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US President Donald Trump’s showdown with the judicial system came into the spotlight Tuesday as a judge grilled his administration over its failure to return a migrant wrongly deported to El Salvador.The Trump administration previously admitted that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was living in the eastern state of Maryland and married to a US citizen, was deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador due to an “administrative error.”A judge has ordered Trump to “facilitate” his return, an order upheld by the Supreme Court, but his government has yet to request El Salvador return Abrego Garcia.Trump has alleged that Abrego Garcia is “an MS-13 Gang Member and Foreign Terrorist from El Salvador,” while Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that he was “engaged in human trafficking.”But Abrego Garcia’s family has continued to proclaim his innocence, and Judge Paula Xinis — before whom the Tuesday hearing was held — has said she had seen no evidence Abrego Garcia was a gang member.During the high-stakes hearing — widely seen as a test of the judiciary’s ability to tame Trump’s White House — Xinis slammed the administration for sharing “nothing” on its plans for Abrego Garcia’s return. “There’s so much daylight between what you’re actually saying and where this case is,” Xinis said, adding she would set in motion a process to discover if officials acted against court orders.If so, it would mark a tipping point for the Trump administration, which has for months flirted with open defiance of the judiciary following court setbacks to its right-wing agenda. Dozens of protestors carrying signs reading “Defend democracy” and “Bring Abrego Garcia home” gathered outside the courthouse in Maryland on Tuesday.They were joined by Abreago Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, who urged Trump and his ally, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, to “stop playing political games with my husband.”Hoping to heap political pressure on Trump, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen said he will travel to El Salvador on Wednesday to check on Abrego Garcia’s condition and discuss his return.”He shouldn’t have to spend another second away from his family,” Van Hollen, a Democrat, said on X.- ‘Alive and secure’ -Trump and his administration have repeatedly clashed with the courts since he returned to office in January, criticizing rulings that curb the president’s policies and power and attacking judges who issued them.”No District Court Judge, or any Judge, can assume the duties of the President of the United States. Only Crime and Chaos would result,” Trump said on Truth Social last month.Government attorneys last week rejected Xinis’s order to provide an update on Abrego Garcia’s status by Friday, saying that “foreign affairs cannot operate on judicial timelines.”The Trump administration has since partially complied with the judge’s directives, providing a statement from a State Department official saying that Abrego Garcia is “alive and secure” in the Salvadoran prison.The Department of Homeland Security said in a court filing Tuesday that it would take Abrego Garcia into custody and deport him again if he returned to the United States.But El Salvador’s Bukele on Monday, sitting next to Trump at the White House, rejected calls to repatriate Abrego Garcia, saying: “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”The case represents the only time the administration has acknowledged wrongly deporting anyone, though the Justice Department subsequently fired the lawyer who made that concession, saying he had failed to vigorously defend the government position.

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday aiming to lower crippling drug prices by giving states more leeway to bargain-hunt abroad and improving the process for price negotiations.Americans face the highest prescription drug prices in the world, leaving many people to pay partially out of their own pockets despite already exorbitant insurance premiums.”This (order) will provide meaningful relief to seniors and low income individuals who depend on insulin and many, many more,” a White House official told reporters.”Furthermore, it will foster a more competitive prescription drug market to ensure the prices being charged to patients and the government are more aligned with the value they provide, rather than some quirk in the way that the government pays for them.”The order directs the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, to allow more states to import medicines directly from countries with lower prices.The administration of Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden approved Florida’s application to import from Canada last year but no other states were given the green light for their own deals. The order also tweaks the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed under Biden, which allowed the Medicare health insurance plan for seniors to negotiate the prices of certain drugs for the first time.The aim of the changes is to eliminate the difference between price negotiation rules for pills and those for injectable drugs — a disparity that critics argue could harm investment in the orally-administered products.Under the IRA, Medicare could negotiate on prices for “small molecule” drugs that patients swallow, such as ibuprofen, nine years after FDA approval.”Large molecule” biologics such as gene-based therapies and hormonal regulators could only be subject to negotiations after 13 years.The order did not specify how the disparity would be addressed.Officials said the edict also did not make use of a “most favored nation” status that would force pharmaceutical companies to offer their lowest prices in America.Biden’s IRA reforms led to the costs of 10 key medicines being cut in landmark negotiations with pharmaceutical firms.Days before leaving office, the Democrat announced a further 15 drugs for which the government would negotiate lower prices with pharmaceutical companies, with the resulting prices taking effect in 2027.

