Kilmar Abrego Garcia will ‘never' live in the US again, White House says

The Trump administration issued an order Wednesday to stop construction on a major offshore wind project to power more than 500,000 New York homes, the latest in a series of moves targeting the industry.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to halt construction on Empire Wind, a fully-permitted project. He said it needs further review because it appears the Biden administration rushed the approval.

The Norwegian company Equinor is building Empire Wind to start providing power in 2026. Equinor finalized the federal lease for Empire Wind in March 2017, early in President Donald Trump's first term. BOEM approved the construction and operations plan in February 2024 and construction began that year.

Read the full story from The Associated Press here

U.S. stocks dropped as the costs of U.S. restrictions on global trade compounded. The S&P 500 fell 2.2% Wednesday, the Dow lost 1.7%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 3.1%.

Losses accelerated after the Federal Reserve’s head said President Donald Trump’s tariffs could push economic growth lower and inflation higher than earlier thought.

Nvidia sank after saying new U.S. restrictions on exports to China will chisel billions of dollars off its results.

And United Airlines said conditions are so impossible to predict that it gave two forecasts for its financials this upcoming year, one if there’s a recession and another if not.

Trump commented on what he described as the "genetics" of Latino people in an interview clip that aired today.

“Hispanic people have been supportive of me like no other candidate,” Trump said in a portion of a Fox Noticias interview that aired this afternoon.

(Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

“They’re great people. They work so hard. They are very, very entrepreneurial, always have been, always will be. See, that’s genetics too. You know, we talked about genetics before. That’s genetics, too," he added.

Trump has remarked on genes before, saying "we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now," referring to people who had crossed the southern border who he believed were murderers. During a campaign rally in 2023, Trump also said that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country."

Trump said in a Truth Social post that tariff negotiations with Japanese officials today resulted in "big progress."

"A Great Honor to have just met with the Japanese Delegation on Trade. Big Progress!" Trump wrote.

Earlier today, the president said Japanese officials were coming to the White House to negotiate tariffs, the cost of military support and trade fairness. He attended the meeting alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Trump has previously placed 24% tariffs on Japan as part of the sweeping penalties he placed on imports from nearly every country. He paused those tariffs last week, but maintained a 10% baseline tariff on Japan and most other countries.

The administration has filed official notice that it's appealing Judge Xinis' order directing it to "take all available steps to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States as soon as possible."

In court yesterday, the government maintained it had already done so by saying it would facilitate allowing him into the country if he made it to a port of entry. Xinis said the Justice Department's definition of facilitate is far too narrow "and runs contrary to law and logic," and it needs to attempt to get him returned from the prison in El Salvador that he was wrongly sent to.

She's also directed daily status reports from the administration on its efforts to that effect. An attorney for the Department of Homeland Security said in a filing today that DHS had nothing to update since it believes it has already complied with the judge's order.

"Given the government’s prior clear and unequivocal notice to the court regarding how the government will facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return within the counters of existing law and regulation, there are no further updates,” wrote the agency's general counsel, Joseph Mazzara.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt opened today's press briefing with tough words regarding Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was living in Maryland before he was mistakenly deported by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador.

“Nothing will change the fact that Abrego Garcia will never be a Maryland father. He will never live in the United States of America again,” Leavitt said.

The Trump administration has refused to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. from the Salvadoran jail despite court orders for officials to "facilitate" his return.

The Trump administration has not complied with a federal court order directing it to continue funding legal representation for unaccompanied immigrant children, attorneys in the case allege. 

A string of groups sued the Department of Homeland Security on March 28 after the federal government refused to renew a contract that funds attorneys who help young migrant children who came to the U.S. alone or were separated from parents go through the immigration process. The funding cutoff forced many of the immigrant legal groups to lay off workers, withdraw from cases and scramble to find other legal help for children in immigration court proceedings.

According to a court document filed in the case by Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights, "the sudden and abrupt termination of services, without any warning or advance notice to children, their attorneys, Child Advocates, and immigration judges and court personnel, created chaos and confusion in immigration courts."

In the two weeks since the funding for legal representation ended, advocates from the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights saw children as young as 5 sitting at tables alone facing judges, according to the document. They also saw a 14-year-old child break down in tears in a court lobby when she learned she had to stand alone in court without a lawyer. Read the full story from NBC News here.

For millions of low-income Americans — already rattled by the threat of tariffs and higher prices — changes to a program that helps with grocery costs could make life more expensive.

