brutal war.
El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, remains the last major city in the vast Darfur region that the paramilitary group has not conquered.
Last week, the RSF launched a renewed offensive on the city and two nearby displacement camps — Zamzam and Abu Shouk — killing over 400 and displacing some 400,000 people, according to the United Nations.
JD Vance had a “brief” meeting with the Pope amid tensions between the pontiff and the White House on migration policy and welfare cuts. The US Vice President, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, is understood to have been keen to meet his Holiness whilst in Rome with his family.
The leader of the Catholic church had been reticent to grant an official meeting, but a “brief” audience was held on Sunday morning in Casa Santa Marta where the 88-year-old lives. The meeting is understood to have “lasted a few minutes” according to the Vatican, allowing the two to exchange Easter greetings. The Pope has previously been critical of the US administration, condemning their policy on migration and pledge of mass deportations as “a disgrace”.
Mr Vance has at times attempted to clumsily use Catholic teachings to justify the White House’s approach to migration but has been slapped down by the Pope in open letters to Catholic Bishops in the US.
He was also outspoken on President Donald Trump, hours before his inauguration, telling Italian TV: “This won’t do! This is not the way to solve things. That’s not how things are resolved.”
US President Donald Trump on Sunday said Russia and Ukraine could reach an agreement “this week,” possibly to end their war of more than three years. He also said the two rivals could then do “big business” with the United States and “make a fortune.”
“Hopefully Russia amd (sic) Ukraine will make a deal this week. Both will then start to do big business with the United States of America, which is thriving, and make a big fortune!” Trump posted to his Truth Social network.
However, he did not share details of any progress in peace talks Washington has sought to push forward between Moscow and Kyiv, since he took over from Joe Biden in January.
The US president’s Truth Social post comes just days after his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, warned that Washington could “move on” from its push to broker an agreement to end the conflict, which began in February 2022.
“We need to figure out here now within a matter of days whether this is doable in the short term, because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on,” Rubio said on Friday in Paris, after high-level discussions with European and Ukrainian leaders.
“If they had advisers who had their hand on the pulse of the Democratic Party or national politics, they would have understood the intense level of anger or indifference to them that remains inside our party and isn’t going away anytime soon,” LaRosa said in a recent interview withThe Hill.
“I love both Bidens dearly, but staff loyalty means there is a responsibility to provide them with an honest situational awareness, especially when it comes to their public image, no matter how hurtful it is to hear,” LaRosa added.
China on Monday issued a direct warning to countries considering trade deals with the US that could disadvantage Beijing.
The warning came in the aftermath of reports that the Trump administration in the US may offer tariff exemptions to other nations in return for limiting their trade with China.
President Trump this month paused major tariff increases on other countries for 90 days, while hiking duties further on goods from China to 145 percent.
“China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests. If this happens, China will not accept it and will resolutely take reciprocal countermeasures,” the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said, CNBC reported.
Dejuan Moore had been held on an $810,000 bond, but Judge Khadija Babb lowered it to $304,000.
A Nashville man charged with raping two teenage girls at gunpoint had his bond significantly reduced by a Davidson County, Tennessee judge, prompting backlash from sexual assault victim advocates.
Dejuan Moore was being held on an $810,000 bond, but Judge Khadija Babb lowered it to $304,000. Moore faces a series of serious charges, including two counts of aggravated rape, three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, three counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, as well as resisting arrest, evading arrest, and evading arrest by a motor vehicle.
Moore’s defense attorney, Jennifer Thompson, argued the original bond was excessive, pointing to Moore’s lack of criminal history and what she called “strong ties to the Nashville community.” She said Moore wants to be released to support his girlfriend and her children.
“He was supportive of him and his girlfriend and their household,” Thompson claimed. However, victim advocates expressed outrage over the judge’s decision.
“It makes it seem like his life is more important than the victims he sexually assaulted,” said Lorraine McGuire, Vice President of Community Relations at the Sexual Assault Center, according to Fox 17 News.
