Donald Trump

EXPLAINER

US is looking to fast-track investments by UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Bloomberg News said.

United States President Donald Trump’s administration has reportedly discussed the possibility of expediting investments by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar before his trip to the region next week.

The early-stage talks were reported first by Bloomberg News. Any such development would require the US government to reform the Committee for Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), an interagency organisation led by the US Department of the Treasury, and which also includes representatives from the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security and State that review foreign real-estate investments to evaluate if any prose a national security risk.

While it is not clear what a reform would entail, the goal would be to fast-track investments from these countries, with whom Trump had fostered a close working relationship during his first term, and bring in billions of dollars into the US economy.

The president might announce more information about the status of the changes and what it entails during his visit, which begins May 13.

Investment surge

Five of the top 10 most active wealth funds come from these three countries. Three of those five funds are in the UAE. In March, UAE National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed met the president and later committed $1.4 trillion in investments to the US over a 10-year period.

The commitment includes investments in sectors such as artificial intelligence, energy, and aluminium manufacturing, including the first new aluminium smelter in the US in 35 years. It also includes a $1.2bn mining partnership with Abu Dhabi-based ADQ, a sovereign wealth fund, and the New York City-based investment firm Orion Resource Partners to mine for “critical minerals” in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The largest segment of the proposed investment is in artificial intelligence. An Abu Dhabi-based investment fund called MGX has promised to invest $100bn in a data centre and energy infrastructure to support AI development in the United States.

In January, in less than a week of Trump taking office, Saudi Arabia pledged to spend $600bn in the US over the next four years. Trump later said at the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland, that he pushed the country to invest $1 trillion in the economy. Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have a close relationship, which the two developed during Trump’s first term in office.

Qatar already had a strong investment relationship with the US. In 2015, the Qatar Investment Authority pledged a $35bn investment and opened offices in New York and Washington to facilitate the investments. QIA later committed $45bn in 2019.

Some of QIA’s most notable investments include $200m in EatJust, an alternative meat and egg brand, and major real-estate investments in New York City, including a 10 percent stake in the Empire State Building.

Conflict of interest concerns

Despite no direct involvement of the Trump Organization — the private company housing the Trump family-owned brands, including Trump Hotels and Golf Resorts – Trump’s upcoming trip and the proposed fast-tracking of investments have raised concerns of conflict of interest.

A month after winning the US election, the Trump Organization announced it had leased its brand to two new real estate projects in Saudi Arabia.

The president’s company also has projects and developments in all three of the countries he is set to visit, and that might receive fast-track status for investments.

“This trip, where Trump will meet with foreign officials who have the ability to make decisions affecting his company and business partners, poses enormous conflicts of interest for Trump, whose company is engaged in significantly more foreign business than during his first term”, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wrote in a note published on Thursday.

On April 30, the Trump Organization, whose real-estate development arm is led by his son Eric, announced a new luxury golf resort in Qatar. Unlike in the first Trump administration, the Trump Organization said in advance of Trump’s inauguration in January that it would not shy away from foreign property investments.

May 9 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has fired three Democrats sitting on the five-member Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Former chair Alex Hoehn-Saric and Commissioners Mary Boyle and Richard Trumka Jr. are now all listed on the agency’s website under the past commissioners section.

Trumka confirmed the move in an Instagram post.

“Last night, I received an email stating that the President wanted to fire me as Commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission,” Trumka, who was appointed in 2021 to a seven-year term, said in the social media post.

“Of course, he did not give any reason why. However, it immediately follows me doing two things that this administration is against: advancing solutions to protect the American people from harm, and stopping the legal firing of scores of public servants who do lifesaving work.”

Trumka in the letter said the trio’s removal came on the heels of a visit by members of the Department Of Government Efficiency, which had attempted to coerce the commissioners to “bring aboard” two DOGE officials.

“With no regard for the safety and well-being of the American public, the Trump Administration is seeking to dismantle the Consumer Product Safety Commission,” Boyle said in a statement.

“I was fired illegally last night from my Senate-confirmed position as a CPSC Commissioner after I refused to be complicit with the efforts of DOGE to destroy the agency dedicated to protecting our nation’s consumers.”

Boyle, who has worked in some capacity for the agency for 15 years, also took aim at acting chairman Peter Feldman.

“Like the administration he seeks to impress, the Acting Chair – who has neither been nominated nor confirmed as chair — demonstrates contempt for the very workforce he purports to lead, highlighting his unfitness for the position. He has publicly disparaged CPSC staff as ‘bloated’ and ‘inefficient,’ baseless claims that contradict his own past words as commissioner since 2018,” she wrote.

Hoehn-Saric was also confirmed in 2021, while Boyle was appointed a commissioner with the consumer protection watchdog in 2022.

The agency has governance over more than 15,000 household products, including items for babies. It was founded by Congress in 1972 and had a budget in 2024 of $170 million.

“The President’s action is unlawful and is part of this Administration’s efforts to eliminate federal agencies, personnel, and policies that have made Americans safer,” Hoehn-Saric said in a statement on X.

“The Federal Law establishing the CPSC, which has stood for 50 years and is valid under Supreme Court precedent, states that Commissioners can only be removed for malfeasance or neglect of duty. The President cannot credibly accuse me of such behavior,” Hoehn-Saric continued.

Both men have said they intend to go to court over their dismissal from the agency.

“The President would like to end this nation’s long history of independent agencies, so he’s chosen to ignore the law and pretend independence doesn’t exist. I’ll see him in court,” Trumka said in a video statement on Facebook.

May 9 (UPI) — Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts University doctoral student grabbed by ICE in Massachusetts and imprisoned in Louisiana, was granted bail from ICE detention Friday.

U.S. District Judge William Sessions said at the end of the hearing that Ozturk raised “very substantial” and “very significant” claims of First Amendment and due process rights violations in her case.

He said her detention cannot stand.

Sessions said, “Ozturk is free to return to her home in Massachusetts. She’s also free to travel to Massachusetts and Vermont as she sees fit, and I am not going to put a travel restriction on her, because, frankly, I don’t find that she poses any risk of flight.”

The judge ordered the government to immediately release her.

Ozturk began coughing at one point during the hearing and she rushed out of the room to get her inhaler. She attended the hearing virtually.

A defense lawyer had urged the judge to grant immediate bail, telling him Ozturk faces “significant health risks” if she stays in ICE custody.

The 2nd Circuit’s U.S. Court of Appeals had ordered Wednesday that she be transferred back to Vermont.

Her student visa was revoked immediately and she was taken into custody by armed masked agents without warning March 25 in Somerset, Mass., after she co-wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper.

She was imprisoned in a Louisiana detention center afterward. Tufts University demanded her release “without delay.”

Ozturk is a Turkish national and was legally studying in the United States until the Trump administration’s State Department abruptly revoked her visa without prior notification.

Ozturk attorney Mahsa Khanbani said she was targeted for her pro-Palestinian views expressed in the student newspaper op-ed.

Trump administration prosecutors charge without evidence that Ozturk supported Hamas.

Before Ozturk’s release was ordered, her defense lawyers said she has not been charged with any crime and maintained that her detention violated constitutional free speech and due process rights.

