alien

The heat hits me as soon as I open the door, the single panes of glass in the wall-width window drawing the late afternoon sunlight into my room. The red linoleum floor and minimalist interior do little to soften the impact; I wonder how I’m going to sleep. On the opposite side of the corridor, another member of the group I’m travelling with has a much cooler studio, complete with a small balcony that I immediately recognise from archive black and white photographs.

Unconsciously echoing the building’s past, we start using this as a common room, perching on the tubular steel chairs, browsing the collection of books on the desk and discussing what it must have been like to live here. At night, my room stays warm and noise travels easily through the walls and stairwells; it’s not the best night’s rest I’ve ever had, but it’s worth it for the experience.

I’m in Dessau, Germany, in the accommodation block once inhabited by students and junior masters at the famous Bauhaus school. Also known as the Prellerhaus, the studios are part of a larger asymmetrical complex of connected workshops, classrooms and social spaces – the iconic Bauhaus Building.

Designed by German architect and Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius after the school moved here in 1925, and completed in 1926, the revolutionary structure is a mix of glass, steel and concrete. It was a physical expression of the school’s ideas and remains a symbol of European modernism to this day. “It landed here like an alien spaceship,” says Oliver Klimpel, head of the curatorial workshop at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation.

Founded in Weimar in 1919, the highly influential school rejected the principles of local and traditional architecture and design and pursued those that were simple, rational and functional, using innovative ways of teaching and working. Forced to leave Weimar just six years later, owing to financial and political pressure, the school relocated to Dessau in Saxony-Anhalt – then a rising industrial hub with an entrepreneurial spirit and social democratic government – a century ago this year.

What followed was a highly successful period for the school and a stronger focus on developing prototypes of furniture, household objects and other items for mass production. Art increasingly merged with industry. “They switched from solid wood to plywood sheets, from upholstery to steel tubes and iron yarn,” our guide, Anke John, explains, standing in Gropius’s old office, where the stench from the triolin floor still lingers. It was in Dessau that Marcel Breuer designed the iconic Wassily Chair, for example.

Bauhaus buildings also sprung up across town, before the rise of National Socialism saw the school move again in 1932, this time to Berlin, for one final year before the Nazis came to power.

“The empty rooms in the workshop wing appear clean and spacious now, but they were packed with different workshops for printing, weaving, woodwork and metalwork, with tools and machines; it was messy and loud, a maker’s space,” explains Klimpel, adding that the common portrayal of a perfectionist modernist practice in an art school can be very misleading.

While regular heatwaves were less of a problem in the 1920s – temperatures were in the high 30s when I visited – the three-storey glass curtain wall, in pursuit of transparency, still created difficult, greenhouse-like conditions in summer. “It was part of the practical research to see what worked and what didn’t; you learned with the building and lived within the experiment,” adds Klimpel.

The structure has undergone changes over time, including repairs to wartime bomb damage, reconstruction of the facade in 1976, and an extensive restoration project based on the original plans, completed in 2006. Today it’s home to a shop, a cafe, exhibition spaces and the offices of the non-profit Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. The students’ studios are open to overnight guests, each one kitted out with Bauhaus-inspired furniture, some in the style of former residents such as Josef Albers (studio 204) and Marianne Brandt (studio 302).

Visitors can also head to other Bauhaus-related locations in town using a signposted cycle route, taking the number 10 bus (the Bauhauslinie) or by joining a guided tour. I start by walking over to the restored Masters’ Houses, just a short distance away from the Bauhaus Building. Set among towering oaks and pines, these cubic-like white structures with black window frames, plus two abstract rebuilds, are where key figures such as Kandinsky, Klee, Moholy-Nagy and Gropius once lived with their families. It feels sleepy and subdued here now, quiet enough to hear acorns crunching under my feet.

Other spots not to miss include the Kornhaus, a restaurant with a semicircular glazed conservatory on the banks of the Elbe, built in 1929; the Arbeitsamt, the yellow-brick employment office designed by Gropius in 1929; and the Dessau Törten housing estate (1926-28), with its rows of modest two-storey, flat-roofed homes, developed to address the housing shortage. The striking Bauhaus Museum, designed by architects from Barcelona and open since 2019, provides plenty of background information and is home to the second largest collection of Bauhaus-related objects in the world, including teaching notes and drafts from the workshops.

To mark the centenary of the school’s move to Dessau, a programme of events and exhibitions – titled An die Substanz/To the Core – will take place throughout 2025 and 2026, focusing on materials of the modern era. Celebrations kick off this month and include modern interpretations of the so-called Material Dances, part of the course Der Mensch (The Human Being), introduced by Bauhaus teacher Oskar Schlemmer in 1928. Other highlights will include Invisible Bauhaus Dessau, a new digital tour covering the early days of the Bauhaus members in Dessau, and five central exhibitions opening in March 2026.

In between the festivities and the Bauhaus sites, it’s impossible not to notice the decline of this city, which has been merged with Roßlau since 2007. Blocks of GDR flats with worn-down facades are easy to spot and the streets feel quiet, almost deserted, at times. Like many places in eastern Germany, reunification has seen the population shrink, and gradually age. In recent years, the rightwing party Alternative für Deutschland has gained increasing support in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, its influence extending to culture and the Bauhaus.

Coming here requires a degree of imagination and reflection. You have to remind yourself that these buildings and ideas were completely new, occasionally provocative, in the 1920s. That the Bauhaus teachers really lived in those white houses. That the workshops were loud and dusty. That students held wild parties and piled out on to those balconies. That Dessau was once a booming place. That this school from a corner of Germany has found its way into everyday design around the world.

The trip was supported by the German tourist board. For more information about the centenary, see bauhaus-dessau.de. A night at the Bauhaus starts from €55. Toilets, showers and kitchenettes are shared, but found on every floor

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court panel has ruled that President Trump cannot use an 18th century wartime law to speed the deportations of people his administration accuses of being in a Venezuelan gang. The decision blocking an administration priority is destined for a showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Two judges on a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in the ruling Tuesday, agreed with immigrant rights lawyers and lower court judges who argued the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 was not intended to be used against gangs such as Tren de Aragua, which the Republican president had targeted in March.

Lee Gelernt, who argued the case for the ACLU, said the administration’s use of “a wartime statute during peacetime to regulate immigration was rightly shut down by the court. This is a critically important decision reining in the administration’s view that it can simply declare an emergency without any oversight by the courts.”

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said the majority erred in second-guessing the president.

“The authority to conduct national security operations in defense of the United States and to remove terrorists from the United States rests solely with the President,” Jackson said. “We expect to be vindicated on the merits in this case.”

The administration deported people designated as Tren de Aragua members to a notorious prison in El Salvador and argued that American courts could not order them freed.

In a deal announced in July, more than 250 of the deported migrants returned to Venezuela.

The Alien Enemies Act was only used three times before in U.S. history, all during declared wars — in the War of 1812 and the two world wars.

The administration unsuccessfully argued that courts cannot second-guess the president’s determination that Tren de Aragua was connected to Venezuela’s government and represented a danger to the United States, meriting use of the act.

In a 2-1 ruling, the judges said they granted the preliminary injunction sought by the plaintiffs because they “found no invasion or predatory incursion” in this case.

The decision bars deportations from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. In the majority were U.S. Circuit Judges Leslie Southwick, who was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush, and Irma Carrillo Ramirez, who was nominated by Democratic President Biden. Andrew Oldham, a Trump nominee, dissented.

