Student who led pro-Palestinian protests at Cornell University leaves US

Momodou Taal, who has sued the Trump administration to block deportations of pro-Palestinian student protesters, has said he is leaving the US because his visa has been revoked, and he no longer has faith that he can “walk the streets without being abducted”.

In a statement on X, the Cornell University student said the Trump administration had also sent immigration agents to his home and that the court had denied his first petition to prevent his detention.

Taal, a British-Gambian national, said his lawyers were due to file a second motion, but he has now “lost faith that a favourable ruling from the courts could guarantee my personal safety and ability to express my beliefs”.

Weighing up these options, “I took the decision to leave on my own terms”, he wrote.

“The repression of Palestinian solidarity is now being used to wage a wholesale attack on any form of expression that challenges oppressive and exploitative relations in the US,” Taal said.

“For every person that has remained silent, just know that you are not safe either. Is the imprisonment of those who speak out against a genocide a reflection of your values?” he added.

Trump threatens $9bn in Harvard funding over ‘anti-Semitism’

The US government will review $9bn of funding for Harvard University over alleged anti-Semitism on campus, authorities said, after it cut millions from Columbia University, which has also seen pro-Palestinian student protests.

President Donald Trump has aggressively targeted prestigious US universities, stripping their federal funds and directing immigration officers to deport foreign student demonstrators, including those with green cards.

Officials would look at $255.6m in contracts between Harvard and the government, as well as $8.7bn in multi-year grant commitments to the prestigious Ivy League institution, the General Services Administration said in a statement.

Critics argue that the Trump administration’s campaign is retributive and will have a chilling effect on free speech, while its supporters insist it is necessary to restore order to campuses and protect Jewish students.

“Harvard’s failure to protect students on campus from anti-Semitic discrimination – all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry – has put its reputation in serious jeopardy,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said.

Cory Booker, has now spoken for 21 hours on the Senate floor in opposition to the Trump administration.

If only Chuck Schumer had half the fight as Booker is showing. Step down you useless twat.

Leader of pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University detained for three weeks

Mahmoud Khalil has been held here now for about three weeks, and he has not been charged. Typically, that would be illegal in the United States, but when you’re in the immigration deportation system, where Khalil finds himself now, this is technically considered to be an administrative detention.

He has found himself plugged into a private prison system here in Louisiana which only runs prisons in very remote rural areas. We are thousands of kilometres from where Khalil was arrested in New York City, and his lawyer says this was partially by design in order to isolate him from his community of supporters and from his attorneys.

This centre is run by the GEO Group private prison company, which has been accused of a series of allegations by the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] and other human rights groups over poor conditions and even what they call “widespread abuse” of prisoners. We spoke to one former detainee held here two years ago who accused the facility of sexual abuse and torture.

Khalil is actually fighting two separate cases. One is to avoid deportation. He is a US permanent resident, and he’s scheduled to speak to an immigration attorney here in this detention facility in about a week. But the rejection rate of those appeals is about 90 percent.

But Khalil is also trying to fight a civil rights case against the federal government, saying that his detention here in the first place was unconstitutional, and a judge is deciding where to hear that case – whether it’s here in Louisiana, where the Trump administration wants it, or in New Jersey, closer to Khalil’s home.

And he’s not the only international activist who has been sent to Louisiana over their stance on Israel’s war on Gaza. There are at least two others as well.

Trump nominee would push UK to lift suspensions on arms to Israel

Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to London says he would ask the United Kingdom to reverse a partial suspension of arms exports to Israel, a decision taken over rights concerns.

Warren Stephens, an Arkansas-based investment banker and Trump political donor nominated for the coveted diplomatic posting, said he was “a little perplexed” by the decision of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

“What I’ve read about that, with the UK halting some of their shipments to Israel, is certainly concerning,” Stephens said at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“I would do my part to encourage them to reinstate those permits and to try to get them, you know, what they need to continue the fight,” he said.

He was responding to a question from Republican Senator Rick Scott, who said Starmer’s Labour Party “treats Israel as a problem and not a solution” and called on Stephens to “try to educate” Britain on Israel.

Starmer announced in September that the UK would suspend 30 out of 350 arms export licences to Israel out of fear the weapons could be used in breach of humanitarian law as Israel pounded Gaza.

