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Mahmoud Khalil, one of the most prominent leaders of pro-Palestinian protests on US campuses, recounted his experience surviving 104 days in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention after being targeted for deportation by the Trump administration.”I shared a dorm with over 70 men, absolutely no privacy, lights on all the time,” the 30-year-old said Sunday on the steps of Columbia University, where he was a graduate student.Khalil, a legal permanent resident in the United States who is married to an American citizen and has a US-born son, had been in custody since March facing potential removal proceedings.He was freed from a federal immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana on Friday, hours after a judge ordered his release on bail. The activist was a figurehead of student protests at Columbia University against US ally Israel’s war in Gaza, and the administration of Donald Trump labeled him a national security threat.”It’s so normal in detention to see men cry,” Khalil recalled, deeming the situation “horrendous” and “a stain on the US Constitution.””I spent my days listening to one tragic story after another: listening to a father of four whose wife is battling cancer, and he’s in detention,” Khalil detailed in his first protest appearance since regaining his freedom.”I listened to a story of an individual who has been in the United States for over 20 years, all his children are American, yet he’s deported.”The circumstances of the detention were tough, Khalil described, and he took solace where he could find it to gain the strength to carry on.- ‘We will win’ -“It is often hard to find patience in ICE detention,” Khalil said. “The center is crowded with hundreds of people who are told that their existence is illegal, and not one of us knows when we can go free.”At those moments, it was remembering a specific chant that gave me strength : ‘I believe that we will win,'” he continued, to cheers from the audience.Khalil said he even scratched the phrase into his detention center bunk bed as a reminder, being the last thing he saw when he went to sleep and the first thing he read waking up in the morning.He repeats it even now, “knowing that I have won in a small way by being free today.”Khalil took specific aim at the site of his speech, Columbia University, chastising the institution for saying “that they want to protect their international students, while over 100 (days) later, I haven’t received a single call from this university.”Khalil’s wife Noor Abdalla, who gave birth to their son while her husband was held by ICE, said his “voice is stronger now than it has ever been.””One day our son will know that his father did not bow to fear. He will know that his father stood up when it was hardest, and that the world stood with him,” Abdalla said.

A divided US Supreme Court paved the way on Monday for the Trump administration to resume deportations of undocumented migrants to countries that are not their own.The unsigned order from the conservative-dominated top court came in response to an emergency appeal by the Justice Department to lift a stay imposed by a lower court on so-called third country deportations.The Supreme Court did not provide an explanation for the decision and the three liberal justices dissented.The original case challenging the third country deportations will now be heard by an appeals court but the Supreme Court’s move allows the removals to proceed for now.District Judge Brian Murphy had ordered a halt to third country deportations in April, saying migrants were not being given a “meaningful opportunity” to contest their expulsions.Murphy said they should get at least 15 days to challenge their deportation and provide evidence of whether they may be at risk of torture or death if expelled.The original case involves the deportation of eight men — two from Myanmar, two from Cuba, a Vietnamese man, a Laotian, a Mexican and one from South Sudan — who the US authorities said were convicted violent criminals.They were being flown to impoverished war-torn South Sudan when Murphy’s order came down and have been held since at a US military base in Djibouti.The Trump administration has defended the third country deportations as necessary since the home nations of some of those who are targeted for removal often refuse to accept them.Justice Sonia Sotomayor, author of the dissent, accused the administration of “flagrantly unlawful conduct” that is “exposing thousands to the risk of torture or death.””The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard,” Sotomayor said.- ‘Fire up the deportation planes’ -The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) welcomed the Supreme Court move as a “victory for the safety and security of the American people.””If these activists judges had their way, aliens who are so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won’t take them back, including convicted murderers, child rapists and drug traffickers, would walk free on American streets,” DHS said in a post on X.”DHS can now execute its lawful authority and remove illegal aliens to a country willing to accept them,” it said. “Fire up the deportation planes.”Donald Trump campaigned for president promising to expel millions of undocumented migrants from the US, and he has taken a number of actions aimed at speeding up deportations since returning to the White House in January.But his mass deportation efforts have been thwarted or stalled by numerous courts, including the Supreme Court, over concerns that migrant rights to due process are being ignored.Murphy, an appointee of Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, also temporarily blocked the government from expelling Asian migrants to Libya.