President Donald Trump said May 4 during an NBC News interview he was not sure immigrants are entitled to due process rights.

Asked to respond to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio‘s comment that every person in the United States is entitled to due process, Trump replied, “I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.”

The new head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the United States has warned his staff that he will not tolerate any resistance to President Donald Trump’s agenda for the organisation.

Friday was the first full day of David Richardson’s leadership at FEMA, after the agency saw a shake-up at its helm earlier this week. But he began his tenure as head with a stark warning for the agency.

“I — and I alone in FEMA — speak for FEMA. I’m here to carry out the president’s intent for FEMA,” he reportedly told staff in an agency-wide call.

He predicted that 20 percent of the staff would oppose Trump’s vision for the FEMA, which he has pledged to dismantle.

“Obfuscation, delay, undermining. If you’re one of those 20 percent of people and you think those tactics and techniques are going to help you, they will not, because I will run right over you,” Richardson said.

“Don’t get in my way,” he added. “I know all the tricks.”

FEMA is the agency charged with coordinating and carrying out the federal government’s response to natural disasters and other emergencies, ranging from hurricanes and flooding to domestic attacks.

But it has long been criticised for lagging response times, inadequate resources and disorganisation, particularly during major disasters like 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, which displaced tens of thousands of residents in Louisiana and killed more than 1,300 people.

Trump has responded to such criticisms by pledging to do away with FEMA altogether and redistributing its functions to individual states.

“ When there’s a problem with the state, I think that that problem should be taken care of by the state,” Trump said in January. “That’s what we have states for. They take care of problems. And a governor can handle something very quickly, you know?”

During his campaign for re-election in 2024, he also spread falsehoods about the agency, including that it had refused to offer relief to Republican residents in North Carolina, which had recently suffered widespread flooding from Hurricane Helene.

Since taking office in January, Trump has followed through with his plans to restructure the federal government, reducing the funding and staff to independent entities like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Trump and his allies have framed the cuts as necessary to combat “fraud” and “waste” across the government, though he has not offered definitive proof of wrongdoing.

At FEMA, an estimated 2,000 employees were terminated or accepted buyout offers to resign. A 2023 Government Accountability Office report indicated that FEMA only had 5,000 full-time staff members, as well as a group of reservists and emergency-response workers who could be called up to address a crisis.

To become the administrator of FEMA requires undergoing a Senate confirmation hearing and a vote.

But while those Senate hearings continue for high-level government positions, Trump has named interim leaders to govern the organisation in the meantime.

Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL, served in that role since Trump started his second term.

He had been a prominent critic of FEMA during the administration of former President Joe Biden. But his time as FEMA chief came to an abrupt halt earlier this week, in the wake of an appearance before an appropriations subcommittee in the House of Representatives.

At Wednesday’s hearing, a Democratic Representative, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, asked Hamilton about the idea that FEMA could be shuttered.

Hamilton responded with measured opposition. “I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” he said.

He added that it was ultimately not his decision to make and criticised FEMA as part of an “overextended federal bureaucracy”.

“I’m not in a position to make decisions and impact outcomes on whether or not a determination such as consequential as that should be made. That is a conversation that should be had between the president of the United States and this governing body,” Hamilton told the committee.

But the very next day, Hamilton was removed from his role as FEMA’s interim head and replaced by Richardson, a Marine veteran.

On Friday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Hamilton’s removal was related to his testimony at the subcommittee hearing.

“My understanding is that this individual testified saying something that was contrary to what the President believes and the goals of this administration in regards to FEMA policy,” Leavitt said. “And so, of course, we want to make sure that people in every position are advancing the administration’s goals.”

Critics, including Representative DeLauro, blasted the switch-up as indicative of a White House that will not tolerate dissent, even when necessary.

“The Trump administration must explain why [Hamilton] has been removed from this position,” DeLauro said in a statement. “Integrity and morality should not cost you your job.”

Richardson, meanwhile, has proceeded to set a stricter tone for his tenure, with his fiery Friday phone call. He warned FEMA staff that any actions not “within our missions” would be considered a waste of taxpayer funds.

“We’re going to find out how to do things better. We’re going to find out how to push things down to the states that should be done at state level. Also we’re going to find out how we can do more cost-sharing with the states,” he said.

Trump has been criticised for denying requests for assistance, including from Republican-led states like Arkansas, which suffered tornadoes during the week of March 14, destroying neighbourhoods. Multiple deaths were reported.

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders — who worked as Trump’s press secretary during his first term — has written to the president to appeal his denial of aid.

“Since 2023, Arkansas has experienced an unprecedented frequency of disasters, with four federally declared disasters and ten state-declared disasters. These overlapping events have severely strained the capacity of state and local agencies to respond and recover effectively,” Huckabee Sanders wrote.

“Many Arkansans are still living in temporary conditions or repairing damages from previous events, only to be displaced or impacted once again. The state and its citizens are in dire need of assistance to recover, rebuild, and mitigate further loss.”

May 9 (UPI) — The Trump administration is “actively looking at” suspending the writ of habeas corpus, which is the right to challenge the legality of a person’s detention by the government, White House senior adviser Stephen Miller said Friday.

Outside the White House, the deputy chief of staff for policy was asked by a reporter whether President Donald Trump was considering suspending the writ of habeas corpus to deal with illegal immigration in the United States.

“Well, the Constitution is clear — and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land — that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion,” Miller said.

“So, it’s an option we’re actively looking at. Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.”

Miller said judges should stop blocking the deportation of undocumented immigrants in cases in which those people are exercising habeas writs.

One Democratic aide told The Hill that “Stephen Miller is not a lawyer but he plays an (expletive) one on TV. No one in their right mind would take his advice seriously, but sanity is in short supply in this administration.”

The U.S. Constitution, in Article 1, section 9, reads: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

The writ of habeas corpus has been suspended only four times, according to the National Constitution Center. They were during the Civil War from 1861 to 1865, when parts of South Carolina was overrun by the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction in 1871-1872, when two provinces in the Philippines were under unrest in 1905 and in Hawaii after the bombing at Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett and attorney Neal Katyal in 2017 wrote the Constitution “does not specify which branch of government has the authority to suspend the privilege of the writ. But most agree that only Congress can do it.”

On April 7, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, allowed deportations of alleged members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang to El Salvador based on the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. But the justices ruled that the government must give deportees “reasonable time” to challenge their removal in court before being deported.

The 1798 Alien Enemies Act has been used three times during wars.

Administration officials didn’t adhere to an oral order from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in March to turn around or halt flights of Venezuelan migrants headed to the Salvadoran prison.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts said deporting a group of migrants overseas, possibly to Libya and Saudi Arabia, would violate court orders prohibiting the government from shipping deportees to a third country. Murphy was appointed by President Joe Biden.

Also, students, including Rumeysa Ozturk at Tufts and Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia, have challenged their detention. Ozturk on Friday was granted bail by District Judge William Sessions in Vermont, appointed by President Barack Obama.

Miller told reporters the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965 takes away jurisdiction by the Judicial Branch over immigration cases.

“The courts aren’t just at war with the executive branch, the courts are at war — these radical, rogue judges — with the legislative branch, as well. So all of that will inform the choices the president ultimately makes,” Miller said.