The majority opinion said Trump’s allegations about Tren de Aragua did not meet the historical levels of national conflict that Congress intended for the act.

“A country’s encouraging its residents and citizens to enter this country illegally is not the modern-day equivalent of sending an armed, organized force to occupy, to disrupt, or to otherwise harm the United States,” the judges wrote.

In a lengthy dissent, Oldham complained his two colleagues were second-guessing Trump’s conduct of foreign affairs and national security, realms where courts usually give the president great deference.

“The majority’s approach to this case is not only unprecedented — it is contrary to more than 200 years of precedent,” Oldham wrote.

The panel did grant the Trump administration one legal victory, finding the procedures it uses to advise detainees under the Alien Enemies Act of their legal rights were appropriate.

The ruling can be appealed to the full 5th Circuit or directly to the Supreme Court, which is likely to make the ultimate decision on the issue.

The Supreme Court has already gotten involved twice before in the tangled history of the Trump administration’s use of the act. In the initial weeks after Trump’s March declaration, the court ruled that the administration could deport people under the act, but unanimously found that those targeted needed to be given a reasonable chance to argue their case before judges in the areas where they were held.

Then, as the administration moved to rapidly deport more Venezuelans from Texas, the high court stepped in again with an unusual, post-midnight ruling that they couldn’t do so until the 5th Circuit decided whether the administration was providing adequate notice to the immigrants and could weigh in on the broader legal issues of the case. The high court has yet to address whether a gang can be cited as an alien enemy under the act.

Riccardi writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.

In the early 20th century it was widely thought that there was intelligent life on Mars, and that we actually knew something about the inhabitants. Fringe theorists and yellow journalists spread this view, but so did respected scientists and the New York Times. The U.S. and much of the rest of the world had Martians on the brain. The mania could be summed up by the philosophy of Fox Mulder, the paranormal investigator played by David Duchovny on “The X-Files”: “I want to believe.”

How this came to pass is the subject of “The Martians.” David Baron’s deeply researched and witty book explores what happened when “we, the people of Earth, fell hard for another planet and projected our fantasies, desires, and ambitions onto an alien world.” As Baron writes, “This romance blazed before it turned to embers, and it produced children, for we — the first humans who might actually sail to Mars — are its descendants.”

Well before there was Elon Musk, there was Percival Lowell. A disillusioned, admittedly misanthropic Boston Brahmin, Lowell came to see himself as a scientist with the soul of a poet, or a poet with scientific instincts. He was also filthy rich, and he poured much of his money into equipment and research that might help him prove there was life on Mars.

David Baron, a Colorado-based science writer, approaches his subject with clarity, style and narrative drive.

(Dana C. Meyer)

He was hardly alone. Other movers and shakers in the Martian movement included French astronomer and philosopher Camille Flammarion, who brought missionary zeal to the task of convincing the world of extraterrestrial life; and Giovanni Schiaparelli, the colorblind Italian astronomer who observed “an abundance of narrow streaks” on Mars “that appeared to connect the seas one to another.” He called these “canali,” which in Italian means “channels.” But in English the word was translated as “canals,” and it was quickly and widely assumed that these canals were strategically created by agriculturally-inclined Martians. Lowell, Flammarion and Schiaparelli collaborated and communicated with one another throughout their lives, in the interest of spreading the word of life on Mars.

Baron, a Colorado-based science writer, approaches his subject with clarity, style and narrative drive, focusing on the social currents and major figures of his story rather than scientific concepts that might go over the head of a lay reader (including this one). The Mars craze unfolded during a period defined by the theory of evolution, which expanded our conception of gradualism and inexorable progress, and tabloid journalism, which was quick to present enthusiastic postulation and speculation as fact, whether the subject was the Spanish-American War or life on other planets. Science fiction was also taking off, thanks largely to a prolific Englishman named H.G. Wells, whose widely serialized attack-of-the-Martians story “War of the Worlds” piqued the Western imagination. All of the above contributed to Mars fever.

One by one Baron introduces his protagonists, including Musk’s hero Nikola Tesla. An innovator in wireless communication and what would now be called remote control, Tesla won over the press and public with his enigmatic charm, which led his pronouncements to be taken seriously and literally by those who should have known better. “I have an instrument by which I can receive with precision any signal that might be made to this world from Mars,” he told a reporter. Tesla briefly had a powerful benefactor in Wall Street king J.P. Morgan, who funded Tesla’s wireless research before deciding the Mars obsession was a bit much and cutting him off.

Baron comes not to bury the Mars mania, but to examine the reasons why we choose to believe what we believe. Lowell, spurned in his romantic life and treated as a black sheep by his dynastic family, found in Mars a calling, a raison d’être. As Baron writes, “Mars gave his life purpose; it offered him the means to prove himself a success worthy of the Lowell pedigree.” The Mars believers were dreamers and misfits, all with something to prove (or, in the case of some publishers, papers to sell).

As Baron points out, the scientific method often fell by the wayside amid the hullabaloo. An acquaintance of Lowell’s bemoaned the habit Lowell had of “jumping at some general idea or theorem,” after which he “selects and bends facts to underprop that generalization.” Lowell himself once advised an assistant, “It is better never to admit that you have made a mistake.” Or later, as he sought photographic evidence of the Mars canals: “We must secure some canals to confound the skeptics” — which, today, carries eerie echoes of “Find me the votes.”

None of which should denigrate the dreams of space exploration. Nobody, after all, imagined we would actually walk on the moon. Carl Sagan, the great science popularizer and member of the Mariner 9 team that captured groundbreaking images of Mars in 1971, concluded that those canals were, as Baron puts it, “mere chimeras, an amalgam of misperceptions due to atmospheric distortion, the fallible human eye, and one man’s unconstrained imagination.” But that imagination, Sagan added, had value of its own: “Even if Lowell’s conclusions about Mars, including the existence of the fabled canals, turned out to be bankrupt, his depiction of the planet had at least this virtue: it aroused generations of eight-year-olds, myself among them, to consider the exploration of the planets as a real possibility, to wonder if we ourselves might go to Mars.”

L.A. Times contributor Vognar recently joined the staff of the Boston Globe.

The cast of the terrifying new Alien series have admitted they weren’t particularly scared of the iconic space menace on set for one simple reason

Alien: Earth’s cast have revealed the man inside the iconic Xenomorph suit was anything but frightening behind the scenes.

Created by award-winning Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley, the new FX series, premiering this week on Disney+ in the UK, serves as a prequel to Ridley Scott’s sci-fi nightmare from 1979.

The series’ ensemble cast includes newcomers and familiar faces, including Timothy Olyphant, Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther and Babou Ceesay.

Of course, no entry in the Alien franchise is complete without the terrifying titular extraterrestrials and Hawley has emphasised a return to visceral practical effects to bring the horror to life.

Previewing the series at Alien: Earth’s London premiere, the cast revealed performer Cameron Brown was primarily inside the classic black suit that’s been horrifying fans for over 40 years.

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“It was Cameron Brown, who’s a vegan,” Ceesay shared. “Dressed in an eight-foot suit.

“Snarling in your face, K-Y jelly dripping out of his mouth. Yeah, scary.”

However, Ceesay and the rest of the cast couldn’t help giggling as they fondly remembered their time with Brown on set.

Lawther added: “It’s really easy to run away scared from a Xenomorph when it’s really a man who’s a Xenomorph chasing you.”

The cast also revealed their alien-suited co-star would frequently take breaks to munch on carrot sticks and hummus, in stark contrast to his flesh-eating screen persona.