A potentially life-threatening heat wave enveloped the eastern third of the United States on Monday impacting nearly 160 million people, with temperatures expected to climb to 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) in the New York metropolitan area.The country’s first significant scorching heat of the year arrived over the weekend and peaks Monday and Tuesday in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City.”This extreme heat will not just be uncomfortable and oppressive for New Yorkers,” warned Mayor Eric Adams, adding that each year heat claims the lives of 500 people in this city of eight million.”It’s going to be brutal and dangerous if you do not treat it with the understanding that we want you to,” he added.As sweltering heat enveloped the city, authorities urged seniors, people with health problems and those without air conditioning to stay hydrated and seek help at designated cooling centers such as libraries and recreation facilities. Heat records tumbled across parts of the US Northeast, including in Central Park, known as the lungs of Manhattan, where Monday’s temperature of 96 degrees broke a record that had stood since 1888, according to the National Weather Service.”Extreme Heat Warnings and Heat Advisories across much of the eastern third of the country (are) affecting nearly 160 million people” across at least 29 states, the NWS reported. “This level of HeatRisk is known for being rare and/or long duration with little to no overnight relief, and affects anyone without effective cooling and/or adequate hydration,” the agency warned.Meteorologists are describing the intensifying weather pattern as a heat dome, a high-pressure system that traps air and leads to steadily rising thermal readings.For many in the Big Apple, avoiding work in the searing heat was not an option.”We have to endure it, because otherwise what are we going to survive on?” Manuel, a manual worker repairing a building facade in New York’s Harlem neighborhood, told AFP.”Sometimes we stop because it’s a danger. We don’t all have the same energy, but you have to endure,” he added.In the Washington Heights neighborhood, authorities opened several fire hydrants so residents could seek relief with the gushing water.One of the local heroes was Ronald Marcelin, a 44-year-old air conditioning technician sweating profusely as he repaired a pizzeria’s AC unit.”I’m taking the heat so that everyone else can cool down,” Marcelin said with a grin.- Triple digits -The soaring temperatures come just as New Yorkers head to the polls Tuesday for the Democratic primary that will decide the party’s mayoral candidate. This promises to be a tight race between Andrew Cuomo, who is seeking political resurrection after resigning in disgrace as state governor in 2021, and rising left-wing star Zohran Mamdami.Over the weekend, Cuomo urged residents to cast their votes even if the temperatures hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit.In Washington, the heat index — what the temperature feels like with humidity factored in — was forecast to soar to as high as 110 F on Monday, and the mayor’s office urged residents to take advantage of cooling centers.Scientists say extreme heat waves are a clear sign of global warming, and they are expected to become more frequent, longer, and more intense.Fueled by human-caused climate change, 2024 was the warmest year on record globally — and 2025 is projected to rank among the top three.