Some men deported said they’re not members of gangs.

“If Donald Trump can sweep non-citizens off the street and fly them to a torturer’s prison in El Salvador with no due process, he can do it to citizens, too,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said last week. “Because if there is no due process, no fair hearing, you have no opportunity to object.”

May 9 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Friday signed three executive orders — establishing a national center for homeless veterans, reducing criminal prosecutions for violations of the Code of Federal Regulations and increasing efficiency of the Federal Register.

Trump directed the Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins to establish the National Center for Warrior Independence on the West Los Angeles VA campus. Plans are to house as many as 6,000 veterans by 2028.

“Previous administrations have failed veterans by allowing the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center — hundreds of acres in Los Angeles given to the Federal Government more than a century ago to help veterans — to fall apart,” the White House said in a fact sheet. “Parts of the property are leased to a private school, private companies, and the baseball team of the University of California, Los Angeles — sometimes at rock-bottom prices.”

Los Angeles, with approximately 3,000 homeless veterans, the most in the nation, accounts for about 10% of all homeless veterans in America, according to the White House.

“President Trump strongly believes that every veteran deserves our gratitude, and that the federal government should treat veterans like the heroes they are,” the White House said.

Veterans from around the nation can receive care, benefits and services at the center.

“The new National Center for Warrior Independence will help them and other veterans like them rebuild their lives,” the White House said in a fact sheet. “The Center will promote self-sufficiency through housing, substance abuse treatment and support for productive work for the veterans housed there.”

The funds had been previously spent on housing or other services for undocumented immigrants.

“Our Nation’s security, prosperity, and freedom would not be possible without our veterans,” the order reads. “Many service members paid the ultimate sacrifice. Many others bear visible and invisible wounds from their service. Too many veterans are homeless in America. Each veteran deserves our gratitude.

“Yet the Federal Government has not always treated veterans like the heroes they are. During the previous administration, unaccountable bureaucrats treated them shamefully, failing veterans when they needed help most and betraying the taxpayers who rightfully expect better.

Also, homeless veterans will be able to use vouchers from the Housing and Urban Development.

In addition, he ordered a feasibility study at the Manchester VA Medical Center in New Hampshire to expand services to support a full-service medical center.

Code of Federal Regulations

Trump also signed an order “to ease the regulatory burden on everyday Americans and ensure no American is transformed into a criminal for violating a regulation they have no reason to know exists.”

It discourages criminal enforcement of regulatory offenses, saying “this status quo is absurd and unjust.”

“The United States is drastically overregulated,” the order reads. “The Code of Federal Regulations contains over 48,000 sections, stretching over 175,000 pages — far more than any citizen can possibly read, let alone fully understand. Worse, many carry potential criminal penalties for violations. The situation has become so dire that no one — likely including those charged with enforcing our criminal laws at the Department of Justice — knows how many separate criminal offenses are contained in the Code of Federal Regulations, with at least one source estimating hundreds of thousands of such crimes.”

The order said “many regulatory crimes are ‘strict liability’ offenses,’ meaning that citizens need not have a guilty mental state to be convicted of a crime.”

Within 365 days, Trump wants the head of each agency to list all criminal regulatory offenses enforceable by the agency or the Department of Justice and the range of criminal penalties.”

Federal Register

Another executive order will speed publishing new regulatory action.

“The Office of the Federal Register frequently takes days or, in some cases, even weeks to publish new regulatory actions,” according to the executive order. “Such delay is unwarranted. The Office of the Federal Register receives final documents that are fully executed by the relevant decision-makers — all that remains is publication. Yet despite those delays, executive departments and agencies are charged $151-$174 per column of text to publish each rule in the Federal Register. These inefficiencies inhibit my Administration’s deregulatory agenda and waste taxpayer money.”

Trump directed the U.S. archivist, acting through the Office of the Federal Register, to work with the Director of the Government Publishing Office to reduce publication delays, including by modernizing computer systems and “eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy.”

Within 45 days, the archivist shall review the fee schedules for publication in the Federal Register and “take steps to ensure that fees are based on the actual costs of publication and account for increased efficiencies achieved as a result of this order.”

Mexico has called on Google to not change the name of the Gulf of Mexico for US users, despite Trump’s executive order.

Mexico has sued the technology company Google for adopting United States President Donald Trump’s labelling of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America”.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced the lawsuit on Friday, without providing further details. Mexico’s foreign relations ministry had previously sent letters to the tech giant asking it not to use “Gulf of America” to refer to waters within its territory.

Currently, the Gulf of Mexico appears as the “Gulf of America” on Google Maps for users within the US. It appears as “Gulf of Mexico” for users outside of the US.

On January 20, his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order changing the body of water’s name in all references by the federal government. A few weeks later, on February 9, he flew over the gulf and declared it to be “Gulf of America Day” in a separate proclamation.

Critics have said the move is in line with Trump’s expansionist goals, which include threatening to take control of the Panama Canal and Greenland, and pushing for Canada to become the “51st state”.

The body of water in question, an oceanic basin cradled between the southern US and Mexico, has carried the name “Gulf of Mexico” for more than 400 years.

Mexico has argued that, if the US is to adopt the term “Gulf of America”, the new name should only apply to the part of the gulf that sits over the US continental shelf. That boundary generally aligns with the US-Mexico maritime border.

In February, Cris Turner, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, told Mexico it would not change its naming convention, according to a letter shared by Sheinbaum at the time.

Turner said the company was following its “longstanding maps policies impartially and consistently across all regions”.

Google, part of the Alphabet conglomerate, has said it updates its region names according to the US Geographic Names System.

Since taking office, Trump has also moved to change federal documents referring to the tallest peak in North America as Denali, its traditional Alaskan name. He has reverted its name to Mount McKinley, a more recent name adopted by gold miners to honour a slain president.

The controversy over the “Gulf of Mexico”, however, has galvanised politicians in Trump’s Republican Party.

On Thursday, the US House of Representatives voted along party lines, 211 to 206, to formalise “Gulf of America” as the official name, with only one Republican joining the Democrats in opposition. The bill is likely to face steeper odds in the Senate, should it be taken up for a vote.

The Mexico-Google standoff has not been the only tussle related to Trump’s renaming of the gulf.

A month after taking office, the White House sought to block The Associated Press news agency from reporting from the Oval Office and on board Air Force One, in retaliation for the organisation’s insistence on referring to the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico.

A federal judge ordered the White House last month to restore the agency’s full access to cover presidential events, citing First Amendment rights that bar the administration from punishing news outlets for the content of their speech.

US attorney says Baraka ‘committed trespass’ during protest of facility, which he argues opened without proper permits.

Rights groups and Democratic officials have decried the arrest of the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, during a protest at an immigration detention centre.

Mayor Ras Baraka had joined several lawmakers at the detention centre, called Delaney Hall, for a demonstration on Friday.

For weeks, he has been among those protesting the recently opened 1,000-bed centre, which critics see as a key link in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts.

Those in attendance said Baraka sought to enter the facility along with members of the United States Congress on Friday, but he was denied entry.

A video reviewed by The Associated Press showed a federal official in a jacket with the logo for the Homeland Security Investigations unit telling Baraka he could not tour the facility because “you are not a congress member”.