During a panel discussion at Comic-Con’s Hall H, lead actress Chandler previously admitted she was “giddy” to be chased by a Xenomorph, calling Brown “the sweetest person in the world“, per GoldDerby.

And Lawther agreed at the time: “There’s something hysterical about the fearsomeness of the Xenomorph, but then he takes off his head, and he’s from New Zealand, and he doesn’t eat meat.

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“If you think me and Sydney are soft-spoken, just wait till you meet the Xenomorph.”

Die-hard fans of the original film by director Ridley Scott, as well as its subsequent sequels, will be thrilled to discover that Hawley relied on practical effects and sets as often as possible.

Elaborating on the advantages of practical techniques versus CGI, he explained: “I think it’s meaningful, both to the cast and, I think audiences know when something’s real or not real.

“We’ve gotten very good at tricking them, but, usually, what you need is some realistic element in the shot.

“The thing with horror is your imagination does most of the work for you, so you don’t want to see the monster for too long. You want to see the shadows, you want to see the open door.

“The shot is half a second and you’ve got a tail on a fishing line and that’s probably gonna work, you know what I mean?”

Critics are saying the Alien franchise is better than ever with the new TV prequel, but will it win fans over who think the Xenomorphs should have stayed in space? Find out soon.

Alien: Earth premieres Wednesday, 13th August on Disney+.

For a limited time only, witness the first stage of the life cycle of the Xenomorph up close with a thrilling new display at London’s Natural History Museum.

Visitors can touch real pieces of the solar system at the Museum’s blockbuster exhibition, Space: Could Life Exist Beyond Earth?, and discover more about one of pop culture’s most iconic and frightening creatures just by the entrance until Friday, 22nd August.

Alien: Earth is the latest instalment in the Alien franchise and is set to arrive on Disney+ in just a week’s time

Alien: Earth, the eagerly awaited TV extension of the iconic Alien franchise, takes its cues from Ridley Scott’s seminal 1979 horror film.

Hot on the heels of last year’s Alien: Romulus, the blood-curdling space thriller is back with a vengeance, offering another chilling perspective on the lethal Xenomorphs.

This eight-part series springs from the creative genius of showrunner Noah Hawley, celebrated for his work on Fargo and Legion, both critically lauded reinterpretations of the Coen Brothers’ eponymous film and the X-Men universe.

Hawley is gearing up to unveil his latest FX collaboration shortly, with Alien: Earth set to land on Disney+ and Hulu in just a week’s time, ready to send shivers down the spines of fans across the globe.

As the new series stands on the brink of becoming another streaming sensation, let’s delve into what we know so far about this enigmatic extension of the Alien narrative, reports the Express.

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When does Alien: Earth hit our screens?

The opening two episodes of Alien: Earth are slated for release on Tuesday, 12th August on FX and FX on Hulu stateside.

However, British viewers will have to exercise a bit more patience as the episodes will be available the following day, Wednesday 13th August, on Disney+.

The remainder of the inaugural season will then unfold episodically, with fresh episodes dropping every Tuesday in the US and Wednesdays in the UK.

So far, four episodes have been given official titles, kicking off with the two-part opener Neverland and Mr. October, followed by Metamorphosis and Observation.

Who is in the cast of Alien: Earth?

The series boasts a star-studded cast led by up-and-coming actress Sydney Chandler, who portrays Wendy, a synthetic body imbued with human consciousness, referred to as a hybrid.

Chandler, daughter of Hollywood star Kyle Chandler, is recognised for her performance in Don’t Worry Darling and last year’s Colin Farrell-fronted thriller, Sugar.

Other big names include Deadwood’s Timothy Olyphant as Kirsh, a synthetic, and Andor’s Alex Lawther as CJ ‘Hermit’, Wendy’s human brother and a medic.

The main cast also comprises:

• Samuel Blenkin as Boy Kavalier, the human CEO of the Prodigy Corporation
• Essie Davis as Dame Silvia, a human
• Adarsh Gourav as Slightly, a hybrid
• Kit Young as Tootles, a hybrid
• David Rysdahl as Arthur, a human scientist and Dame Silvia’s husband
• Babou Ceesay as Morrow, a cyborg (human with some synthetic parts) security officer
• Jonathan Ajayi as Smee, a hybrid
• Erana James as Curly, a hybrid
• Lily Newmark as Nibs, a hybrid
• Diêm Camille as Siberian, a human soldier
• Adrian Edmondson as Atom Eins

The series will additionally feature Moe Bar-El, Sandra Yi Sencindiver, Richa Moorjani, Karen Aldridge, Enzo Cilenti, Max Rinehart, Amir Boutrous, Victoria Masoma, Tom Moya, Andy Yu, Michael Smiley, Jamie Bisping and Tanapol Chuksrida in supporting roles.

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What happens in Alien: Earth?

While most plot details remain shrouded in mystery, fans can glean a rough idea of what the first season holds from its brief synopsis.

Confirmed as a prequel set two years prior to the original Alien film, it sees a terrifying alien menace pitted against an unlikely band of heroes following a catastrophic collision with Earth.

The synopsis teases: “When the space vessel Maginot crash-lands on Earth, a young woman and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet’s biggest threat.”

Is there a trailer for Alien: Earth?

Eager Alien fans can now feast their eyes on the thrilling new series with a two-minute trailer that dropped in early June.

The gripping teaser, launched with the ominous words “We were safer in space”, introduces Wendy’s character as the first-ever hybrid leading a squad of synthetic-humans on a daring rescue mission in the wake of the Maginot’s downfall.

Moreover, the trailer unveils a pivotal twist for the Alien saga, revealing that the Xenomorph wasn’t the only creature aboard the ship; four other entities from the “darkest corners of the universe” are also set to unleash chaos on Earth.

Alien: Earth premieres Tuesday, 12th August on FX and FX on Hulu and Wednesday, 13th August on Disney+.

WASHINGTON — The State Department is proposing requiring applicants for business and tourist visas to post a bond of up to $15,000 to enter the United States, a move that may make the process unaffordable for many.

In a notice to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, the department said it would start a 12-month pilot program under which people from countries deemed to have high overstay rates and deficient internal document security controls could be required to post bonds of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 when they apply for a visa.

The proposal comes as the Trump administration is tightening requirements for visa applicants. Last week, the State Department announced that many visa renewal applicants would have to submit to an additional in-person interview, something that was not required in the past. In addition, the department is proposing that applicants for the Visa Diversity Lottery program have valid passports from their country of citizenship.

A preview of the bond notice, which was posted on the Federal Register website on Monday, said the pilot program would take effect within 15 days of its formal publication and is necessary to ensure that the U.S. government is not financially liable if a visitor does not comply with the terms of his or her visa.

“Aliens applying for visas as temporary visitors for business or pleasure and who are nationals of countries identified by the department as having high visa overstay rates, where screening and vetting information is deemed deficient, or offering citizenship by investment, if the alien obtained citizenship with no residency requirement, may be subject to the pilot program,” the notice said.

The countries affected will be listed once the program takes effect, it said.

The bond would not apply to citizens of countries enrolled in the Visa Waiver Program and could be waived for others depending on an applicant’s individual circumstances.

Visa bonds have been proposed in the past but have not been implemented. The State Department has traditionally discouraged the requirement because of the cumbersome process of posting and discharging a bond and because of a possible misperceptions by the public.