House Republicans are seeking to cut $230 billion of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s budget over the next decade to pay for tax cuts. The Senate version of the bill calls for at least $1 billion in USDA cuts. Most, or all, of those savings would come from cutting funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps.

The proposed cut, if approved, would be three times steeper than the largest previous reduction ever made, after adjusting the average annual cut for inflation, according to UnidosUS, which advocates for Latinos in the U.S.

Read the full story from CNBC here

Consumers have been racing to snatch up cars in recent weeks before President Donald Trump’s auto tariffs trigger widely expected price hikes. But even drivers who aren’t buying vehicles can expect to pay more for repairs and insurance. 

That’s because Trump’s 25% tariffs on imported vehicles is set to be extended to foreign-made auto parts no later than May 3. While the president indicated this week that he may offer some leniency or perhaps “a little bit of time” for the industry to adjust, experts say the steeper trade barriers remain on track to hit consumers’ wallets eventually. 

The cost of auto insurance has been rising for several years, and experts say prices were already likely to increase in 2025. An extended trade war could cause the average annual cost of car insurance to rise more than $300 by the end of the year, according to estimates from the insurance agency Insurify. 

Chinese online retailer Temu, whose “Shop like a billionaire” marketing campaign made its way to last year’s Super Bowl, has dramatically slashed its online ad spending in the U.S. and seen its ranking in Apple’s App Store plunge following President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on trade partners.

Temu, which is owned by Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings, had been on an online advertising blitz in recent years in a bid to attract deal-hungry American shoppers to its site. With hefty spending on TV ads as well across Facebook, the company promoted clothing, jewelry, home goods and electronics at bargain basement prices.

The strategy was so effective that Temu topped Apple’s list of the most downloaded free apps in the U.S. for the past two years. Downloads of Temu on Apple’s App Store have fallen 62% in recent days, according to data from SimilarWeb, a digital data and analytics company. Ads for 50-cent eyebrow trimmers and $5 t-shirts that used to blanket Google search results and Facebook feeds have all but disappeared.

President Trump’s tariffs have upended Temu’s business model, along with its advertising strategy. Packages shipped from China are now subject to a tariff rate of 145%, while the de minimis provision, which allows shipments worth less than $800 to enter the country duty-free, is set to go away on May 2.

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen met with the vice president of El Salvador today to push for the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.

Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said at a news conference in San Salvador after the meeting that Vice President Félix Ulloa said his government could not return Abrego Garcia to the United States and declined to allow Van Hollen to visit him in the notorious gang prison where he is being held.

“Why is the government of El Salvador continuing to imprison a man where they have no evidence that he’s committed any crime and they have not been provided any evidence from the United States that he has committed any crime?" Van Hollen told reporters after the meeting. “They should just let him go.”

The Trump administration and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said this week that they have no basis to send him back, even as even as the U.S. Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return. Trump officials have said that Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland, has ties to the MS-13 gang, but his attorneys say the government has provided no evidence of that and Abrego Garcia has disputed that claim. He has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Wednesday that he closed what had been known as the Global Engagement Center because it had taken actions to restrict freedom of speech in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The GEC has been a frequent target of criticism from conservatives for calling out media and online reports it said are biased or untruthful. At times, the GEC identified U.S. websites and social media accounts that it argued were amplifying misinformation, particularly related to the Russia-Ukraine war.

In a blistering ruling, a federal judge blocked a new executive order from President Donald Trump punishing a prominent law firm that successfully sued Fox News for promoting false claims of election fraud. 

Loren L. AliKhan, speaking from the bench in her Washington, D.C., courtroom Tuesday, said Trump’s order targeting the law firm Susman Godfrey was part of a “personal vendetta.” 

“The framers of our Constitution would see this as a shocking abuse of power,” AliKhan said. 

The legal battle over Susman Godfrey is part of an intensifying effort by Trump to target his critics and other perceived enemies with presidential memorandums and executive orders that leverage the power of the Justice Department and other federal agencies to punish his opponents, legal experts and former Justice Department officials said.

Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warned that children in the U.S. are being diagnosed with autism at an “alarming rate,” promising on Wednesday to conduct exhaustive studies to identify any environmental factors that may cause the developmental disorder.

His call comes the day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report that found an estimated 1 in 31 U.S. children have autism, a marked increase from 2020.

“Autism destroys families," Kennedy said. "More importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which is our children. These are children who should not be suffering like this.”