Baraka then left the secure area, rejoining protesters on the public side of the centre’s gate. Video showed him speaking through the gate to a man in a suit. The man said, “They’re talking about coming back to arrest you.”

“I’m not on their property. They can’t come out on the street and arrest me,” Baraka replied.

Moments later, several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, some wearing face coverings, surrounded the mayor and others on the public side of the gate. Baraka was dragged back through the security gate in handcuffs, while protesters yelled, “Shame!”

In a subsequent post on the social media platform X, Alina Habba, Trump’s former personal lawyer and acting US attorney for New Jersey, said Baraka had “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings” to leave.

“He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state,” Habba wrote. “He has been taken into custody. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.”

US Representative LaMonica McIver was also at the centre on Friday, along with Representatives Bonnie Watson Coleman and Robert Menendez Jr, to conduct what they called an “oversight inspection”.

In a post on X, McIver said Baraka “did nothing wrong” and had already left the facility at the time of his arrest.

“This is unacceptable,” McIver said in the video.

For its part, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security accused the lawmakers of “storming” the facility in a “bizarre political stunt”.

Baraka has said the detention centre — located in Newark, not far from New York City — opened despite not having the proper local permits and approvals. He has launched a lawsuit to halt its operations.

The GEO group, which runs the centre in coordination with ICE, has denied his claims. It entered into an agreement with the federal government in February to run the Delaney Hall facility, under a 15-year contract valued at $1bn.

‘Unjust arrest’

Local elected officials swiftly condemned the federal agents’ actions, with the state’s governor, Phil Murphy, writing on X that he was “outraged by the unjust arrest” of Baraka.

Murphy called the mayor an “exemplary public servant who has always stood up for our most vulnerable mayors” and appealed for his release.

The governor noted that New Jersey had previously passed a law banning private immigration detention centres in the state, a Democratic stronghold, although it was partially struck down by a federal court in 2023. An appeal is ongoing.

Baraka, who is running in next month’s Democratic primary for governor, has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

He struck a defiant tone against the Trump administration in January, after ICE raided businesses in the city he leads.

“Newark will not stand by idly while people are being unlawfully terrorised,” he said at the time.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States has reported a second radar outage for the airport in Newark, New Jersey, in less than two weeks.

The incident raises continuing questions about the state of air traffic control in the US, increasing the pressure on the administration of President Donald Trump to address aviation safety.

On Friday, the FAA reported that, around 3:55am local time (07:55 GMT), a facility in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, lost its telecommunications signal for about 90 seconds, preventing it from monitoring communications and radar signals for the Newark Liberty International Airport.

A recording reviewed by the news agency Reuters captured some of the frustration amid the outage.

“FedEx 1989, I’m going to hand you off here. Our scopes just went black again,” a controller told the pilot for a shipping flight.

“If you care about this, contact your airline and try to get some pressure for them to fix this stuff.”

This was the second time a 90-second outage was reported for Newark, a major air terminal that serves metropolitan areas like New York City.

On April 28, a similar incident occurred, resulting in hundreds of delays and dozens of diverted flights. Five air-traffic controllers also went on leave after the incident, using a federal law that allows them to take time off after traumatic incidents.

In the wake of Friday’s incident, The Associated Press reported that delays and cancellations at Newark were also up, citing statistics from the website FlightAware.com.

The White House briefly addressed the second outage at its daily news briefing with journalists, pledging upgrades in the coming months.

“There was a glitch in the system this morning, especially at Newark airport,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

“That glitch was caused by the same telecoms and software issues that were raised last week. Everything went back online after the brief outage, and there was no operational impact.”

Leavitt added that the FAA and the Department of Transportation would “address this technical issue tonight to prevent further outages”.

While every second matters in aviation, industry insiders say air traffic controllers and pilots have training to handle outages, to minimise the dangers.

“The system is wired to run really well when everything’s functioning. But the most important part is that it’s prepared to function when things go wrong,” Captain Dennis Tajer of the Allied Pilots Association told The Associated Press.

“Even when it sounds frightening, know that the air traffic controllers and the pilots have training, and we go to that.”

The latest outage, however, has heightened scrutiny on the Trump administration, which has seen several high-profile aviation mishaps since taking office in January.

On January 29, nine days into Trump’s second term, a mid-air collision took place over the Potomac River near Washington, DC, killing everyone on board both aircraft: an American Airlines passenger jet and a military Black Hawk helicopter.

Trump initially suggested that diversity initiatives under his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, were to blame for the crash, though he offered no evidence to substantiate that claim.

Later, in February, his administration faced criticism for cutting hundreds of FAA personnel, as part of its crackdown on alleged waste in the federal government.

Critics, however, warned that air traffic control and related jobs were understaffed, raising the likelihood of mistakes and malfunctions. Some of the affected positions included airline safety inspectors and maintenance mechanics.

US Congress member Josh Gottheimer, who represents a district in New Jersey, released a statement earlier this week calling for an increase in staffing at the FAA, framing the issue as a question of aviation safety.

“I am demanding that the Trump Administration add more air traffic controllers to cover Newark Airport to immediately help reduce shortages — and pay all the workers accordingly,” Gottheimer wrote.

“The bottom line is that this isn’t a partisan issue — it’s a matter of public safety. It’s about fixing a system that needs fixing.”

Trump officials, meanwhile, have slammed past administrations for doing too little to update the existing air traffic control systems.

Earlier this week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced he would lead a modernisation of those systems, including the replacement of copper cables with fibre optics and replacing older radars and radios.

“Building this new system is an economic and national security necessity, and the time to fix it is now,” Duffy said in his news release.

But the project will likely require approval and funding from Congress, leaving its future up in the air.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University doctoral student detained as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestine visa holders, has been ordered to be released from immigration custody.

On Friday, Vermont-based US District Judge William Sessions ruled that Ozturk’s “detention cannot stand”.

“The court finds that she does not pose a danger to the community, nor does she present a risk of flight. The court orders the government to release Ms Ozturk from custody immediately,” Sessions said.

Lawyers for Ozturk, a Turkish citizen in the US on a student visa, had argued that the Trump administration’s efforts to detain and deport her violated her constitutional rights, including to free speech and due process.

Sessions appeared to side with the legal team’s argument, saying Ozturk’s “continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens”.

Ozturk’s lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, said in a statement she was “relieved and ecstatic” about the judge’s order but that it came far too late.

“When did speaking up against oppression become a crime? When did speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?” she said.

The 30-year-old Ozturk had appeared at the Vermont hearing via video from a detention centre in Louisiana, wearing an orange jumpsuit and a hijab.

During her testimony, she recounted being surrounded and detained by plain-clothed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents near her student housing in Somerville, Massachusetts, on March 25. Surveillance video of that incident later spread online, sparking outrage.

She said she suffered a series of asthma attacks, 12 in total, as she was being transferred to Louisiana. The first came at the airport in Atlanta, she said, and she did not have all of the medication she needed.

“I was afraid, and I was crying,” she said.

The doctoral student told the judge her studies related to community engagement in children in warzones. She was among dozens of student visa holders and permanent residents targeted by the Trump administration for pro-Palestine advocacy.