However, the department said that previous view “is not supported by any recent examples or evidence, as visa bonds have not generally been required in any recent period.”

Lee writes for the Associated Press.

SAN DIEGO — Over the years, Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con has built a reputation — and an expectation — as the room where Hollywood juggernauts in attendance at the annual pop culture extravaganza unveil exclusive footage, break news and share behind-the-scenes stories with devoted fans, who often spend hours in line just for a chance to make it through the doors.

It’s not surprising, then, that headlines going into this year’s Comic-Con, which concludes Sunday, carried an air of disappointment about the absence of Marvel and other major film studios from Hall H’s programming schedule — even if 2025 is not the first time Marvel and others have sat out Comic-Con for one reason or another.

But for many fans in attendance, the news merited little more than a shrug.

Hector Guzman, who along with his friend Joaquin Horas made the trip from Los Angeles, acknowledged that the Hall H slate “felt a little bit different this year” with no Marvel Studios panel.

But “there’s still a wide presence of Marvel,” he added. “The ‘Fantastic Four’ movie that just came out — we’ve been seeing a heavy push on that this year.”

Guzman and Horas had spent a little over an hour in the Hall H line Friday afternoon trying to make it to the “Tron: Ares” panel before bailing, but they said that in their three years of attending the event, Hall H usually isn’t on their itinerary.

“If it’s interesting to us, we’ll give it a shot, and if it’s not, then there’s always plenty of other events and stuff going around [the convention],” said Horas. He and Guzman explained that they are generally more interested in exclusive merchandise, custom works by artists and getting together with their friends in cosplay.

Other attendees like Jennifer Moore and Sam Moore of British Columbia, Canada, took advantage of the absence of popular Hall H mainstays to get into Friday presentations they were excited about, including for “Alien: Earth” and “The Long Walk.”

“Last year was my first time [in Hall H],” said Jennifer Moore, who said they’d been attending the event for 10 years.

“Now [that] there’s no Marvel thing or DC thing, it’s pretty easy to get in,” said Sam Moore. “We’ve just been doing walk-ins [for Hall H] this year.”

That’s not to say Hall H was entirely without spectacle: Highlights included an ensemble of bagpipers performing “Scotland the Brave,” a dazzling laser light show, the world premiere of the “Alien” franchise’s first ever television series and an appearance by “Star Wars” filmmaker George Lucas to promote the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

A look inside the “Tron: Ares” Hall H panel at Comic-Con.

(Richard Shotwell / Invision / AP)

And although the Comic-Con experience has grown beyond the walls of the San Diego Convention Center, with immersive experiences and pop-ups spilling into the city’s Gaslamp Quarter and the Embarcadero, Hall H remains a venerated programming space for panelists and attendees alike.

“I want to give people the experience that they bought their tickets for to come here,” said Noah Hawley, the creator of “Alien: Earth” before the upcoming FX series’ Hall H presentation on Friday. “I was surprised the first time I came to Comic-Con, how emotional it is for the people who attend. There’s a lot of people for whom [361] days a year, they have to pretend to be somebody else. These [four] days of the year, they get to be who they really feel like they are on the inside.”

The Moores were among those who were able to make it into Hall H without much of a wait on Friday morning. But by Friday afternoon, the line had grown much longer in anticipation for later panels, which included capacity crowds. Other big draws included anime franchise entry “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle” and DC Studios co-chief James Gunn, who received an ovation for the success of his recent “Superman” reboot while presenting the second season of the John Cena series “Peacemaker.”

Even those who were attending Comic-Con to promote their own projects couldn’t hold in their excitement for anime juggernaut “Demon Slayer.” Besides the Hall H, panel ads promoting the upcoming movie — which has already broken attendance records in Japan — adorned a nearby hotel and the trains of the Trolley.

“There is a part of me that just wants to be out with the fans in my Tanjiro outfit with the earrings with my daughter,” said actor Babou Ceesay of “Alien: Earth,” referencing the young warrior with a gentle heart at the center of “Demon Slayer.”

The growth of anime and animation programming at Comic-Con and inside Hall H is a reminder that the convention is best understood as a reflection of ongoing shifts in nerd culture and fandom. Having evolved from a gathering primarily for comic book collectors to a broader celebration of pop culture where blockbuster movies once had a stranglehold, Comic-Con may now be witnessing the loosening of comic book superhero films’ grip on the zeitgeist as a whole. Indeed, television has steadily increased its Comic-Con footprint for years. Studios and streamers have also been organizing their own promotional events, such as Disney’s D23 and Netflix’s Tudum, to build up buzz on their terms, too.

Plus, as fan Robbie Weber of Los Angeles reiterated, Comic-Con is more than just what happens in Hall H. When he first attended the event 11 years ago he was among those that camped out overnight in order to get into the hall, but this time around he skipped it, opting to explore activations and other panels instead.

“We saw [comic book writer] Jonathan Hickman [on Thursday],” said Weber. “We saw a friend on the “Primitive War” panel [on Friday], which was really cool. It was the first time I’ve been able to see a friend do something like that.”

For many, Comic-Con’s main draw remains how fans can freely celebrate their passions.

“Alien: Earth” actor Alex Lawther said it was nice to hear the excitement of the people around him on his San Diego-bound train as they reminisced about their past experiences and shared photos of their cosplay.

“I really get that intense enjoyment of something to the point where you want to walk down the street wearing the costumes,” he said.

SAN DIEGO — Sydney Chandler has wanted to attend San Diego Comic-Con as a fan for years.

So it’s “surreal” that the actor’s first experience with the annual pop culture expo is to promote her upcoming FX series “Alien: Earth.” Chandler stars in the “Alien” prequel as Wendy, a young girl whose consciousness has been transferred to an android.

“To be able to do it in this capacity is just mind-blowing,” she tells The Times in advance of the show’s Hall H premiere on Friday. “It’s emotional because we worked on this for so long and I learned so much. … I’m kind of at a loss of words.”

She does have words of appreciation, though, including for what she’s learned from her character.

“Her journey of finding out how to hold her own and stand on her own two feet taught me so much,” says Chandler. “I’m an overthinker. I’m an anxious person. I would have run so fast. I would not be as brave as her, but she taught me … that it’s OK to just stand on your own two feet, and that’s enough. That’s powerful.”

Even before the show’s Hall H panel, fans have gathered on the sidewalk outside of the Hard Rock Hotel San Diego to catch a glimpse of Chandler and her “Alien: Earth” cast mates Timothy Olyphant, Alex Lawther, Samuel Blenkin and Babou Ceesay, along with creator Noah Hawley and executive producer David Zucker, on their short trek to the bus that would transport them to the convention center for the show’s world premiere.

On the ride over, Hawley betrays no nerves about people seeing the first episode.

“I really think, in a strange way, it plays for all ages because it is about growing up on some level,” says the showrunner. “But it’s also ‘Alien,’ and it is a meditation on power and corporate power. ”

Huddled together on the bus with Lawther and Blenkin, Ceesay is surprised to learn that this is the first time attending San Diego Comic-Con for all three. There’s plenty of good-natured ribbing as they talk about the early interviews they’ve completed at the event.

“I just sort of want to make jokes with you all the time,” says Lawther as he looks towards his cast mates. “I find it quite giddy in the experience, and I had to remind myself that I’m a professional.”

“Sometimes the British sarcasm instinct just kicks in,” Blenkin adds.

Their playful dynamic continues as they joke about crashing Ceesay’s other panel, and also backstage at Hall H as they try to sneak up on each other in the dark.