Breathtaking stellar nurseries, a sprawling stretch of cosmos teeming with millions of galaxies, and thousands of newly discovered asteroids were revealed Monday in the first deep space images captured by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile.More than two decades in the making, the $800 million US-funded telescope sits atop Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos.One debut image is a composite of 678 exposures taken over seven hours, capturing the Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops.It reveals these birth places of stars in unprecedented detail, with previously faint or invisible features now clearly visible. Another, dubbed “The Cosmic Treasure Chest,” shows the universe “teeming with stars and galaxies — the seemingly empty black pockets of space between stars in the night sky when you look at it with unaided eyes, are transformed here into these glittering tapestries,” said Zeljko Ivezic, director of Rubin construction. Spiral, elliptical, and clustered galaxies appear in vivid reds, blues, and oranges. These colors reveal key details such as distance and size with unmatched precision, helping scientists better understand the universe’s expansion history.The colors don’t directly match what the naked eye would see, explained scientist Federica Bianco, since the telescope captures a far broader range of wavelengths. Instead, they are representational: infrared is mapped to red to represent cooler objects, while ultraviolet is mapped to blue and indicates warmer ones.- 10-year flagship project -An interactive version of the image is now available on the Rubin Observatory’s website.”One of the things that is very fun is that if you zoom in and you look at one of the fuzzy galaxies there, you might be the first person to be paying attention to that fuzzy blob,” said Clare Higgs, education and public outreach science lead.The observatory features an advanced 8.4-meter telescope and the largest digital camera ever built, supported by a powerful data system transferring 20 terabytes each night.Roughly the size of a car, the camera captures 3,200-megapixel images. It would take 400 ultra-high-definition televisions stacked together to view a single Rubin image at full resolution.Later this year, the observatory will launch its flagship project, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Over the next decade, it will scan the night sky nightly, detecting even the subtlest changes with unmatched precision.Named after pioneering American astronomer Vera C. Rubin — whose research provided the first conclusive evidence for dark matter — the observatory continues her legacy by making dark matter a central focus of its mission.Dark energy, an equally mysterious and immensely powerful force, is believed to drive the accelerating expansion of the universe. Together, dark matter and dark energy are thought to make up 95 percent of the cosmos, yet their true nature remains unknown.”By observing up to 20 billion galaxies, we’ll study how light from those distant galaxies has reached us — and nearly every galaxy’s light has been bent by the gravitational interaction of dark matter that pervades the universe,” said scientist Aaron Roodman. This, he added, will help illuminate these cosmic mysteries. A joint initiative of the US National Science Foundation and Department of Energy, the observatory is also considered one of the most powerful tools ever built for planetary defense.In just 10 hours of observation, Rubin discovered 2,104 previously unknown asteroids in our solar system, including seven near-Earth objects — none of which pose a threat. All other ground- and space-based observatories combined discover about 20,000 new asteroids per year.- Chilean pride – Chile hosts telescopes from more than 30 countries, including some of the most advanced astronomical instruments in the world — among them the ALMA Observatory, the most powerful radio telescope on Earth.Cerro Tololo Observatory helped achieve the landmark discovery of the universe’s accelerating expansion — a breakthrough that earned the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.Another major project, the Extremely Large Telescope, is slated to begin operations in 2027 and promises to probe previously unreachable cosmic distances.

When Donald Trump said on Thursday he’d give himself two weeks to decide on bombing Iran, critics wrote it off as the US president using a familiar timeframe to put off difficult decisions.The next evening he left the White House for a fundraising dinner at his New Jersey golf resort, and much of the world seemed to believe that there was still space for diplomacy.In reality, Trump was already on the verge of making his mind up. A few hours after his arrival at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster on Friday night, the first B-2 stealth bombers took off from a US airbase.The next day, while the bombers were still in the air, Trump made the call on attacking three Iranian nuclear facilities, in the first direct US military strike on Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.”The president gave the final order to the Secretary of Defense on Saturday,” a senior White House official told AFP on condition of anonymity.”In the week leading up to the strike, the president was continuing to pursue diplomacy, mainly through Special Envoy (Steve) Witkoff’s efforts, while the Pentagon was simultaneously preparing the operation,” added the official.