Kennedy described autism as a “preventable disease,” although researchers and scientists have identified genetic factors that are associated with it. Autism is not considered a disease, but a complex disorder that affects the brain. Cases range widely in severity, with symptoms that can include delays in language, learning, and social or emotional skills. Some autistic traits can go unnoticed well into adulthood.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills called the Justice Department lawsuit alleging her state violated Title IX prohibitions against sex discrimination in federally funded education programs “the latest, expected salvo” in an “unprecedented campaign to pressure the State of Maine to ignore the Constitution and abandon the rule of law."

The remarks were the Democratic governor's first public statement since Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the suit this morning. The lawsuit is the latest back-and-forth in a fight over state’s refusal to ban transgender athletes from competing in girls sports. 

Trump in February signed an executive order that granted federal agencies broad authority to ensure programs that rely on federal funding do not allow transgender women to compete in women’s sports. Mills argued the order overstepped the administration’s constitutional authority and sued the administration last month. A federal judge then ordered the administration to unfreeze funds in a temporary restraining order.

Mills said her fight against the Trump administration is about more than transgender women and women’s sports. 

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that despite heightened uncertainty and increased downside risks from Trump's trade and economic policies, the U.S. economy, for now, remains "solid."

In prepared remarks at an event in Chicago, Powell said uncertainty regarding trade, immigration, government spending, and regulation policy present a challenge to coming up with economic forecasts. Powell noted the tariff levels Trump ended up announcing were "significantly larger than anticipated."

As a result, the Fed anticipates keeping interest rates steady for now — a move that would come into tension with Trump's desire to see them lowered.

Stocks fell after Powell's remarks were released.

Lights outside the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will permanently display the colors red, white and blue every night to commemorate the United States, the arts institute announced Tuesday.

Kennedy Center

Usually, the lights are plain white, but the Kennedy Center sometimes changes them for special events and holidays. Rainbow lights shine during the week leading up to the annual Kennedy Center Honors.

The swap to red, white and blue lights is the latest change at the Kennedy Center since President Donald Trump appointed himself chair of the board at the start of his second term in office.

Read the full story from NBC Washington.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an El Salvadoran immigrant at the center of a legal battle that could reshape American immigration policy. Here’s what you need to know.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said today that he hasn't heard from Trump since the arson attack on his home on Sunday.

"I haven't, no," Shapiro said when asked at a press conference in Hershey if he had heard from the president.

The man accused of firebombing the Pennsylvania Governor’s Residence referenced Josh Shapiro and Palestine while confessing to the crime, NBC10 Philadelphia reported today.

Asked for comment, the White House pointed to Trump's previous remarks about the attack.

A policy issued late Tuesday by the White House, the latest attempt by the new administration to control coverage of its activities, sharply curtails the access of three news agencies that serve billions of readers around the world.

The Associated Press says the new White House media policy violates a court order by giving the administration sole discretion over who gets to question Trump, and the news agency asked a federal judge Wednesday to enforce that order.

The AP filed Wednesday’s motion with U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, asking for relief “given defendant’s refusal to obey” his order last week. McFadden said the White House had violated the AP’s free speech by banning it from certain presidential events because Trump disagreed with the outlet’s decision not to rename the Gulf of Mexico.

A federal judge said in an order Wednesday that he has found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt over the deportation flights that it sent to El Salvador.

“If Defendants opt to purge their contempt, they shall file by April 23, 2025, a declaration explaining the steps they have taken and will take to do so," U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote.

Boasberg said “the Court ultimately determines that the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.”

The World Trade Organization (WTO) warned on Wednesday that the outlook for global trade has “deteriorated sharply” in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs regime.

“The outlook for global trade has deteriorated sharply due to a surge in tariffs and trade policy uncertainty,” the WTO said in its latest “Global Trade Outlook and Statistics” report out Wednesday.

Based on the tariffs currently in place, and including a 90-day suspension of “reciprocal tariffs,” the volume of world merchandise trade is now expected to decline by 0.2% in 2025, before posting a “modest” recovery of 2.5% in 2026.

The decline is anticipated to be particularly steep in North America, where exports are forecasted to drop by 12.6% this year.

Read the full CNBC story here.

A group of 12 House Republicans, including several who represent swing districts, wrote a letter to GOP leadership drawing a red line against “any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations,” as the party considers significant Medicaid cuts to pay for a massive bill to pass Trump’s agenda.

The signatories are: Reps. David Valadao, R-Calif.; Don Bacon, R-Neb.; Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J.; Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa.; Young Kim, R-Calif.; Robert Wittman, R-Va.; Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y.; Nick LaLota, R-N.Y.; Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y.; and Jeff Hurd, R-Colo.