The administration has relied on an obscure provision of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the secretary of state to deport someone deemed to “adversely affect US foreign policy interests”.

Officials have broadly portrayed pro-Palestinian protests and other forms of advocacy as “anti-Semitic”, despite providing scant evidence in individual cases.

Still, Ozturk’s detention has been notable given her relatively low public profile, with her only public advocacy coming in the form of an article she co-wrote with three other students for the campus newspaper. The piece criticised the university’s response to student-led calls for administrators to acknowledge “Palestinian genocide” and “disclose its investments and divest from companies” with links to Israel.

Speaking at Friday’s hearings, Ozturk said Tufts would provide her housing if she is released, and her friends and lawyers would drive her to future court hearings.

She added that she remained committed to finishing her PhD degree.

Crackdown on pro-Palestine advocacy

The judge’s order on Friday came just over a week after Mohsen Mahdawi, a US permanent resident and pro-Palestine protest leader at Columbia University, was released from immigration detention by another federal judge in Vermont.

On Thursday, Mahdawi, who still faces an ongoing deportation case, announced the creation of the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund, to help immigrants facing deportation hearings.

Speaking to Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey, Mahdawi recounted being detained by immigration officials as he attended a citizenship hearing in Vermont in April.

He said ICE agents had sought to transfer him to the more conservative jurisdiction in Louisiana, as they had done with Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil, another Columbia University protest leader targeted for deportation.

Mahdawi added that the move was meant to isolate him from his community and legal support.

“They had the aeroplane ticket, commercial flight printed with my name on it, but I was lucky enough that we missed the flight by nine minutes,” Mahdawi said.

That brief window, he explained, gave his lawyers time to intervene. They sought and received a temporary restraining order preventing Mahdawi from being transferred out of the state.

Mahdawi credits remaining in Vermont with paving the way to his release.

“I mean, if the plan worked out as they have laid it down, we would not be having this interview,” he said.

Prior to Ozturk’s hearing on Friday, Judge Sessions had ordered her to be transferred to Vermont no later than May 14, as that is where she was held at the time her lawyers filed an initial petition for her release.

Sessions, however, decided to continue with her bail hearing even before Ozturk was physically moved. The Trump administration had previously appealed an earlier deadline for her transfer to Vermont, set for May 1.

Ozturk has not been accused of any crime. The Trump administration has offered little justification for its decision to revoke Ozturk’s student visa, pointing only to the article she co-authored and claiming she was “creating a hostile environment for Jewish students”.

The administration has broadly claimed that visa holders are not afforded the same constitutional rights protections as US citizens, a question that could eventually be decided by the Supreme Court.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt briefly weighed in on Friday’s decision during her daily news briefing, where she reiterated the administration’s position that such rulings are tantamount to judicial interference.

“We’ve made quite clear that lower-level judges should not be dictating the foreign policy of the United States, and we absolutely believe that the president and the Department of Homeland Security are well within their legal rights to deport illegal immigrants,” she said.

“It is a privilege, not a right, to come to this country on a visa,” she added.

May 9 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has fired the librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, attracting swift and staunch condemnation from Democrats.

The Trump administration informed Hayden that she was fired in a two-sentence email on Thursday, a copy of which was obtained by Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.

“On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately,” Deputy Director of Presidential Personnel Trent Morse wrote in the email.

“Thank you for your service.”

No cause for dismissal was given.

Hayden is the first woman and first Black person to serve as the librarian of Congress, a position she has held since 2016. She was nominated by President Barack Obama and was confirmed by the Senate.

Her surprise dismissal prompted swift condemnation from Democrats who framed it as a continuation of Trump’s attack on the independence of U.S. institutions and reversal of progress the country has achieved over decades.

“Donald Trump’s unjust decision to fire Dr. Hayden in an email sent by a random political hack is a disgrace and the latest in his ongoing effort to ban books, whitewash American history and turn back the clock,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a statement.

“The Library of Congress is the People’s Library. There will be accountability for this unprecedented assault on the American way of life sooner rather than later.”

Heinrich, ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch, praised Hayden for bringing the Library of Congress to the people through initiatives that reached out to rural communities.

“While President Trump wants to ban books and tell Americans what to read — or not to read at all — Dr. Hayden has devoted her career to making reading and the pursuit of knowledge available to everyone,” he said in a statement.

“Be like Dr. Hayden.”

During his roughly 100 days in office, Trump has used executive powers to take greater control of independent and cultural institutions as well as to attack those that have promoted beliefs that his administration has worked to erase, such as inclusion, diversity and other so-called progressive ideas.

In March, Trump signed an executive order directing the Smithsonian to eliminate “divisive” and anti-American ideology” from its museums, pointing to exhibits that “promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”

He also named himself chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, seemingly in opposition to its having hosted performances he disagreed with for promoting so-called woke ideology. The move prompted many performances and performers to cancel shows.

“[Hayden’s] dismissal is not just an affront to her historic service but a direct attack on the independence of one of our most revered institutions,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said in a statement.

“This is yet another example in the disturbing pattern of the President removing dedicated public servants without cause — likely to fill the position with one of his ‘friends’ who is not qualified and does not care about protecting America’s legacy.

“This move undermines the foundational principles of our democracy and erodes public trust in our institutions,” she continued, calling on the Trump administration to provide a transparent explanation for her firing.

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There are decades where nothing happens, and then there are weeks where decades happen. The past few weeks have certainly fallen into the latter category, with remarkable intensity.

Since Donald Trump’s Liberation day announcements, stock markets have made a round trip. After an initial collapse we saw one of the strongest and fastest rebounds in recent history.

For the moment, things seem to have calmed down. Still, we are clearly not out of the woods yet. Or to put it in market terms: expect volatility to persist.

This volatility originates from both the geopolitical and economic domains. As Neil Howe so eloquently argues in his book “The Fourth Turning Is Here,” a fourth turning is unfortunately a period marked by wars and geopolitical tensions — an era in which extremist parties, both from the left and the right, gain strength, while the centre becomes smaller, weaker and increasingly powerless to make the decisions that, in the end, everyone knows must be made.

It is also a point in history during which sitting presidents, parties, and governments of any colour, shape or ideology are typically voted out.

The second big source of uncertainty and volatility originates from the economic sphere and is closely related to the first one. In a fourth turning, globalisation is under pressure. In our book “The New World Economy in 5 Trends,” Koen De Leus and I discuss not deglobalisation but multi-globalisation.

China, a pole of economic and military power

We are no longer looking at a unipolar world solely centred around the US. Say hello to the multipolar world in which China is rapidly becoming a pole of economic and military power. Meanwhile, the old continent is struggling to speak with one voice and remain relevant.

Just to say that the economic volatility that we are witnessing is closely related to the geopolitical fragmentation. Not so long ago, when the world was still truly globalised, we had one global business cycle. All the major blocks tended to move together on the waves of global expansion and global contraction.

In this world, central banks’ action would sometimes differ a bit in an amplitude, but generally the direction would be the same. Today, it is not so hard to envision the US and the European economies to grow at a different pace and central banks as a consequence conduct and all together different policy.