But some campaigners said the move did not go far enough, particularly because components for F-35 fighter jets could still be supplied to Israel.

Brits got to get back in line, full on genocidal colonialism is the solution...


Delusional

White House says Yemen strikes ‘incredibly successful’ as Houthis release footage of downed US drone

The Houthis claim to have shot the MQ-9 Reaper drone down on Monday over Marib and released footage today showing burning debris, followed by fighters combing through the wreckage.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the US strikes on the Houthis have been “incredibly successful”.

“There have now been more than 200 successful strikes,” Leavitt said. “Iran is incredibly weakened as a result. They’ve taken out Houthi leaders, critical members who have been launching strikes on naval ships and commercial vessels. This operation will not stop until the freedom of navigation in this region is restored.”

The Houthis have yet to confirm the death of any of their leaders since the US renewed its bombing campaign in March.

The US propaganda machine is trying to out do Russia's...

Israel eliminates tariffs on US goods: Prime minister’s office

The announcement comes after Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had said earlier on Tuesday that Israel had launched a process to eliminate the remaining tariffs on US imports immediately.

US President Donald Trump is expected to implement blanket reciprocal tariffs on nations across the globe on Wednesday. For more on the tariffs and developments in the US, you can follow our live page here.

Israel is the 51st state, not Canada.

Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday said she had ordered federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in the case against Luigi Mangione in connection with the December slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

"Luigi Mangione's murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America," Bondi said in a statement.

"After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump's agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again," the attorney general said.

DOJ to seek death penalty for Luigi Mangione in CEO murder case

Although they're evil, they're also stupid as fuck, like even if you're an evil bastard, the smart thing to do would just be sentence him to life and wait for people to forget about him, executing him would turn him into a martyr, I think the only comfort in how evil this administration is, is that they're equally as stupid. Anyway, quite clearly the most pro-billionaire administration ever, they must protect billionaires responsible for the suffering and deaths of thousands.

Although very unlikely, I hope Luigi gets jury nullification.

Somehow when I started listening to the live feed of his presentation, he said this like a minute or two after I started listening. 

Funny coincidences of life. 

The Trump administration acknowledged in a court filing Monday that it had grabbed a Maryland father with protected legal status and mistakenly deported him to El Salvador, but said that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction to order his return from the megaprison where he’s now locked up.

The case appears to be the first time the Trump administration has admitted to errors when it sent three planeloads of Salvadoran and Venezuelan deportees to El Salvador’s grim “Terrorism Confinement Center” on March 15. Attorneys for several Venezuelan deportees have said that the Trump administration falsely labeled their clients as gang members because of their tattoos. Trump officials have disputed those claims.

Abrego Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen and has a 5-year-old disabled child who is also a U.S. citizen, has no criminal record in the United States, according to his attorney. The Trump administration does not claim he has a criminal record, but called him a "danger to the community" and an active member of MS-13, the Salvadoran gang that Trump has declared a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

An ‘Administrative Error’ Sends a Maryland Father to a Salvadoran Prison - The Atlantic

Disgusting.

Who'd thought just rounding up anyone with a tattoo would backfire.

And Republicans will celebrate it like they celebrated bombing a building in Yemen which killed innocents.

Members of President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, including White House national security adviser Michael Waltz, have conducted government business over personal Gmail accounts, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post and interviews with three U.S. officials.

Waltz and staff used Gmail for government communications, officials say - The Washington Post

It's okay, White House has closed the case, everything is fine.

White House says it's 'case closed' on the Signal group chat review : NPR

The amount of hypocrisy is unbelievable, Lol.

... and makes them look as foolish as Muhammad Saeed Al-Sahhaf, the Information Minister and chief propagandist of Iraq when Bush invaded the country in 2003, who declared things like American soldiers committing suicide by the hundreds when none did, that the coalition troops have been beaten back and pushed out of the country when they were just mere miles away from Baghdad, denying that coalition tanks entered Baghdad when they were heard firing in the background and visible when looking out the window, and other such abstruse idiocies.

He would have been a perfect fit for MAGA with all his fake news...

I hope you have a good social worker to help you out. Please don't let these evil people win by harming yourself. 

VGC, here is foolishness...

...and it is now April. Are you not satisfied?