After the panel, the cast is whisked away for video interviews and signing posters at a fan meet-and-greet at a booth on the exhibit floor. (“Timothy, you’re the man!” shouts a fan passing by.) Later, Hawley, Chandler and Ceesay will hit the immersive “Alien: Earth” activation where they will explore the wreckage of a crashed ship.

“It’s such a safe space for people who just enjoy cinema and enjoy film,” Chandler says of Comic-Con. “And that’s me. I’m a complete nerd for all this stuff, so just to be around that group — it reminds me of why I love film so much in the first place.”

Alan Tudyk was nearly 50 when he scored his first starring role in a TV series as the titular extraterrestrial Harry Vanderspeigle in Syfy’s “Resident Alien.” It’s not that he was underemployed or little known — he’s been celebrated in genre circles since “Firefly,” the 2002 single-season western-themed space opera in which he played the sweet, comical pilot of a spaceship captained by smuggler Mal, played by Nathan Fillion, with whom he has since been linked in the interested public mind, like Hope and Crosby, or Fey and Poehler. His own 2015 web series “Con Man” (currently available on Prime Video), based on his experiences at sci-fi conventions, in which he and Fillion play inverted versions of themselves, was funded by an enormously successful crowd-sourced campaign, which raised $3,156,178 from 46,992 backers; clearly the people love him.

You can’t exactly call “Resident Alien” career-making, given how much Tudyk has worked, going back to onscreen roles in the late 20th century and on stage in New York, but it has made him especially visible over a long period in a marvelous show in a part for which he seems to have been fashioned. He has, indeed, often been invisible, with a parallel career as a voice artist, beginning with small parts in “Ice Age” in 2002; since channeling Ed Wynn for King Candy in Disney’s 2012 “Wreck-It Ralph” (which won him an Annie Award), the studio has used him regularly, like a good luck charm. You can hear him in “Frozen” (Duke of Weselton), “Big Hero 6” (Alistair Krei), “Zootopia” (Duke Weaselton), “Moana” (Hei Hei), “Encanto” (Pico) and “Wish” (Valentino). He played the Joker on “Harley Quinn” and voices Optimus Prime in “Transformers: EarthSpark.” Performing motion capture and voice-over, he was Sonny the emotional android in “I, Robot” and the dry droid K-2SO in both “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” and again in “Andor.” (He’s a robot again in the new “Superman” film.) This is a partial, one could even say fractional, list. Among animation and sci-fi fans, being the well-informed sorts they are, Tudyk is known and honored for this body of work as well.

Alan Tudyk at his home in Los Angeles last year. The actor has been in a variety of roles onscreen, on stage and as a voice actor.

(Ethan Benavidez / For The Times)

“Resident Alien,” whose fourth season is underway on Syfy, USA and Peacock (earlier seasons are available on Netflix, which has raised the show’s profile considerably), is a small town comedy with apocalyptic overtones. It sees Tudyk’s alien, whose natural form is of a giant, big-eyed, noseless humanoid with octopus DNA, imperfectly disguised as the new local doctor, whom he kills in the first episode. (We will learn that the doctor was, in fact, an assassin, which makes it sort of … all right?) Learning English from reruns of “Law & Order,” the being now called Harry will preposterously succeed in his masquerade, and in doing so, join a community that will ultimately improve him. (By local standards, at least.) It’s a fish way, way out of water story, with the difference that the fish has been sent to kill all the Earth fish — I am being metaphorical, he isn’t actually out to kill fish — although he is now working to save them from a different, nastier race of alien.

Some actors play their first part and suddenly their name is everywhere; others slide into public consciousness slowly, through a side door — which may lead, after all, to a longer, more varied career. Tudyk has the quality of having arrived, despite having been there all along. Like many actors with a long CV, he might surprise you, turning up on old episodes of “Strangers With Candy,” “Frasier,” “Arrested Development” or “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” or repeatedly crying “Cramped!” in a scene from “Patch Adams,” or in the movies “Wonder Boys,” “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Tale” or “3:10 to Yuma.” You might say to yourself, or the person you’re watching with, “Hey, that’s Alan Tudyk.” (You might add, “He hasn’t aged a bit.”) It was “Suburgatory,” an underloved ABC sitcom from 2011, though not underloved by me, where he played the confused best friend of star Jeremy Sisto, that, combined with “Firefly,” cemented Tudyk in my mind as someone I would always be happy to see.

He’s handsome in a pleasant, ordinary way. If he’s not exactly Hollywood’s idea of a leading man, it only points up the limitations of that concept. His eyes are maybe a trifle close set, his lips a little thin. There’s a softness to him that feeds into or productively contrasts with his characters, depending on where they fall on the good-bad or calm-hysterical scales. (In the current season of “Resident Alien,” a shape-shifting giant praying mantis has taken over Harry’s human identity, and this evil twin performance, which somehow fools Harry’s friends, is as frightening as the fact that the mantis eats people’s heads.) It makes his robots relatable and roots his more flamboyant characters, like Mr. Nowhere, the villain in the first season of “Doom Patrol” — who comments on the series from outside the fourth wall, inhabiting a white void where he might be discovered sitting on a toilet and reading a review of the show he’s in — in something like naturalism.

Sara Tomko and Alan Tudyk in a scene from Season 4 of “Resident Alien.”

(USA Network / James Dittiger / USA Network)

As Harry, Tudyk is never really calm. Relaxed neither in voice nor body, he tucks his lips inside his mouth and stretches it into a variety of blobby shapes. The actor can seem to be puppeteering his own expressions, which, in a way Harry is, or splitting the difference between a real person and an animated cartoon, in the Chuck Jones/Tex Avery sense of the term, which is not to say Tudyk overplays; he just hits the right note of exaggeration. Harry often has the air of being impatient to leave a scene and get on with whatever business he’s decided is important.

Though he’s given to explosive bursts of speech, as the character has developed, the humor he plays becomes more subtle and quiet, peppered with muttered comments and sotto voce asides he means to be heard. He is, as he likes to point out, the smartest and most powerful being around, but he has the emotional maturity of a child. At one point, having lost his alien powers, Harry was willing to sacrifice the entirety of his species to get them back.

Where once he had no emotions, now he is full of them. Last season, he was given a romance, with Heather (Edi Patterson), a bird person from outer space, which has continued into the current run; he is also a father, with a great affection — anomalous in his species — for his son, Bridget, an adorably fearsome little green creature. And he loves pie.

And that Tudyk himself seems genuinely nice — there are interviews with him up and down YouTube, and my friend David, who worked on “Firefly,” called him “kind, grateful and curious” — makes him easy to like, however likable a person he’s playing. That possibly shouldn’t matter when assessing an actor’s art, but it does anyway.

Ryan Gosling puts the “not” in “Astronaut” in the new trailer for “Project Hail Mary.”

The upcoming sci-fi film, based on Andy Weir‘s novel of the same name, stars Gosling as middle school teacher turned reluctant astronaut Ryland Grace, who’s tasked with saving humanity from the effects of a dimming sun. However, when he wakes up from a coma as the sole survivor aboard a spaceship, he must overcome his amnesia to remember where he is and why he was sent there.

“It’s an insanely ambitious story that’s massive in scope and it seemed really hard to make, and that’s kind of our bag,” Gosling said of “Project Hail Mary” at CinemaCon in April, where he debuted footage from the film, according to Variety. “This is why we go to the movies. And I’m not just saying it because I’m in it. I’m also saying it because I’m a producer on the film.”