Also, China will, depending on the policies conducted, grow at a different speed. Japan is finally exiting more than four decades of deflation and its interest rates are on the rise, while in most other parts of the world they are coming down.

We should look at this new economic reality in terms of tectonic plates. The blocks are no longer moving at the same speed in the same direction. Instead, the plates are shifting unpredictably at different speeds.

It’s no wonder that we’ll see collisions, leading to massive volatility in currency and interest rate markets as a logical consequence.

In this world, volatility will be more the rule than the exception. The main conclusion of our book “The new world economy in 5 trends” is that after the COVID-19 pandemic, we have moved into a new economic paradigm in which both interest rates and inflation will be structurally higher than from 1982 until the pandemic.

It all comes and goes in waves, it always does. And a huge wave is coming. The drivers of this totally new environment are the massive debts, aging of the population, multi-globalisation (including a new arms race) and climate change.

Innovation may play a mitigating role and may in an extreme scenario be even powerful enough to counter the four other forces.

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Investors should focus on real assets

All of this has deep and profound consequences for investors. Even though volatility will be huge, holding too much cash is not an option as inflation will eat up its purchasing power.

Above all, investors should focus on real assets like equities, real estate, wine and gold and silver, for which the bull market has only just has begun. The same goes for the commodity space. We are only in the very first inning of the largest commodity bull market in time due to massive supply shortages that we foresee.

For companies, it means that they should put in place hedging techniques for navigating a world of higher interest rates, higher inflation and higher and more volatile commodity prices.

Countries have a unique opportunity to outperform in a fourth turning, at least for those who understand the rules of the new game. Those who don’t will have a hard time keeping the bond vigilantes off their backs.

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Maybe in 30 years’ time we will look back on today as both the start of the European Renaissance and the end of US Exceptionalism. This would bode well for both the euro and European equities.

However, it will not be a walk in the park. The road that the old continent will have to travel to be once again a voice on the world stage will be long, hard and winding.

Philippe Gijsels is Chief Strategy Officer at BNP Paribas Fortis.

May 9 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has appointed former Fox News host and ex-prosecutor Jeanine Pirro as interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.

Trump made the announcement on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Thursday, after withdrawing his original pick for the job due to a lack of congressional support for confirmation.

Pirro continues the trend of Trump, a former TV personality himself, selecting people for his cabinet and other positions from among Fox News personalities and those who pushed his false claims of election fraud.

“Jeanine is incredibly well qualified for this position, and is considered one of the Top District Attorneys in the History of the State of New York,” Trump said in the post, without providing proof.

“She is in a class by herself.”

Trump picked Pirro after abandoning Ed Martin, as it became clear this week he would not have the votes for Senate confirmation.

Martin was a controversial pick for the position, as the only prosecutorial experience he had gained came after Trump named him interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia on Jan. 20.

A far-right activist, Martin supported the president’s false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election who has aligned himself with Jan. 6 defendants, reasons why Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he could not support his nomination.

On Friday night, Trump said in a statement that Martin will be named the new director of the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group.

“In these highly important roles, Ed will make sure we finally investigate the Weaponization of our Government under the Biden Regime,” Trump said, “and provide much needed Justice for its victims.”

Like Martin, Pirro has been accused of supporting Trump’s claims of election fraud following his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, and was among Fox News hosts named in a lawsuit brought against the broadcaster by Dominion Voting Systems for spreading Trump’s false election denial claims. Fox News and Dominion settled the lawsuit in April 2023, with Fox agreeing to pay the election company $787.5 million.

“Grand slam, home run, hat trick pick,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement Friday.

“She is exactly the right person at the right time to take on this responsibility,” he continued, adding that “This is exactly what is needed to clean up DC.”

Pirro was elected a Westchester County Court judge in 1990 and became the county’s district attorney three years later. In the 2000s, she became a right-wing TV personality, hosting Justice w/ Judge Jeanine from 2011-2021 and The Five from 2021-2022, according to her IMDb page.

“Jeanine Pirro is yet another unqualified TV personality with a history of putting Trump and violent insurrectionists above the rule of law,” the Democratic National Committee said Friday in a statement.

“She’ll be a disaster for public safety and an embarrassment to law enforcement — just like Trump’s last failed pick for the same job.”

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Both US stock markets and the US dollar rose to their highest levels in a month as risk appetite continued to recover ahead of US–China trade negotiations.

US and Chinese officials are scheduled to meet in Switzerland over the weekend, aiming to de-escalate tensions that may lead to mutual trade embargoes. The Trump administration imposed tariffs of up to 145% on imports from China, while China retaliated with 125% tariffs.

President Trump told reporters that tariffs on China may come down, expressing optimism about progress in the upcoming trade talks. “I think it’s going to be substantive,” Trump said at the White House while announcing a trade agreement with the UK. “I think it’s a very friendly meeting. They look forward to doing it in an elegant way.” When asked whether he would lower tariffs on China, he responded, “It could be. We are going to see. Right now you can’t get any higher. It’s at 145%, so we know it’s coming down. I think we’re going to have a very good relationship.”

US stock markets and the dollar had experienced sharp sell-offs throughout much of April amid growing recession fears. Late last month, however, the US president shifted his stance on China, signalling that tariffs would be reduced “substantially.” Since then, Wall Street and the dollar have reversed course, with investors appearing to reload US assets amid signs of easing trade tensions.

“This country will hit a point that you better go out and buy stock,” Trump said on Thursday, referring to the trade deal with the UK and a recently signed tax bill as potential catalysts for the markets. “This country will hit a point that you better go out and buy stock now.”

Trump’s comments and growing optimism over trade talks have sparked a broad-based risk-on rally in financial markets, particularly in US assets. Equities climbed, the dollar strengthened, oil prices rebounded, Bitcoin surged, while gold retreated.

Stocks rally abroad

US stock markets rose for a second consecutive session on Thursday, with the Dow up 0.62%, the S&P 500 rising 0.58%, and the Nasdaq Composite gaining 1.07%. European equities continued to outperform their US counterparts, with the DAX nearing a record high, up 1.02%, and the Euro Stoxx 600 advancing 1.1%. Meanwhile, futures are pointing to a higher open on both sides of the Atlantic markets.

Asian markets were mixed in Friday’s session as investors remained cautious ahead of the trade talks. As of 5:00 a.m. CEST, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.32%, the ASX 200 gained 0.41%, while South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.1% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index declined by 0.15%.

US dollar rebounds sharply

In currency markets, the US dollar index surged by over 1% to above 100 for the first time since 11 April. The dollar’s rebound weighed on other major currencies in the G10 group, particularly the euro. The EUR/USD pair fell to just above 1.12 during Friday’s Asian session, its lowest level in nearly a month, down from a multi-year high above 1.15 in late April. The euro had been seen as a haven asset, having gained around 1,000 points (100 points = 1 US cent) against the dollar since February.

Gold retreats while oil surges

Gold prices declined for a second consecutive day, as easing safe-haven demand pressured the precious metal. Gold futures on COMEX dropped 2.5% on Thursday, with a slight rebound to $3,318 per ounce as of 5:00 a.m. CEST. Spot gold fell 3.6% over the past two sessions to $3,313 per ounce.