An activist group supporting Karmelo Anthony, who is accused of murdering fellow teenager Austin Metcalf at a Texas track meet, posted a bizarre POV-style video on social media showing their security team escorting the alleged killer from jail after he made bond.
In the clip posted by the Next Generation Action Network [NGAN], a member of the organization’s security team shakes the teen’s hand and tells him to “get behind us” and “just stay close” as they walk past the media while leaving the Collin County Jail.
One female reporter shoves a microphone in Anthony’s face and asks if he has anything he’d like to say to the Metcalf family and why he was armed that day, calling him “sweatheart.”
Accused teen killer Karmelo Anthony seen in a newly released video captured by a pair of Ray-Ban glasses. @niquealex/Instagram
Anthony stays mum as they continue to the vehicle, where the security team ushers him into the backseat, the video shows.
Chris Van Hollen has spent nearly a decade as an under-the-radar lawmaker. But the Maryland Democrat, who gave up a leadership trajectory in the House to serve in the Senate, may now finally be meeting his moment.
Van Hollen has grabbed the national spotlight amid a two-day trip to El Salvador to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported by the Trump administration on erroneous charges of gang membership. After being initially blocked from entering a maximum-security prison by the Salvadoran government, Van Hollen ultimately succeeded in sitting down Thursday with his constituent, who had since been transferred to another detention facility.
“If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights and due process for everyone else in America,” Van Hollen said Friday at a press conference at Dulles International Airport, shortly after returning from El Salvador.
He was flanked by advocates holding signs emblazoned with the words, “Thank you Senator Van Hollen.”
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen returned from his trip to El Salvador Friday after meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was deported due to an administrative error.
Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday, April 16, to check on Abrego Garcia’s health and well-being, a month after he was deported to a Salvadoran supermax prison known as CECOT.
“His conversation with me was the first communication that he had with anybody outside of prison since he was abducted. He said he felt very sad about being in a prison because he had not committed any crimes,” Van Hollen said.
However, he said, Abrego Garcia has since been moved to another prison where he says the conditions are better.
“He told me, and this was yesterday, eight days ago, so nine days ago from today, he was moved to another detention center in Santa Ana, where the conditions are better. But he said, despite the better conditions, he still has no access to any news from the outside world and no ability to communicate with anybody in the outside world,” Van Hollen said.
President Donald Trump argued Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s tattoos prove he is a MS-13 gang member who should not be allowed back into the United States.
On Friday evening, Trump highlighted a photo of Abrego Garcia’s hand that appeared to contain “MS-13” tattooed on his knuckles. MS-13 is a Salvadoran-native gang that the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.
“This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such ‘a fine and innocent person.’ They said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles, and two Highly Respected Courts found that he was a member of MS-13, beat up his wife, etc,” the president wrote in a post to Truth Social.
The photo Trump showed included labels claiming to identify what the tattoos, each on one knuckle, represented. “M” was supposedly represented by a marijuana leaf, “S” was represented by a smiley face, “1” was represented by a cross, and “3” was a skull, according to the legend, with the latter two images possibly being to cover up the two numbers.
The Democratic Party faces a growing rift over how to take on President Donald Trump. On one side, younger, more defiant members are pushing for generational change and a harder line. On the other? Moderates and institutionalists who seem pretty comfortable clinging to the status quo.
Democrats like Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen have been on the front lines, demanding accountability and treating the case like the crisis it is. Others, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, are dismissing the party’s focus on Garcia as a “distraction,” urging Democrats to hit Trump on tariffs and trade instead.
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, right, speaks with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man whom the Trump administration wrongly deported El Salvador, in a hotel restaurant in San Salvador, El Salvador, on April 17.
“This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such a ‘fine and innocent person,'” President Trump wrote.
On Friday, President Donald Trump released a photo of the tattoos belonging to MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was recently deported to El Salvador after unlawfully residing in the United States. The tattoos on his knuckles are affiliated with the MS-13 gang, which include a marijuana leaf, a smiley face, a cross, and a skull. These symbols are intended to spell out “MS-13.”