Nvidia on Tuesday notified regulators that it expects a $5.5 billion hit this quarter due to a new US licensing requirement on the primary chip it can legally sell in China.US officials last week told Nvidia it must obtain licenses to export its H20 chips to China because of concerns they may be used in supercomputers there, the Silicon Valley company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.Shares of Nvidia, which have already seen high volatility since Trump’s April 2 tariffs announcement, were down over six percent in after-market trades.The new licensing rule applies to Nvidia GPUs (graphics processing units) with bandwidth similar to that of the H20.The United States had already barred exports to China of Nvidia’s most sophisticated GPUs, tailored for powering top-end artificial intelligence models.Nvidia was told the licensing requirement on H20 chips will last indefinitely, it said in the filing.Nvidia’s current fiscal quarter ends on April 27.”First quarter results are expected to include up to approximately $5.5 billion of charges associated with H20 products for inventory, purchase commitments, and related reserves,” Nvidia said in the filing.

A US jury on Tuesday convicted a Gambian man for torturing opponents of the African country’s former president by burning and beating them, including with molten plastic.Michael Sang Correa, 46, served in an armed unit known as the “Junglers,” which answered to The Gambia’s then-president, Yahya Jammeh. A trial in Denver, Colorado, found that Correa and other members of the death squad had tortured five people because of suspicions they had plotted against Jammeh. “Michael Sang Correa tried to evade responsibility for his crimes in The Gambia by coming to the United States and hiding his past,” Matthew Galeotti, head of the US Justice Department’s Criminal Division said after the trial. “But we found him, we investigated him, and we prosecuted him.”Jurors in Colorado heard how in March 2006, shortly after a failed coup attempt, the Junglers took their victims to The Gambia’s main prison.Over the next two months, they beat, stabbed, burned, and electroshocked their victims, including some on their genitals.One man testified he had his thigh burned by molten plastic; another told of how he was suffocated, while others spoke of being pistol whipped, burned with cigarettes and hit in the face with a hammer.Correa was convicted of five counts of torture and one of conspiracy to commit torture.He faces up to 120 years in prison when he is sentenced at a later date.Correa entered the United States in 2016 to work as a bodyguard for The Gambia’s vice president, who was visiting the United Nations.He stayed in the country and moved to Denver at some point after Jammeh, who ruled the country with an iron fist from 1994 to 2017, was voted out of office.Correa was arrested by US authorities in September 2019, initially for overstaying his visa.According to the indictment, Correa joined the Junglers in 2004.The paramilitary unit operated outside the Gambian army’s chain of command, taking orders directly from Jammeh, and has been accused by watchdog groups of carrying out widespread human rights violations.Another member of the Junglers, Bai Lowe, was sentenced to life in prison in Germany in November 2023 after being convicted of crimes against humanity, murder and attempted murder.A Swiss court in May sentenced Gambian ex-interior minister Ousman Sonko to 20 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed under the Jammeh regime.Victims of the Junglers included an AFP correspondent, Deyda Hydara, who was gunned down in his car on the outskirts of Gambia’s capital Banjul on December 16, 2004.