In contrast, crude oil prices surged to their highest level in a month. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures rose above $60 per barrel by 5:10 a.m. CEST, marking a 3.5% increase since Thursday’s open. Brent futures similarly rallied, climbing above $63 per barrel.

Bitcoin reaches three-month high

Bitcoin jumped as much as 6.3% to trade above $103,000 (€91,770), the highest level since 31 January. Cryptocurrencies, often considered high-risk assets, have demonstrated a strong positive correlation with US technology stocks. Trump’s pro-crypto stance previously lifted Bitcoin reach an all-time high of over $109,000 on 20 January.

May 8 (UPI) — The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether or not it can end temporary protected status for more than 500,000 people from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

The Biden administration granted temporary protected status for 532,000 people from those nations, which gives them the ability to work and live in the United States while they have protected status, NBC News reported.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wants to end their temporary protected status, which lasts for up to two years, but a lower court ruling blocked that effort.

U.S. District of Massachusetts Judge Indira Talwani ruled the Trump administration can’t arbitrarily remove the protected status and instead must address each individual’s respective case before ending TPS and undertaking deportations.

Solicitor General John Sauer said Talwani “nullified one of the administration’s most consequential immigration policy decisions” and wants the Supreme Court to resolve the matter.

The Supreme Court has already received eight emergency requests filed by the Trump administration through March 28.

Many more cases are headed to the Supreme Court, which could swamp it with legal filings.

Federal district court judges have blocked Trump administration policies at least 17 times during President Donald Trump‘s first 100 days in office.

Many of those rulings have been overturned by appellate and Supreme Court rulings, but some also have been upheld.

Shortly after being sworn in as president on Jan. 20, Trump signed several executive orders, including ending TPS status for many.

President Joe Biden, days before leaving office, extended TPS protections for many people from Venezuela, Haiti, Venezuela, and other nations.

Trump ordered an end to their TPS status to undertake mass deportations of those who do not self-deport.

Student protest leader Mohsen Mahdawi has appeared at the Vermont state house to help launch a legal defence fund to help immigrants like himself who are facing deportation hearings.

His appearance on Thursday comes nearly a week after Mahdawi himself was released from immigration detention, after spending nearly 16 days in custody for his pro-Palestinian advocacy.

The administration of President Donald Trump has sought to deport Mahdawi and other student activists for their demonstrations, citing a Cold War-era law that allows the removal of foreign nationals deemed to have adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.

Though released on bail, Mahdawi continues to face deportation proceedings. He reflected on his time behind bars at a news conference where he and state officials announced the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund.

“ I was unjustly kidnapped or detained, if you want to go by the legal term,” Mahdawi said with a wry smile.

“And without the support and the love that I received from the people of Vermont – Vermonters and the representatives of the people in Vermont – I may not have been here today among you.”

Mahdawi entered the national spotlight as a leader in the student protests at Columbia University, an Ivy League school in New York City that has been at the forefront of pro-Palestinian advocacy.

A legal permanent resident of the US, Mahdawi himself is Palestinian and grew up in the Far’a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. He has publicly described the oppression he said he experienced there, including the deaths of family members and friends at the hands of the Israeli military.

Since Israel launched its war in Gaza on October 7, 2023, Mahdawi has been outspoken in his opposition to the military campaign.

As an undergraduate at Columbia, he helped found student groups like Dar: The Palestinian Student Society and Columbia University Apartheid Divest. The latter has taken a lead role in protesting ties between the school and organisations involved with Israel and its military activities.

But President Trump has described such protests as “illegal” and pledged to crack down on non-citizen participants.

On March 8, Mahdawi’s colleague at Dar, Mahmoud Khalil, was the first student protester to be taken into custody for his role in the nationwide student protest movement. Others have since been detained, including Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, who supporters say did little more than write an op-ed about the war in Gaza.

Just over a month later, on April 14, Mahdawi arrived at an appointment in Colchester, Vermont, ostensibly for his US citizenship application. Immigration officers, however, were waiting on site to arrest him, and he was led away in handcuffs.

Mahdawi was accused of no crime. The Trump administration, however, has accused him of harassing Jewish students and leading “pro-Hamas protests”, though it has not offered evidence to support those allegations.

“His rhetoric on the war in Israel proves his terrorist sympathies,” a recent document from the Department of Homeland Security said.

Mahdawi’s detention galvanised Vermont politicians on both sides of the political spectrum. Governor Phil Scott, a Republican, called on the federal government to release any evidence it had that Mahdawi was a threat to national security and denounced the surreptitious manner of his arrest.

“What cannot be justified is how this action was undertaken. Law enforcement officers in this country should not operate in the shadows or hide behind masks,” Scott wrote in a press release.

“The power of the executive branch of the federal government is immense, but it is not infinite, and it is not absolute.”

Meanwhile, Senator Peter Welch, a Democrat, visited Mahdawi behind bars at Vermont’s Northwest State Correctional Facility in an effort to raise awareness about his case.

Ultimately, on April 30, a federal district court deemed that Mahdawi was no flight risk and released him on bail, warning that the government’s actions could be interpreted as an attempt to “shut down debate”.

In his public appearance on Thursday, Mahdawi thanked his fellow Vermonters for showing him support and called on the state to act as an example to others.

“Home is where you feel safe and loved. And those who surround you, they are your people, and you are my people,” he told the crowd.

“This is a message of hope and light that our humanity is much larger than what divide us. Our humanity is much larger than unjust laws. Our humanity is much larger than being Democrat or Republican, Black or white, in a city or in rural area.”

Mahdawi also described how, when he was in detention, he saw an undocumented farm worker praying on his knees each night before going to sleep.

“ I think his prayers have been answered today by this initiative,” Mahdawi said of the legal defence fund.

The fund’s organisers said they hope to raise $1m to “build a lasting safety net” for immigrant families in Vermont. That sum, they said, would fund training and hiring legal staff to respond to what they described as an immigration “crisis”.

“Vermont is going to take action to ensure no one faces deportation, detention or family separation alone and unrepresented,” said State Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale. “This will be embedded in our civic infrastructure in a way we have not achieved before and we hope will have long-term benefits beyond this immediate crisis.”

Vermont State Treasurer Mike Pieciak added that the fund would ensure justice is not solely reserved for those who can afford it.

“This effort is not about politics. This effort is about principle,” he said. “The fundamental right to due process means very little if somebody cannot access legal representation, especially when they’re navigating a system as complex and as high stakes as the US immigration law.”

THE Prime Minister dashed to Jaguar Land Rover in Solihull yesterday to show car makers they were winners in the UK-US deal.

But most businesses still believe they are in a worse situation than before President Donald Trump’s tariff blitz.

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Bosses privately complained last night that despite being the first nation to strike a deal, the UK is still stuck with a 10 per cent baseline tariff.

Institute of Directors adviser Emma Rowland said while the deal “shields some of our key export sectors from the worst excesses of US protectionism . . . it falls short of the full free trade agreement ministers have been seeking for years”.

The FTSE 100 yesterday dipped by 27.72 points — 0.32 per cent — to 8,531.61.

The terms of the historic deal mean British car makers will have their tariffs knocked back from 27.5 per cent to 10 per cent for the first 100,000 of vehicles sent across the Atlantic — close to the exact amount of annual exports.