- ‘Misdirection’ -Trump’s “two weeks” gambit appeared to be part of a broader campaign of what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called “misdirection,” which included several B-2s flying in the opposite direction as a decoy.Trump, the tycoon who prides himself as an expert on the “art of the deal,” had ladled on the strategic ambiguity all week.First he flew home early from the G7 summit for talks with his national security team. Then he unleashed a barrage of bellicose social media posts against Iran’s supreme leader. On Wednesday he said that “I may do it, I may not” when asked about striking Iran.Finally, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt read out a statement from Trump in the White House briefing room on Thursday, saying there was a “substantial” chance of talks and that he would decide “whether or not to go within the next two weeks.”It played into a frequent criticism of Trump for setting two-week deadlines on everything from Ukraine to health care and then ignoring them. But behind the scenes, Trump was increasingly determined, US officials said.Trump had opposed Israel attacking Iran right up until it did so on June 13 — but afterwards he openly admired Israel’s success and was talking daily to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Israel’s achievement of air superiority over Iran presented Trump with a unique opportunity to hit the nuclear program that he had railed against since his first term.Trump was “briefed daily on the Israelis’ efforts and the operation itself as he decided whether to move forward,” the senior White House official said.The US commander-in-chief held daily meetings with his National Security Council in the White House’s basement Situation Room as he pondered his options.And to head off opposition in his “Make America Great Again” movement to another Middle Eastern “forever war”, he reportedly met his influential former aide Steve Bannon.- ‘Highly classified’ -In public, Trump and the White House took pains to keep things under wraps.The normally talkative Trump said nothing to reporters as he returned to the White House on Saturday night, just one minute after his scheduled 6 pm arrival.The timing was precise for a reason. The first B-2 bomber dropped its bombs just 40 minutes later, at 6:40 pm US time, or 2:10 am Sunday Iranian time. The last submarine-fired Tomahawk missiles struck at 7:05 pm.Trump announced the “very successful” strikes in a Truth Social post at 7:50 pm.The White House then released pictures of a pensive looking Trump in the Situation Room, wearing his red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap.”This was a highly classified mission with very few people in Washington knowing the timing or nature of this plan,” US Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine said on Sunday.But the tough decisions are far from over for Trump, who was meeting his top team again on Monday in the Oval Office.How will he respond to Iran’s retaliation on Monday? If the US strikes did not completely destroy Iran’s nuclear sites as he claimed, will he launch more?Above all, will Trump go further than striking Iran’s nuclear plants? “If the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.

Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iran has been cheered by mainstream Republicans but it has exposed deep fissures between the hawks and the isolationists in the “MAGA” movement that swept the self-styled peacemaker US president back to power.Trump ran as an “America First” Republican who would avoid the foreign entanglements of his predecessors, tapping into his movement’s unease about prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as more recent conflagrations in Gaza and Ukraine.Establishment Republicans — and in particular the congressional party — rallied behind their leader after Saturday’s military action, welcoming what many see as an about-face and rejecting claims that the president had violated the Constitution. Beyond Washington’s Beltway, some of the die-hard members of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” coalition who follow him on the rally circuit also appear willing — for now, at least — to give him the benefit of the doubt.”I don’t think we’re going to end up in war. I think Trump is leader, and he’s going to just obliterate them, and there won’t be any war,” 63-year-old Jane Sisk, a retired mother-of-six from Richmond, Virginia, told AFP. But the louder, more visible, more online faction of MAGA influencers and media personalities who oppose their government reaching beyond the US shoreline are desperate to sway Trump’s supporters in the opposite direction.In a long post on X Monday, far-right lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene bemoaned having traveled the country campaigning for Trump, only to see him break his anti-interventionist covenant with his supporters.- ‘Bait and switch’ -“Only 6 months in and we are back into foreign wars, regime change, and world war 3,” she thundered on the social media site.”It feels like a complete bait and switch to please the neocons, warmongers, military industrial complex contracts, and neocon tv personalities that MAGA hates and who were NEVER TRUMPERS!”While the post was astonishing for its uncompromising language — Greene appropriated a Democratic talking point to add that Trump was “not a king” — it was far from the first sign of MAGA dissent.Thomas Massie — a House conservative who has piqued Trump’s irritation with anti-war posts — told CBS that members of his faction within MAGA were “tired from all these wars.”And as Trump gave his televised address confirming details of strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, his former top strategist Steve Bannon told viewers of his online “War Room” show that the president has “some work to do” to explain his decision.Other figures among Trump’s right-wing support base have started to come around after initially voicing shock.Far-right influencer Charlie Kirk — a leading MAGA anti-war voice before the weekend — warned his millions of YouTube viewers that US involvement in the Iran-Israel conflict would cause “a major schism in the MAGA online community.”