US President Donald Trump’s bid to take back control of the Panama Canal has put his counterpart Jose Raul Mulino in a difficult position and revived fears in the Central American country that US military bases will return.After Trump vowed to reclaim the interoceanic waterway from Chinese influence, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed an agreement with the Mulino administration last week for the United States to deploy troops in areas adjacent to the canal.For more than two decades, after handing over control of the strategically vital waterway to Panama in 1999 and dismantling the bases that protected it, Washington has regularly conducted maneuvers in the country.So what is changing and why is the new agreement causing controversy?- Will US military bases return? -Although the agreement does not allow the United States to build its own permanent bases, Washington will be able to maintain a long-term rotational force in Panama, similar to the one it has in Australia and other countries, for training, exercises and “other activities.”The United States will be able to deploy an unspecified number of personnel to three bases that Washington built when it previously had an enclave in the canal zone.That is a “flagrant violation” of the constitution, which prohibits foreign bases, and the 1977 handover treaties that establish the “neutrality” of the canal and permit only Panama to have military forces on national territory, Euclides Tapia, a Panamanian professor of international relations, told AFP.But there is a loophole: one of the treaties “allows the US to defend the canal when it feels the neutrality is jeopardized,” said Will Freeman, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, a US-based think tank.Benjamin Gedan, former director for South America on the US National Security Council, argues that Panama has cooperated with the United States in securing the canal. Panamanian lawyer Arturo Hoyos sees no violation of laws or treaties, as the new agreement allows “joint” operations.- Is Mulino in trouble? -Mulino’s government says that the facilities and land belong to Panama and will be for “joint use” by US and Panamanian security forces.He maintains that he has not ceded an inch of sovereignty to Trump, a natural right-wing allyThe agreement is a “trade-off” because it “limits the Trump administration’s pressure tactics and hostility and maybe the scope of the concessions” by Panama, Freeman said.”The risk that nobody’s pricing in, at least on the US side, is that they make Mulino a lame duck” by humiliating him, leaving the Panamanian leader “unable to govern,” he added.Former presidential candidate Ricardo Lombana accused Mulino of “camouflaging” military bases and disguising “surrender” as “cooperation.””The United States is recolonizing and reoccupying us,” said Julio Yao, who advised the Panamanian government in the 1977 negotiations.Gedan, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, believes Panamanians “are not willing” to allow the return of US bases due to the trauma of the past occupation of the canal zone and the 1989 US invasion to overthrow dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega.- What does Trump really want? -The United States considers a Hong Kong company’s operation of ports at both ends of the canal to be a threat to its national security.”Trump wants to minimize the risk of Beijing blocking the canal to prevent the passage of military vessels in a potential conflict,” Gedan said.Natasha Lindstaedt, an expert at Britain’s University of Essex, sees the US moves as “part of a larger conflict with China as the US is trying to curb China’s influence in Panama and the region more generally.”Freeman said that the Trump administration “most likely is trying to show that if it wanted to, it could close the canal to Chinese commerce as a way of exerting pressure on China, either not to invade Taiwan or in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.””What we’re seeing in Panama is also about Trump’s doctrine of peace through strength,” he said.But Tapia was skeptical that China really poses a threat, suggesting the threats were aimed at boosting Trump’s domestic support.”Canada becoming part of the United States or saying that they will take over the canal and Greenland is just a gimmick aimed at the American public,” he said.