JLR ships around a quarter of its vehicles to the US every year and was facing millions in extra export costs that threatened the factory’s livelihood.

JLR boss Adrian Mardell said: “The car industry is vital to the UK’s prosperity, sustaining 250,000 jobs. We warmly welcome this deal.”

Luxury car brand Aston Martin saw its shares jump by 14 per cent yesterday.

Other winners include British Steel with 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium imports dropped. Brewers will also benefit.

And Rolls-Royce is a big winner after Mr Trump reduced a tariff to 10 per cent on the aircraft maker’s engines and some parts.

But farmers will be angry over ethanol imports and more machinery, chemicals and beef, although food standards will remain.

NEXT BASKS IN SUN

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FASHION powerhouse Next has boosted its profit forecasts for the second time in two months after spring sunshine sent shoppers flocking to the high street.

The chain said sales had jumped by 11.4 per cent in the 13 weeks to April 26, helped by the “warmer weather” which had caused a surge in demand for spring and summer wardrobes, as modelled by telly’s Rochelle Humes.

After making £55million more in sales than expected over the past three months, Next bumped up its profit forecasts by £14million to £1.08billion.

One insider said the profit upgrade did not reflect any benefit from shoppers switching to Next during Marks & Spencer’s cyber attack because the 13-week period had been before M&S stopped taking online orders.

M&S shares tumbled during the incident – with the retailer shedding more than 12 per cent of its value, or £1.05billion, since the hack at Easter.

The CO-OP and Harrods were also subject to recent cyber attacks which crippled online systems.

Next is likely to benefit from M&S shoppers who are impatient to order new outfits switching loyalty as the cyber attack issues drag on.

CENTRICA PAY FUELS REVOLT

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THE owner of British Gas faced a shareholder revolt yesterday as nearly 40 per cent of investors voted against pay packages for its top brass.

Centrica’s Chris O’Shea was paid £4.3million last year, roughly half the £8.4million he earned the year before.

Mr O’Shea has previously said there was “no point” in trying to justify his multimillion pay package — and he has come under fire as households face rising energy bills.

At Centrica’s annual investor meeting in Manchester, two in five shareholders voted against its remuneration report, which sets the pay for top directors.

Shareholder advisory group ISS had recommended investors vote against Mr O’Shea’s pay packet.

The meeting came alongside British Gas saying profits will be lower because a warm spring had lessened demand for heating.

TESCO boss Ken Murphy has seen his pay dip to £9.23million from £10.2million last year.

In 2024, his pay doubled from £4.4million as share awards vested.

The head of Britain’s biggest retailer received a 3 per cent rise in his base salary to £1.45million.

The United States has announced a ‘breakthrough deal’ with the United Kingdom that would create an aluminium and steel trading zone and secure the pharmaceutical supply chain.

The deal affirms that “reciprocity and fairness is a vital principle of international trade” and increases access for US agricultural products, US President Donald Trump said on Thursday, though he added that the final details were still being written up.

“The final details are being written up,” Trump told reporters. “In the coming weeks, we’ll have it all very conclusive.”

The deal, the first one struck by the US since Trump imposed his far-reaching tariffs, is also said to strip back paperwork for British companies looking to export to the US.

The president said that the agreement would lead to more beef and ethanol exports to the UK, which would also streamline the processing of US goods through customs.

The White House said that the deal will bring in $6bn in external revenue from its 10-percent tariffs, which will stay in place, but that it would also bring in $5bn in new export opportunities. The UK agreed to lower its tariffs to 1.8 percent from 5.1 percent and provide greater access to US goods.

The US already runs a trade surplus with the UK, making it a bit easier to find common ground, as Trump has staked his tariffs on specifically eliminating the annual trade deficits with multiple nations that he says have taken advantage of the US.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer joined the president in the announcement over the phone. Starmer said the deal would boost trade and create jobs.

Thursday’s announced agreement is the first agreement since the Trump administration started a global trade war with universal levies of 10 percent. The US has also imposed 25-percent tariffs on cars, steel and aluminium, 25-percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and 145-percent tariffs on China. US and Chinese officials are due to hold talks in Switzerland on Saturday.

British implications

Starmer has struck up a warm relationship with Trump since his centre-left Labour Party was elected in July.

Starmer’s government has been seeking to build new trading relationships post-Brexit with the US, China and the EU without moving so far towards one bloc that it angers the others.

Economists and one chief executive of an FTSE 100 company — the highest capitalised blue chip companies on the London stock exchange—said the immediate economic impact of a tariff deal was likely to be limited but that trade agreements in general would help long-term growth. The UK struck a free trade agreement with India this week.

The US and the UK have been aiming to strike a bilateral trade agreement since the British people voted in 2016 to leave the EU, allowing the country to negotiate independently of the rest of the continent. Then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson touted a future deal with the US as an incentive for Brexit.

The US ran a $11.9bn trade surplus in goods with the UK last year, according to the Census Bureau. The $68bn in goods that the US imported from the UK accounted for just 2 percent of all goods imported into the country.

Markets respond

The US has been under pressure from investors to strike deals to de-escalate its tariff war after Trump’s often chaotic policymaking upended global trade with friends and foes alike, threatening to stoke inflation and start a recession.

Top US officials have engaged in a flurry of meetings with trading partners since the president on April 2 imposed a 10-percent tariff on most countries, along with higher rates for many trading partners that were then suspended for 90 days.

On Wall Street, US markets were responding to the news amid hopes that this could be enough to ward off a recession.

As of 11:30am ET in the US (15:30 GMT), the S&P 500 was up 0.97 percent and on track for an 11th gain in the last 13 days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 1.02 percent higher and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite was 1.17 percent higher than market open.

Stocks have been swinging for weeks with hopes that Trump could reach deals with other countries that would lower his tariffs, which many investors believe would cause a recession if left unchecked.

United States President Donald Trump plans to tout trillions of dollars of Arab investments in the US as a major achievement, but other issues are at stake, says University of Maryland professor Shibley Telhami.

Israel is threatening to further destroy the Gaza Strip unless progress is made in its ceasefire talks with Hamas. Meanwhile, Israel has refused to allow any food to enter Gaza – home to more than 2 million Palestinians – for more than two months.

And despite Israeli objections, Trump may soon be able to reach a deal with Iran on its nuclear program.

May 8 (UPI) — President Donald Trump announced Thursday morning that the United States is set to sign a trade deal with Britian.

“The agreement with the United Kingdom is a full and comprehensive one that will cement the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom for many years to come,” Trump said Thursday in a post to his Truth Social account. “Because of our long time history and allegiance together, it is a great honor to have the United Kingdom as our first announcement.”

Trump closed the post with a notification that “Many other deals, which are in serious stages of negotiation, to follow.”

The White House is slated to hold a press conference at 10 a.m. EDT Thursday from the Oval Office to officially proclaim the deal, which would be the first trade deal the United States has made since Trump announced a slew of tariffs against most countries around the globe.

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will also declare the deal from an unannounced location at around the same time Thursday.

Britain was not hit with the higher levies some other countries received when Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs in April but was struck with the minimum global 10% duty. Britain already runs a trade deficit with the United States.