- ‘Trust in Trump’ -But he appeared to have shifted his stance over the weekend, praising Trump for “prudence and decisiveness.” The U-turn is symptomatic of a broader trend, analysts argue, among the softer MAGA isolationists to fall into line and simply embrace the White House’s “trust in Trump” mantra now that they have lost the argument.Conservative Hoover Institution fellow Lanhee Chen believes the president will hold his coalition together as long as they see Saturday’s action as more akin to the 2020 US assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani than the start of a protracted war.”I think you saw some of that disagreement leading up to last night. I haven’t seen a lot of disagreement since then,” Chen told NBC on Sunday. Trust in Trump could be eroded, his allies warn, if Iran retaliates, dragging the United States into an escalating cycle of violence. But, for now, the president’s coalition is on board with his warnings over Iran’s nuclear threat.Polling conducted after the US strikes will take several days to filter through, but in the latest J.L. Partners survey just ahead of the mission, 67 percent of “MAGA Republicans” agreed that “Israel’s war is America’s war” while only 20 percent wanted the country to remain on the sidelines.”I don’t think Trump’s going to send soldiers over there,” said Sisk, the Virginia supporter interviewed by AFP. “I don’t think he’s gonna get us involved in the war, just like he said.”

New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced plans Monday to build a nuclear power facility, enlisting a state agency for the first major new US nuclear construction since 2009.Hochul tapped the New York Power Authority to develop a nuclear plant with combined capacity of at least one gigiwatt of electricity, according to a New York state press release.The project is targeted for upstate New York where Hochul, in a speech unveiling the plan, described several communities as being receptive because they “know these are good paying, long-term jobs.” The move comes amid a revival in nuclear energy investments prompted in large part by large technology companies targeting the energy form as a source to fuel massive artificial intelligence data centers.Hochul referenced recent nuclear investments by tech giants Google, Amazon and Microsoft during her announcement. But she also tied the push to affordability concerns after a 2021 decision to permanently close a nuclear plant in Westchester County crimped supply.Hochul acknowledged that some residents had questions about safety but expressed confidence in “21st century nuclear design,” she said.”My friends, it’s coming and it’s back and if we don’t jump on, or lead this, they’re going to pass us by,” Hochul said. “These companies will go elsewhere.”Energy companies have struggled to add nuclear capacity in the United States since a 1979 meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. But in a sign of the shifting economic calculus around nuclear energy, the utility company Constellation, working with Microsoft, last year announced plans to reopen the facility due to the AI push. President Donald Trump last month signed an executive order last month to “reinvigorate” US nuclear energy, including by speeding up the building of new reactors and boosting domestic mining and enrichment of uranium.But Hochul said Trump will still need to take action to streamline federal permit issuance because getting US approval for nuclear plants can take 10 years or more. “I said it to the president. If you want energy dominance, I want energy dominance,” Hochul said. “This is how we do it.”

A federal judge, in a setback for the Trump administration, has said she plans to order the release of a wrongly deported Salvadoran migrant while he awaits trial on human smuggling charges.Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, 29, was summarily deported to a maximum security prison in El Salvador in March and brought back to the United States this month.His case has become a key test of President Donald Trump’s hardline deportation policies.Abrego Garcia was immediately arrested on his return and charged in Nashville, Tennessee, with smuggling undocumented migrants around the United States between 2016 and 2025.Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the charges and a federal magistrate judge said in a ruling on Sunday that prosecutors had not made a convincing argument that he should be detained pending trial.”The government alleges that Abrego is a long-time, well-known member of MS-13,” the notorious Salvadoran gang, Judge Barbara Holmes said in her 51-page ruling.”But Abrego has no reported criminal history of any kind… and his reputed gang membership is contradicted by the government’s own evidence.””Overall,” the judge said, “the strength of the factors weighing in favor of release outweighs all other factors in favor of detention.”Holmes acknowledged, however, that even if she orders Abrego Garcia’s release at a hearing on Wednesday he would likely be immediately taken into custody by federal immigration agents to face potential removal proceedings.”That suggests the Court’s determination of the detention issues is little more than an academic exercise,” she said. “That suggestion is understandable. But the foundation of the administration of our criminal law depends on the bedrock of due process.”Abrego Garcia was living in the eastern state of Maryland until he became one of more than 200 people sent to the CECOT prison in El Salvador as part of Trump’s crackdown on undocumented migrants.Most of the migrants who were summarily deported were alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration has declared a foreign terrorist organization.Justice Department lawyers later admitted that Abrego Garcia — who is married to a US citizen — was wrongly deported due to an “administrative error.”Abrego Garcia had been living in the United States under protected legal status since 2019, when a judge ruled he should not be deported because he could be harmed in his home country.