The trailer, released Monday by Amazon MGM Studios, opens with Gosling startling awake on the spacecraft, his hair and beard uncharacteristically long. “I’m several light-years from my apartment,” he proclaims, “and I’m not an astronaut.”

It then jolts back in time to show Grace pre-launch as he learns from Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller) that if he does not journey into space, everything on Earth will go extinct. According to Stratt, who heads the mission, Grace is the only scientist who might understand what is happening to the sun and surrounding stars.

The trailer, which progresses through an intense montage set to Harry Styles’ “Sign of the Times,” teases Gosling’s signature humor. “I can’t even moonwalk!” the “Barbie” actor declares at one point. (Gosling portrayed moonwalker Neil Armstrong in another recent space movie, Damien Chazelle’s “First Man.”)

Everything leads up to Grace meeting an alien, who isn’t shown in full — but fans of the book know it plays an integral role in saving planet Earth and beyond.

The film, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, marks the second book-to-movie adaptation for Weir, whose novel “The Martian” became an Oscar-nominated 2015 blockbuster starring Matt Damon. An adaptation for his book “Artemis” is also in development with the same directing team.

“Project Hail Mary” hits theaters March 20.

EXCLUSIVE: Renowned DJ, Judge Jules, has opened up about his appearance on The Chase’s Celebrity Specia,l which saw a historic victory for him and his co-stars

Judge Jules has revealed that the pressure was eased slightly during his appearance on The Chase Celebrity special, thanks to his connection with the studio. The renowned DJ appeared on the ITV special last year alongside other famous faces, including Lesley Joseph, Jenni Falconer and Patrick Kielty.

The group went up against Shaun ‘The Dark Destroyer’ Wallace in the tense rounds before eventually all four celebs were part of the final chase. It was during the final round that they managed to get one over on Wallace and walked away with a total of £200,000 to split between their chosen charities.

But while some may crumble under the intense pressure of the ITV game show, lawyer and DJ Judge Jules, 58, admits that he didn’t feel too pressured due to a connection with the studios where the show is filmed. “I’m not nervous in my normal activities, before I go on the decks or anything else related to the music business,” he exclusively told the Mirror.

The Londoner went on to add: “It was a little bit nervy because it’s such an unfamiliar environment. The weird thing was, it’s filmed in Elstree Studios where EastEnders is filmed, or it was when I did it anyway. My dad (Shaun O’Riordan) worked there his entire working life, so I’d been to those studios multiple times – my dad was a TV director so I think maybe that eased off the pressure a little bit.”

Jules, who will be DJ’ing across the UK and Balerics this summer, went on to add: “It’s fast moving, you meet three others who you’ve never met before, all of you are there for a common purpose, it’s quite comedial backstage but at the same time, it’s more the alien environment.

“When you’re experienced in one area and suddenly you’re thrust into this alien environment, it makes it more nervous. We earned a chunk of money for charity, which was great. It was £200,00, so it was quite a lot.” This year, fans will see Judge Jules, the nephew of Rick Stein, at Tom Kerridge’s Pub In The Park Festival, Foodies, as well as dates across Ibiza and Sheffield’s 90s Fest at Don Valley Bowl.

“I’ve done quite a few food-oriented festivals,” he said. He went on to add: “I think the core element of the sound stage and DJ’ing is quite similar, it’s more about what’s going on around the edges. It’s one of those that, as a DJ, I might under normal circumstances turn up an hour before, do my set and then probably go reasonably soon afterwards if I’ve got somewhere else to go, whereas I would make a day of it because there’s so much more to do.”

Jules explained that he faced difficulties last year after taking part in a live cooking demonstration on the stage, which was “very comedic”. Last summer, he and his wife were also judges on a cocktail-making stage just before he took to the stage himself. “It’s a unique day out,” he joked.

He said: “It’s the perfect thing for the more senior music business person to go and do. It’s such a varied experience. There is more than just food stalls, there’s comedy, there’s music, it’s an amazing experience.” Reflecting on dance music taking centre stage at festivals this year, with Reading and Leeds Festivals bringing the Chevron Stage back, he said: “It’s a different immersive action at a festival, dance, music. I’m the ultimate salesperson for it, and I don’t really know any different. I’m truly institutionalised by the experience of sort of dance floors.”

Having been in the industry since the Eighties, it’s fair to say that Jules has seen his fair share of odd moments. One memory that sticks out to him during the vinyl era was one clubber running up to the decks and stealing the record, before running back through the crowd, while the record was actually playing.

June 2 (UPI) — A Trump-appointed judge in California on Monday blocked the Alien Enemies Act deportation of a Venezuelan migrant in the Los Angeles area, saying the administration failed to provide due process.

U.S. District Judge John Holcomb, who was nominated by President Donald Trump in 2019, issued a preliminary injunction to keep most Venezuelan migrants in central California, Los Angeles and Orange County from being deported under the 1798 law.

“The government is hereby preliminarily enjoined and restrained from removing or transferring out of this district any member of the putative class pursuant to the Proclamation pending further Order of the Court regarding the amount of notice and process that is due prior to removal,” Holcomb wrote.

The Alien Enemies Act allows the removal or deportation of migrants during an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” of the United States. Trump has argued that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua’s actions are a “predatory incursion.”

Holcomb’s ruling follows a complaint filed by Darin Antonio Arevalo Millan, a Venezuelan citizen currently being held at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Adelanto, Calif. Arevalo wanted the judge to order the government to provide at least 30 days’ notice before any deportation of Venezuelan citizens.

While the Trump administration told the court that Arevalo was not detained under the Alien Enemies Act, Holcomb ruled that Arevalo still “faces an imminent threat of removal.”

“Arevalo seeks to avoid being deported as an alien enemy without being afforded the opportunity to challenge that designation — not to avoid deportation altogether,” Holcomb wrote.

Judges in New York, Colorado and Texas have ruled that the president is misusing the Alien Enemies Act, while a judge in Pennsylvania ruled last month that Trump can use the law for alleged gang members if they are given enough notice for due process.

The U.S. Supreme Court also ruled last month that the Trump administration can revoke special legal protections for nearly 350,000 Venezuelan nationals living temporarily in the United States.

The Temporary Protection Status program is extended to migrants every 18 months, if they cannot live or work safely in their home country, due to war or natural disaster. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in February protections for certain migrants or violent gangs are not in the U.S. national interest.

The United States Supreme Court has granted an emergency petition from a group of migrants in Texas, barring the use of an 18th-century wartime law to expedite their removals.

Friday’s unsigned decision (PDF) is yet another blow to the administration of President Donald Trump, who has sought to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to swiftly deport undocumented immigrants out of the US.

Only two conservative justices dissented: Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

While the high court has yet to rule on the merits of Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, it did issue “injunctive relief” to Venezuelan migrants faced with expulsion under the centuries-old law.

“We have long held that ‘no person shall be’ removed from the United States ‘without opportunity, at some time, to be heard’,” the court majority wrote in its ruling.

It reaffirmed a previous opinion that migrants in the US are entitled to due process – in other words, they are entitled to a fair hearing in the judicial system – before their deportation.

Friday’s case was brought by two unnamed migrants from Venezuela, identified only by initials. They are being held in a detention centre in north Texas as they face deportation.

The Trump administration has accused them, and others from Venezuela, of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang. It has further sought to paint undocumented migration into the US as an “invasion” and link Tren de Aragua’s activities in the US to the Venezuelan government, an assertion that a recently declassified intelligence memo disputes.