The US State Department is expected to propose an unprecedented dismantling of Washington’s diplomatic reach, multiple news outlets reported Tuesday, shuttering programs and embassies worldwide to slash the budget by almost 50 percent. The proposals, contained in an internal departmental memo said to be under serious discussion by senior officials, would eliminate almost all funding for international organizations, including the United Nations and NATO.Financial support for international peacekeeping would be curtailed, along with funding for educational and cultural exchanges like the Fulbright Program, one of the most prestigious US scholarships.The plan comes with President Donald Trump pressing a broader assault on government spending, and a scaling back of America’s leading role on the international stage.State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce downplayed the reports, telling journalists “there is no final plan, final budget, final dynamic.””That is up to the White House and the president of the United States as they continue to work on their budget plan and what they will submit to Congress,” Bruce said Tuesday. She added that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had “reiterated our complete commitment to NATO, as has the president of the United States.”The American Foreign Service Association called the proposed cuts “reckless and dangerous” while former US ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul blasted a “giant gift to the Communist Party of China.”The memo says the State Department will request a $28.4 billion budget in fiscal year 2026, beginning October 1 — $26 billion less than the 2025 figure, according to The New York Times.Although it has little to say about humanitarian aid, programs tackling tropical disease, providing vaccines to children in developing nations and promoting maternal and child health would go, the Times reported.The remnants of USAID — the sprawling development agency already crippled and eyed for closure by Trump and Musk — is assumed by the memo’s authors to have been fully absorbed into the State Department, said The Washington Post.Only Congress — which the majority Republicans still need some Democratic votes to pass most laws — can authorize such cuts.But the proposals will likely loom large in lawmakers’ negotiations over the 2026 budget.Government departments were facing a deadline of this week to send the White House their plans for cuts, but the State Department has yet to make any public announcements. It is not clear if Rubio has endorsed the April 10 memo, but he would need to sign off on any cuts before they could be considered by Congress.The document earmarks 10 embassies and 17 consulates for closure, including missions in Eritrea, Luxembourg, South Sudan and Malta, according to politics outlet Punchbowl News. Five consulates earmarked for closure are in France while two are in Germany, Punchbowl reported. The list also includes missions in Scotland and Italy.In Canada, US consulates in Montreal and Halifax would be downsized to “provide ‘last-mile’ diplomacy with minimal local support,” the website reported, citing the document.US missions to international bodies such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the UN’s children’s fund, UNICEF, would be merged with the diplomatic outposts in the city where they are located.Rubio, meanwhile, wrote on X Tuesday that the State Department had canceled a further 139 grants worth $214 million for “misguided programs,” citing an anti-hate speech project in Britain as one example.

Social media titan Mark Zuckerberg testified for  a second day Tuesday in a landmark US antitrust trial, defending his conglomerate Meta against accusations it took over Instagram and WhatsApp to devour budding competitors.The federal court trial in Washington has dashed Zuckerberg’s hopes that the return of President Donald Trump to the White House would see the government let up on the enforcement of antitrust law against Big Tech.Federal Trade Commission (FTC) attorney Daniel Matheson showed Zuckerberg emails from 2012 in which Facebook’s former chief financial officer listed possible reasons for buying start-ups like Instagram, including “neutralizing a competitor.”Zuckerberg sidestepped commenting on the role of competitive pressure, instead playing up the ability of Facebook to improve features, user numbers and revenue.”Instagram integration ended up going very well; we were able to add way more value to Instagram than we would have expected,” Zuckerberg testified.”After that, we basically felt more confident that we could identify other social apps, potentially acquire them and grow them faster (than they would have on their own).”Zuckerberg said he believes that if Snapchat had accepted Facebook’s buyout offer in 2013 it would now have billions of users.Snapchat ended last year with about 450 million daily users.”For what it’s worth, I think we would have accelerated their growth,” Zuckerberg said of Snapchat.The case could see Meta forced to divest of Instagram and WhatsApp, which have grown into global powerhouses since their buyout.It was originally filed in December 2020, during the first Trump administration, and all eyes were on whether the Republican would ask the FTC to stand down.Zuckerberg, the world’s third-richest person, has made repeated visits to the White House as he tried to persuade the president to choose settlement instead of fighting the trial.As part of his lobbying efforts, Zuckerberg contributed to Trump’s inauguration fund and overhauled content moderation policies. He also purchased a $23 million mansion in Washington in what was seen as a bid to spend more time close to the center of political power.Central to the case is Facebook’s 2012 billion-dollar purchase of Instagram — then a small but promising photo-sharing app that now boasts two billion active users.An email from Zuckerberg cited by the FTC showed him depicting Instagram’s emergence as “really scary,” adding that is “why we might want to consider paying a lot of money for this.”In his first day of testimony Monday, Zuckerberg downplayed those exchanges as early talk before plans for Instagram came together.But the FTC argues that Meta’s $19 billion WhatsApp acquisition in 2014 followed the same pattern, with Zuckerberg fearing the messaging app could either transform into a social network or be purchased by a competitor.Meta’s defense attorneys counter that substantial investments transformed these acquisitions into the blockbusters they are today.They also highlight that Meta’s apps are free for users and face fierce competition.FTC attorney Matheson said in opening remarks that Facebook “decided that competition is too hard and it would be easier to buy out their rivals than to compete with them.”Meta attorney Mark Hansen countered in his first salvo that “acquisitions to improve and grow an acquired firm” are not unlawful in the United States, saying that is what Facebook did.A key part of the courtroom battle will be how the FTC defines Meta’s market.The US government argues that Facebook and Instagram are dominant players in apps that provide a way to connect with family and friends, a category that does not include TikTok and YouTube.But Meta disagrees.”The evidence at trial will show what every 17-year-old in the world knows: Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp compete with Chinese-owned TikTok, YouTube, X, iMessage and many others,” a spokesperson said.