Sales of existing homes in the United States were tepid in May, according to industry data released Monday, as high mortgage rates weighed on the market.Sales of previously-owned homes ticked up 0.8 percent in May from the prior month, to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 4.03 million, said the National Association of Realtors (NAR).”The relatively subdued sales are largely due to persistently high mortgage rates,” said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun.”Lower interest rates will attract more buyers and sellers to the housing market,” he added in a statement.While the uptick exceeded analysts’ expectations, experts anticipate continued weakness in sales as mortgage rates remain elevated and the job market softens as President Donald Trump’s tariffs impact inflation and economic growth.From a year ago, existing home sales were down 0.7 percent.Yun told reporters that the 4.03 million pace meant the market is running at 75 percent of what it was before the Covid-19 pandemic, even though the United States has added jobs over the period.This is primarily due to affordability challenges, he said.The average 30-year fixed rate mortgage was close to 6.9 percent as of the end of May, according to Freddie Mac, slightly above the 6.8 percent in late April.The higher mortgage rates come as the US Federal Reserve has held the benchmark lending rate steady this year, keeping interest rates unchanged for a fourth straight policy meeting this month.Nancy Vanden Houten, lead US economist at Oxford Economics, said a rise in the supply of homes on the market could help cushion risks for sales, especially if price hikes ease.But for now, the median sales price was up 1.3 percent from a year ago at $422,800, a record high for the month of May, the NAR said.”It’s a nearly impossible housing market for first-time buyers,” said Navy Federal Credit Union chief economist Heather Long in a statement.She also warned that “Americans are watching what happens in the Middle East and paying close attention to rising prices at the gas pump.”The United States bombed Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend and Tehran has vowed to retaliate.This sent jitters across the oil market as traders gauged the possibility of whether Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for oil and gas.

The US Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear the case of a devout Rastafarian whose knee-length dreadlocks were forcibly shorn while he was in prison in the southern state of Louisiana.Damon Landor is seeking permission to sue individual officials of the Louisiana Department of Corrections for monetary damages for violating his religious rights.Landor, who had been growing his hair for nearly two decades, was serving the final three weeks of a five-month sentence for drug possession in 2020 when his hair was cut.Landor presented prison guards with a copy of a 2017 court ruling stating that Rastafarians should be allowed to keep their dreadlocks in line with their religious beliefs.A prison guard threw the document away and Landor was handcuffed to a chair and had his head shaved, according to court records.An appeals court condemned Landor’s “egregious” treatment but ruled that he is not eligible to sue individual prison officials for damages.Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill, in a brief submitted to the Supreme Court, acknowledged that the treatment of Landor by prison guards was “antithetical to religious freedom.””The State has amended its prison grooming policy to ensure that nothing like Petitioner’s alleged experience can occur,” Murrill said.But federal law does not permit “money damages against a state official sued in his individual capacity,” she added.The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case during its next term, which begins in October.Rastafarians let their hair grow, typically in dreadlocks, as part of their beliefs in the religion which originated in Jamaica and was popularized by the late reggae singer Bob Marley.