The photo evidence comes after Democratic lawmakers claimed that the Trump administration unlawfully deported illegal immigrant Abrego Garcia to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CEDOT), who had been residing in the United States with his wife in Maryland. This resulted in Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) travelling to El Salvador in an attempt to bring the foreign terrorist back to the US.
“This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such a ‘fine and innocent person,'” President Trump wrote on X. “They said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles, and two Highly Respected Courts found that he was a member of MS-13, beat up his wife, etc. I was elected to take bad people out of the United States, among other things. I must be allowed to do my job. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
The clash over President Donald Trump’s bid to exercise unprecedented powers in deporting migrants deepened Sunday as he again bashed the judiciary, while a top Democrat warned the country was “closer and closer” to a constitutional crisis.
The latest events followed a dramatic intervention by the Supreme Court in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday to temporarily block Trump’s use of an obscure law to deport Venezuelan migrants without due process.
Trump lashed out Sunday on his Truth Social platform, not specifically naming the high court but slamming the “WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our Nation to continue, an attack so violent that it will never be forgotten!”
Samuel Alito, one of two conservative high-court justices to vote against the halt, called the emergency ruling by the court’s majority “legally questionable.”
As of Saturday morning, the White House had not immediately responded to a request from Reuters for comment. When President Trump was asked on Friday about the planned deportations of the Venezuelan men, he claimed he was unfamiliar with the particular case, but said that “if they’re bad people,” he would “certainly authorize it.”
The Trump administration—including the president, Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and other immigration officials—have in the few months since taking office rolled out a coordinated onslaught against immigrants, both documented and not, across the country. This comes after Trump, when running for office, referred to immigrants as “animals” and said that they are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
In March, more than 130 men whom the Trump administration claimed were Tren de Aragua members were deported to El Salvador. Family members and lawyers for the men have said they were singled out because of tattoos that they have, but an expert on the gang told NBC that tattoos are not closely connected with affiliation to Tren de Aragua and that “Venezuelan gangs are not identified by tattoos.” (Immigration officials have maintained that they did not solely rely on tattoos to identify the deportees as alleged gang members.)
Speaking to reporters at Dulles airport in Washington on Friday afternoon, the senator Chris Van Hollen just accused the government of El Salvador of creating the hoax he called “Margarita-gate”, by placing a pair of cocktail glasses on the table between himself and Kilmar Ábrego García as they met the night before, to make it look as though they were enjoying drinks.
Those photographs were posted on X by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, along with a caption that downplayed the seriousness of the situation by falsely claiming that the senator and the wrongly deported man had been “sipping margaritas” as they met on Thursday evening.
But the senator said that the drinks were placed there during the meeting by someone from the Salvadoran government before the photographs were taken and that neither he nor Ábrego García had touched them. Van Hollen pointed out that there was visual evidence for this in the photographs: the rims of both glasses were covered in salt or sugar, but it was clear from the images that neither glass had been drunk from, since the rims were undisturbed.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer has denied a request from two Democrat Representatives who sought approval of funds to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador.
Reps. Robert Garcia and Maxwell Frost had asked to receive funds from the Congressional budget (that’s taxpayer money) to fly down to El Salvador and meet with alleged MS-13 gang member and wife-beater Abrego Garcia.
Comer bluntly shut down the request, telling the Democrat Congressmen that he will “not approve a single dime of taxpayer funds” to be used for such a purpose. He noted that Democrat Sen. Van Hollen already visited Abrego Garcia.
“If you also wish to meet with him, you can spend your own money,” he stated.
The clash over President Donald Trump‘s bid to exercise unprecedented powers in deporting migrants deepened Sunday as he again bashed the judiciary, while a top Democrat warned the country was “closer and closer” to a constitutional crisis.
The latest events followed a dramatic intervention by the Supreme Court in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday to temporarily block Trump‘s use of an obscure law to deport Venezuelan migrants without due process.