President Donald Trump stepped up his extraordinary threats to send Americans to foreign jails, saying Tuesday he would love to deport “homegrown” US citizens who commit violent crimes to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.Trump raised the idea in talks on Monday with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele — the self-proclaimed “world’s coolest dictator” who has already taken detained migrants from the United States into his country’s jails.But the 78-year-old Republican doubled down on the idea of sending US citizens to El Salvador too, amid fundamental questions about whether it would actually be legal.”I call them homegrown criminals,” Trump said according to excerpts of an interview with Fox Noticias, a Spanish-language program being broadcast later Tuesday.”The ones that grew up and something went wrong and they hit people over the head with a baseball bat and push people into subways,” he added.”We are looking into it and we want to do it. I would love to do it.”On Monday, Trump said during his meeting with Bukele in the Oval Office that he had asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to examine the possibility of sending Americans to El Salvador.The White House said Tuesday it was still exploring whether such a move would be within the law.”It’s a legal question that the president is looking into,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told journalists at a briefing.”He would only consider this, if legal, for Americans who are the most violent egregious repeat offenders of crime who nobody in this room wants living in their communities.”The iron-fisted Bukele made the extraordinary offer to take in prisoners from the United States shortly after Trump’s inauguration for a second term.Trump has already sent more than 250 migrants there, mostly under a centuries-old wartime law that deprives them of due process — in exchange for a fee of $6 million paid to El Salvador.But he has increasingly started talking about sending US citizens to foreign jails too.Trump’s administration already faces pressure over the case of a migrant who was mistakenly deported from the United States to El Salvador under the Bukele deal.Bukele on Monday dismissed the “preposterous” idea of returning the man — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father who was living in the US state of Maryland — to the United States.The US Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return from the notorious jail after the White House said he was deported after an “administrative error.”Trump officials insist he is an illegal migrant and a member of El Salvador’s notorious MS-13 gang, despite never having been convicted.

Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s retrial on rape and sex assault charges began Tuesday, forcing survivors who helped fire up the “#MeToo” movement to prepare to testify against him once more.Weinstein’s 2020 conviction by a jury was overturned last year by an appeals court that ruled that the way witnesses were handled in the original New York trial was unlawful.The voiding of the jury’s verdict by the New York Court of Appeals was a setback to survivors of the #MeToo movement against sexual violence and the promotion of justice for them.Weinstein was wheeled in to court wearing a dark blue suit, and adjusted his tie as he took his seat at the defense table while the trial lawyers spoke to the judge.Judge Curtis Farber said he expected presentation of evidence to last five to six weeks.”I am hopeful the trial will be over by the end of May,” he said.Several dozen prospective jurors indicated they felt they could not give Weinstein a fair trial because of what they knew about the case.The onetime Miramax studio boss was charged with the sexual assault of former production assistant Mimi Haleyi in 2006, the rape of aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013, and a new count for an alleged sexual assault in 2006 at a hotel in Manhattan. Haleyi and Mann testified in the earlier trial, sharing graphic accounts of their interactions with Weinstein.Lindsay Goldbrum, a lawyer for the unnamed woman who brought the new complaint, told reporters outside court that “she had the honor of representing an incredible woman.””They are going to ensure Weinstein is held accountable for his heinous crimes against women,” she said.”The fact they are going to testify again is testimony to their bravery.”Weinstein, 73, said he hopes the case will be judged with “fresh eyes,” more than seven years after investigations by the New York Times and the New Yorker led to his spectacular downfall and a global backlash against predatory abusers.Weinstein is serving a 16-year prison sentence after being convicted on separate charges in California in 2023 for raping and assaulting a European actor a decade prior.