That, the Trump administration has argued, justifies its use of the Alien Enemies Act, which has only been used three times prior in US history – and only during periods of war.

But Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act has spurred a legal backlash, with several US district courts hearing petitions from migrants fearing expulsion under the law.

Multiple judges have barred the law’s use for expedited removals. But one judge in Pennsylvania ruled the Trump administration could deploy the law – provided it offer appropriate notice to those facing deportation. She suggested 21 days.

The Supreme Court on Friday did not weigh in on whether Trump’s use of the law was merited. Instead, its ruling – 24 pages in total, including a dissent – hewed closely to the issue of whether the Venezuelans in question deserved relief from their imminent deportation under the law.

The majority of the nine-justice bench noted that “evidence” it had seen in the case suggested “the Government had in fact taken steps on the afternoon of April 18” to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, even transporting the migrants “from their detention facility to an airport and later returning them”.

The justices asserted that they had a right to weigh in on the case, in order to prevent “irreparable harm” to the migrants and assert their jurisdiction in the case. Otherwise, they pointed out a deportation could put the migrants beyond their reach.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh went a step further in a separate opinion, calling on the Supreme Court to issue a final and binding ruling in the matter, rather than simply grant this one petition.

“The circumstances call for a prompt and final resolution, which likely can be provided only by this Court,” he said, agreeing with the majority’s decision.

Thomas and Alito, in their dissent, argued the Supreme Court had not afforded enough time to a lower court to rule on the emergency petition.

In the aftermath of the ruling, Trump lashed out on Truth Social, portraying the Supreme Court’s majority as overly lax towards migrants.

“THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!” Trump wrote in the first of two consecutive posts.

In the second, he called Friday’s decision the mark of a “bad and dangerous day in America”. He complained that affirming the right to due process would result in “a long, protracted, and expensive Legal Process, one that will take, possibly, many years for each person”.

He also argued that the high court was preventing him from exercising his executive authority.

“The Supreme Court of the United States is not allowing me to do what I was elected to do,” he wrote, imagining a circumstance where extended deportation hearings would lead to “bedlam” in the US.

His administration has long accused the courts of interference in his agenda. But critics have warned that Trump’s actions – particularly, alleged efforts to ignore court orders – are eroding the US’s constitutional system of checks and balances.

In a statement after the ruling, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) praised the court’s decision as a bulwark against human rights abuses.

“The court’s decision to stay removals is a powerful rebuke to the government’s attempt to hurry people away to a Gulag-type prison in El Salvador,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.

“The use of a wartime authority during peacetime, without even affording due process, raises issues of profound importance.”

The Supreme Court currently boasts a conservative supermajority, with six right-leaning judges and three left-leaning ones.

Three among them were appointed by Trump himself. Those three sided with the majority.

May 16 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked the administration of President Donald Trump from using the rare wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan detainees accused of being members of violent gangs.

The Supreme Court, in its decision, also rebuked judges from a U.S. District Court in North Texas for waiting too long to act on urgent requests related to the impending deportations.

The decision, which sent the case for deliberation back to the Fifth Circuit court, effectively blocks any removals under the Alien Enemies Act until the case can be properly reviewed.

The case is rooted in an April 17 request from two Venezuelan detainees for a temporary restraining order to stop their removal from the United States, which the district court denied that evening.

Later that night, the two detainees were given notice of their imminent removal, leading their lawyers to file a second, emergency request for a temporary restraining order to halt their deportation just after midnight.

“The named applicants, along with putative class members, are entitled to constitutionally adequate notice prior to any removal, in order to pursue appropriate relief,” the Supreme Court wrote in its latest ruling.

The lawyers asked the court to rule on the second request or hold a status conference by 1:30 p.m. The district court failed to rule on the request or hold a status conference that day, with their inaction becoming central to the Supreme Court’s rebuke.

“A district court’s inaction in the face of extreme urgency and a high risk of ‘serious, perhaps irreparable,’ consequences may have the effect of refusing an injunction,” the Supreme Court ruled.

By 3 p.m. on April 18, the lawyers for the detainees appealed to the Fifth Circuit, claiming that the district court’s inaction amounted to a constructive denial — which is when a court does not officially decline a request but acts, or fails to act, in a way that is effectively a denial.

The Supreme Court previously ruled in this case, ordering an emergency injunction that evening to stop the deportations before midnight. That ruling was a procedural hold, not a final ruling, and did not weigh in on the legality of the deportations.

In the days following the emergency injunction, the Fifth Circuit dismissed the appeal, reasoning that the detainees had not given the district court enough time to respond before escalating the case.

This prompted the process for the case to return before the Supreme Court as the detainees asked the high court to treat their emergency application as a formal petition for the court to hear the case, review the lower court’s rulings and to settle the constitutional questions raised by their deportations.

The Supreme Court has vacated the Fifth Circuit court’s dismissal and sent it back to the lower court for a proper legal review, preventing the government from further deportations until the case can be properly decided.

The high court clarified that, as on April 19, its ruling does not address the underlying merits of each side regarding removals under the Alien Enemies Act.

“We recognize the significance of the Government’s national security interests as well as the necessity that such interests be pursued in a manner consistent with the Constitution,” the Supreme Court wrote. “In light of the foregoing, lower courts should address AEA cases expeditiously.”

Justice Samuel Alito dissented, joined by Clarence Thomas, arguing that the Supreme Court never had the legal authority to step in because there was no valid appeal since the district court never actually denied the temporary restraining order request.

Socotra Island, part of Yemen, is a haven for tourists but with a travel advice warning from the UK Government, it’s not a getaway for the faint-hearted and it’s very hard to reach

A beautiful island with alien trees and crystal blue waters is one of the hardest places to get to in the world.

Socotra Archipelago is unlike anywhere else. Sat 200 miles off the coast of mainland Yemen, close to the Horn of Africa, it is home to a unique array of plants and wildlife.

Tourists visiting the island can find respite under the shade of the dragon blood tree, a species native to the island known for its densely packed evergreen branches and named after the crimson-coloured sap it produces. Along the coastline, you’ll find long sandy beaches against a backdrop of emerald waters and up north, near the village of Qalansiyah, the Detwah Lagoon is surrounded by dazzling white sands.

UNESCO recognises Socotra Island as a site of universal importance due to its biodiversity, with nearly 40 percent of its plant species being exclusive to the island. The surrounding islands, including Socotra, are also notable for their land and sea bird breeding spots and unique coral reefs, which are home to over 700 species of coastal fish.

READ MORE: Woman buys six Italian homes for £5 in beautiful town and has big plans for them

Yemen, along with Somalia and Afghanistan, is typically viewed as one of the globe’s most perilous nations. The civil war in the country has made travelling there incredibly dangerous, with the UK’s Foreign Office warning simply: “FCDO advises against all travel to the whole of the Yemen due to the unpredictable security conditions. If you’re in Yemen, you should leave immediately.”

While Socotora is covered by that advice—meaning visitors travelling there do so at their own peril and risk having their insurance invalidated—the archipelago has a very low crime rate and has been little impacted by the 11-year war that continues to rage on the mainland.

The main difficulty for those dreaming of visiting is how to get there.

Janet Newenham is a professional traveller who has spent years visiting some of the world’s most inaccessible places. Since visiting Iraq several years ago, Janet has organised small group trips for women to some of these places. Including, in February, to Socotora.