Trump lashed out Sunday on his Truth Social platform, not specifically naming the high court but slamming the “WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our Nation to continue, an attack so violent that it will never be forgotten!”
Samuel Alito, one of two conservative high-court justices to vote against the halt, called the emergency ruling by the court’s majority “legally questionable.”
“Literally in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief… without hearing from the opposing party,” Alito wrote in his dissent.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) raised $9.6 million in the first three months of the year — more than double her second-highest quarter — a massive haul that comes amid increasing calls by progressives for her to mount a 2028 primary challenge against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
A leader of the progressive movement, Ocasio-Cortez has long been a fundraising powerhouse who draws upon a vast network of small-dollar donors.
She said in a post on X that the average campaign donation was $21, and campaign manager Oliver Hidalgo-Wohlleben said in a statement that 64 percent of contributions came from first-time donors, adding that “AOC doesn’t take a dollar from lobbyists or corporate PACS. Our top donor professions are teachers and nurses.”
“I cannot convey enough how grateful I am to the millions of people supporting us with your time, resources, & energy,” Ocasio-Cortez said of her fundraising. “Your support has allowed us to rally people together at record scale to organize their communities.”
A federal judge in Puerto Rico issued a scathing order last week accusing Democratic prosecutors on the island of plagiarizing nearly their entire 241-page complaint that blamed oil companies for causing global warming.
In the order Wednesday, district court judge Aida Delgado-Colon outlined how David Efron, the lead attorney representing Puerto Rico’s capital city San Juan, appears to have plagiarized a similar but separate complaint that 16 Puerto Rican municipalities filed a year earlier. A side-by-side comparison of the two complaints shows large blocks of text are copied word-for-word.
Delgado-Colon wrote that the situation should serve as a cautionary tale for all members of the bar, characterizing San Juan’s complaint and subsequent briefs as “copycat filings” and stating that the case presents an “astonishing example of plagiarism in the legal profession.” She added that a monetary sanction charging Efron would be insufficient to address the seriousness of the circumstances and said a separate order is needed to properly address it.
“Attorney Efron’s plagiarism constitutes attorney misconduct and an ethical violation,” she wrote. “The touchstone of plagiarism is lack of attribution. As in law school, passing someone else’s work off as one’s own is wrong as a matter of fact and professional ethics.”
Two years after Gallup said that more Americans identified as Republicans than Democrats for the first time in over three decades, the trend has expanded as the GOP has won over more support from Hispanic and black voters.
The one-point edge Gallup discovered in January 2023 has grown to five points in a new Napolitan News survey of 9,300 registered voters.
In that survey shared with Secrets, 46% said that they considered themselves Republicans or leaned Republican, while 41% considered themselves Democrats or leaned Democrat.
In the Gallup survey of 10,000 adults, 45% identified as Republicans and 44% as Democrats.
Napolitan pollster Scott Rasmussen said that while the numbers appear to favor Republicans and even President Donald Trump, voters can be fickle and sometimes change their partisan identification.
“While it’s hard for people in the political world to accept, party ID is fluid. During a campaign season, people who think of themselves as independent tend to align with a party — or at least lean toward a party. That’s why the number of Republicans goes up with a Trump victory,” he said.
Trump has been pushing to turn every federal agency into an effective tool for catching and deporting illegal immigrants. And wouldn’t you know it, acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause couldn’t handle doing the right thing and resigned.
And guess who’s likely to take her place? Gary Shapley, the IRS whistleblower who blew the lid off the Hunter Biden tax probe. He testified under oath that he faced retaliation simply for doing his job and cooperating with congressional investigators looking into the shady business dealings of the president’s son. Now, according to the Associated Press, Shapley is expected to be promoted to acting commissioner of the IRS.
Shapley and fellow IRS investigator Joseph Ziegler were sidelined from the Hunter Biden probe in December 2022 after raising serious concerns with their superiors. According to their testimony, the Justice Department under then-U.S. Attorney David Weiss repeatedly “slow-walked investigative steps” and stalled enforcement actions in the critical months leading up to the 2020 election.