- ‘Fry Harvey’? -The producer of a string of box office hits like “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love,” Weinstein has battled health issues.”It’ll be very, very different because of the attitude of New York City, New York state and, I think, the overall country,” said his lawyer Arthur Aidala.”Five years ago, when you guys were here, there were protests. There were people chanting: ‘Fry Harvey, he’s a rapist’… I think that, overall, has died down,” he said, adding that he hoped jurors would try the case on its merits.Aidala separately told Fox 5 Monday that Weinstein had several ailments, including a “horrible infection in his mouth, his throat — and he’s struggling to speak, and when you’re about to go on trial you need to communicate with your lawyer.”Weinstein has never acknowledged any wrongdoing and has always maintained that the encounters were consensual.Accusers describe the movie mogul as a predator who used his perch atop the cinema industry to pressure actors and assistants for sexual favors, often in hotel rooms.Since his downfall, Weinstein has been accused of harassment, sexual assault or rape by more than 80 women, including actors Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lupita Nyong’o and Ashley Judd.In 2020, a jury of New Yorkers found Weinstein guilty of two out of five charges — the sexual assault of Haleyi and the rape of Mann.But the conviction and the 23-year prison sentence were overturned in April 2024.In a hotly debated four-to-three decision, New York’s appeals court ruled that jurors should not have heard testimonies of victims about sexual assaults for which Harvey Weinstein was not indicted.The three survivors of Weinstein’s alleged crimes are expected to testify once again.”I’m going on jury duty — I hope I don’t get that (trial),” said a woman smoking a cigarette outside the courthouse.

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that China has gone back on a major Boeing deal, after a news report that Beijing ordered airlines not to take further deliveries of the US aviation giant’s jets.Trump’s comments on social media followed a Bloomberg news report about the halt. The report also said that Beijing requested Chinese carriers to pause purchases of aircraft-related equipment and parts from US firms.”Interestingly, they just reneged on the big Boeing deal, saying that they will ‘not take possession’ of fully committed to aircraft,” said Trump in a Truth Social post, referring to China as trade tensions flared between the world’s two biggest economies.But he did not provide further details on the Boeing pact he was referring to.Although Trump has slapped new tariffs on friend and foe since returning to the presidency this year, he reserved his heaviest blows for China — imposing additional 145 percent levies on many Chinese imports.Trump took aim at Beijing again on Tuesday, saying on Truth Social that China did not fully fulfil an earlier trade deal. He appeared to be referencing a pact that marked a truce in both sides’ escalating tariffs war during his first term.The US president said China bought only “a portion of what they agreed to buy,” charging that Beijing had “zero respect” for his predecessor Joe Biden’s administration.Trump also vowed to protect US farmers in the same post, noting that farmers were often “put on the Front Line with our adversaries, such as China,” when there were trade tussles.Since the start of the year, Trump has imposed steep duties on imports from China, alongside a 10 percent “baseline” tariff on many US trading partners.His administration recently widened exemptions for these tariffs, excluding certain tech products like smartphones and laptops from the global 10 percent tariff and latest 125 percent levy on China.But many Chinese imports still face the total 145 percent additional tariff, or at least an earlier 20 percent levy that Trump rolled out over China’s alleged role in the fentanyl supply chain.In response, Beijing has introduced counter tariffs targeting US agricultural goods — and later retaliated with a sweeping 125 percent levy of its own on imported American products.China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to AFP queries on the aircraft deliveries, and Boeing has declined to comment on the Bloomberg report.Boeing shares were around 1.5 percent lower on Tuesday morning.