“It’s a paradise island off the coast of Yemen. People in the extreme travel community know about it, but a lot of people don’t,” Janet told the Mirror.

“It’s hard to get to. There are two flights a week from Abu Dhabi, but you can’t book them in a normal way. You have to book them through WhatsApp. It’s through Emirates Aviation, and it’s a humanitarian charter flight. You have to WhatsApp them and then send a bank transfer.

“It was absolutely incredible. I never knew there were places like that in Yemen. It has bright blue water, white sand beaches, and dragon’s blood trees. You won’t find them anywhere else in the world.”

Due to a lack of hotels on the island, the group camped on the beach and in the mountains during their seven-day trip. “No hotels. No toilets. It was quite an extreme trip. It was like being on a desert island. You do see some tanks in Socotora, but they’re not from a recent war.”

Tour operator Socotra Island Expeditions describes the archipelago as “a benign security environment” which has not seen any acts of violence towards foreigners in recent years. Adventure seekers will need to secure an appropriate visa for travel before arrival, however, most travel agents can support tourists through the procedure, in addition to outlining the best travel routes and seasons.

Janet, who lives in Bali, Indonesia but comes from Cork in Ireland, runs small group trips through her website Janets Journeys.

May 1 (UPI) — A Trump-appointed Texas federal judge ruled Thursday the administration is illegally using the Alien Enemies Act to quickly deport alleged Venezuelan gang members without due process.

The ruling permanently blocks use of the act to deport migrants.

U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez wrote in the ruling, “The Court concludes that the President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful.”

He said the Trump administration does not have any lawful authority to “detain Venezuelan aliens, transfer them within the United States, or remove them from the country.”

The ACLU brought the lawsuit to stop the illegal removals.

“The court ruled the president can’t unilaterally declare an invasion of the United States and invoke a wartime authority during peacetime,” ACLU lead counsel on the case Lee Gelernt said in a statement. “Congress never meant for this 18th-century wartime law to be used this way. This is a critically important decision that prevents more people from being sent to the notorious CECOT prison.”

President Donald Trump invoked the use of the law through a proclamation. The law was meant for use in time of war.

The Trump administration claimed it was targeting Tren de Aragua gang members.

Judge Rodriguez said in his ruling, “The President cannot summarily declare that a foreign nation or government has threatened or perpetrated an invasion or predatory incursion of the United States, followed by the identification of the alien enemies subject to detention or removal.”

Rodriguez said allowing a president to unilaterally define the conditions under which he may invoke the AEA and to summarily declare those conditions exist “would remove all limitations to the Executive Branch’s authority under the AEA.”

The judge said that would, in turn, strip the courts “of their traditional role of interpreting Congressional statutes to determine whether a government official has exceeded the statute’s scope.”

ACLU Texas legal director Adriana Pinon said in a statement, “This permanent injunction is a significant win for preventing unlawful, unilateral executive action that has been stoking fear across Texas, especially within border communities.”

Rodriguez ruled the AEA can only be invoked by a president when the nation is under armed, organized attack.

“The historical record renders clear that the President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute’s terms,” Judge Rodriguez wrote. “As a result, the Court concludes that as a matter of law, the Executive Branch cannot rely on the AEA, based on the Proclamation, to detain the Named Petitioners and the certified class, or to remove them from the country.”

It’s the first ruling to declare the use of the AEA by the Trump administration to be illegal, exceeding the legal powers of the president.

The ruling does not prevent the Trump administration from using other existing immigration laws to deport the migrants, but due process has to be used.

Other judges have temporarily blocked the AEA’s use, but Rodriguez is the first federal judge to permanently block use of the AEA by declaring it unlawful.

In a 5-4 April decision the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to resume deporting Venezuelans under the AEA, but said the government must allow deportees time to challenge the removal in court.

A United States judge has issued a permanent injunction preventing the administration of President Donald Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (AEA) to deport Venezuelans from South Texas.

Thursday’s ruling is the first of its kind — and is likely to be swiftly appealed.

It follows similar, if temporary, orders barring the government’s use of the law, as Trump seeks the rapid removal of undocumented immigrants from the country.

In his 36-page decision, US District Court Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr ruled that the Trump administration had “exceeded the statutory boundaries” of the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law.

Trump had issued an executive proclamation on March 15 to invoke the law against members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. He argued that Tren de Aragua was “perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States”, thereby justifying such extreme measures.

The Alien Enemies Act, after all, had been invoked only three times before, most recently during World War II.

But Judge Rodriguez said the threat of Tren de Aragua fell far short of the standards necessary to use the Alien Enemies Act, though he did concede the gang participated in activity that “unambiguously is harmful to society”.

“The Court concludes that [Tren de Aragua’s activities] do not fall within the plain, ordinary meaning of ‘invasion’ or ‘predatory incursion’ for purposes of the AEA,” the judge wrote.

“The Court concludes that the President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful.”

Since the Trump administration did “not possess the lawful authority under the AEA”, Judge Rodriguez ruled it could not use the law to “detain Venezuelan aliens, transfer them within the United States, or remove them from the country”.

Judge Rodriguez is a Trump-appointed judge who assumed his current post under the Republican leader’s first term in 2018. His decision applies to the Southern District of Texas, including cities like Houston.

But while it is the most sweeping ruling of its kind, it joins an array of legal cases and court decisions weighing the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act.

The law allows the US government to detain and deport citizens of an enemy country in times of war or invasion. Its usage, however, has been highly controversial, with critics calling it unconstitutional.

The Alien Enemies Act was used as justification, for example, to incarcerate tens of thousands of Japanese Americans and other foreign nationals in camps during World War II. That incident resulted in the US formally apologising and offering compensation to Japanese American survivors decades later.

Trump is believed to be the first president to invoke the Alien Enemies Act outside of wartime. Using nativist rhetoric, he has sought to frame undocumented migration to the US as an unbridled “invasion” of criminals, threatening US communities with violence.

Since taking office for a second term, Trump has designated criminal groups like Tren de Aragua as foreign terrorist organisations, a category that makes non-citizen members inadmissible to the US.

But the Supreme Court has ruled (PDF) that, for removals made under the Alien Enemies Act, foreign nationals are entitled to a judicial review of their cases.

Lower courts have also questioned whether the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act violated that right to due process.

Judges in Colorado, Manhattan and Pennsylvania have issued temporary injunctions against the law’s use, and in Washington, DC, Judge James Boasberg has overseen a high-profile case where three planes of deportees were sent to prison in El Salvador under the law, despite an injunction against its use.

Last month, Boasberg ruled there was “probable cause” to find the Trump administration in contempt of court for violating his order. Hearings in that case are continuing, but Trump and his allies have argued that Boasberg has overstepped his judicial authority by interfering in matters of foreign policy.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been among the plaintiffs fighting the Alien Enemies Act’s use in court, and on Thursday, it applauded Judge Rodriguez’s decision.

“The court ruled the president can’t unilaterally declare an invasion of the United States and invoke a wartime authority during peacetime,” ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said in a statement. “Congress never meant for this 18th-century wartime law to be used this way.”

Adriana Pinon, the legal director of the ACLU’s Texas branch, also framed the decision as a win for immigrant rights.

“This permanent injunction is a significant win for preventing unlawful, unilateral executive action that has been stoking fear across Texas, especially within border communities,” she said.

“Immigrants are, and always have been, an integral part of this state and nation. They, too, are protected by US laws and the Constitution.”

The Trump administration is expected to appeal the decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, a conservative-leaning court.