“We acknowledge that we must reform Medicaid so that it is a strong and long-lasting program for years to come,” they wrote. “We support targeted reforms to improve program integrity, reduce improper payments, and modernize delivery systems to fix flaws in the program that divert resources away from children, seniors, individuals with disabilities, and pregnant women — those who the program was intended to help. However, we cannot and will not support a final reconciliation bill that includes any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations.”

“We are committed to working with you to preserve Medicaid and identify responsible savings through deregulation, streamlining federal programs, and cutting administrative red tape,” they added. “Communities like ours won us the majority, and we have a responsibility to deliver on the promises we made.”

In the narrow House GOP majority, these members have the power to block any bill if they’re unsatisfied.

The Trump administration said Wednesday it is suing Maine’s education department for not complying with the government's push to ban transgender athletes in girls sports, escalating a dispute over whether the state is abiding by a federal law that bars discrimination in education based on sex.

The lawsuit follows weeks of feuding between the Republican administration and Democratic Gov. Janet Mills that has led to threats to cut off crucial federal funding and a clash at the White House when she told the president: “We’ll see you in court.”

“We are going to continue to fight for women,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a news conference alongside former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has emerged as a public face of the opposition to transgender athletes.

Trump’s departments of Education and Health and Human Services have said the Maine agency is violating the federal Title IX antidiscrimination law by allowing transgender girls to participate on girls teams.

Read the full story here.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that his state will file a lawsuit challenging Trump's authority to impose sweeping tariffs that have set off a global trade war.

The suit will argue that Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China or a 10% tariff on all imports is unlawful. The act enables a president to freeze and block transactions in response to foreign threats.

The lawsuit, which will be filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, will also argue that enacting such tariffs requires approval from Congress, Newsom's office said in a news release.

Trump has offered many justifications for increasing tariffs, including that they are designed to spur U.S. manufacturing and stop the flow of illicit fentanyl into the country. California's move follows rapidly changing tariff plans by the Trump administration.

Read the full story here.

Trump announced this morning that he would meet today with Japanese officials to discuss trade and military cost issues, marking the latest public overture from another country in response to steep U.S. tariffs, which the president has temporarily reduced.

"Japan is coming in today to negotiate Tariffs, the cost of military support, and 'TRADE FAIRNESS,'" Trump said in a post to Truth Social "I will attend the meeting, along with Treasury & Commerce Secretaries. Hopefully something can be worked out which is good (GREAT!) for Japan and the USA!"

The White House previously hit Japanese imports to the U.S. with a 24% blanket tariff.

The U.S. and Japan had previously reached a trade agreement in 2019, during Trump's first term. Japan is one of the top five buyers of U.S. goods in 2022, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Japan also hosts tens of thousands of U.S. troops.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen announced that he will travel to El Salvador today to push for the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who the Justice Department said it mistakenly deported.

“My hope is to visit Kilmar and check on his wellbeing and to hold constructive conversations with government officials around his release. We must urgently continue working to return Kilmar safely home to Maryland,” Van Hollen, D-Md., said in a statement last night, calling Abrego Garcia’s deportation “unlawful” and an “abduction.”

Read the full NBC News story here.

Three people were arrested after interrupting Georgia congresswoman Majorie Taylor Greene’s town hall Tuesday night.

Republicans are discussing an idea that has long been anathema within the party: a tax hike on the wealthy.

In a twist, members of the GOP are debating whether to allow tax rates to go up on top earners when major parts of the 2017 tax law expire at the end of this year as part of a massive bill to pass President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The issue has come up in private meetings among Senate Republicans as they grapple with how to limit the red ink and pay for other provisions of their party-line package, which includes additional funding for immigration enforcement and the military.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., confirmed that there has been “some” talk of higher tax rates for the wealthy in “free flowing” conference lunch meetings, saying he finds the conversation “interesting.”

Read the full NBC News story here.

The Trump administration has been accused of ignoring or flat-out defying recent federal court orders, including a Supreme Court decision that it must “facilitate” the release of a Maryland man who was sent in error to a Salvadoran prison.  

The federal judge presiding over Kilmar Abrego Garcia's case Tuesday chastised the administration for its inaction.

“I’ve gotten nothing,” said Judge Paula Xinis of the U.S. District Court for Maryland. “I’ve gotten no real response and no real legal justification for not answering.”

If Xinis or another federal judge decides that President Donald Trump and federal officials have failed to comply with their orders, what action can they take to enforce them?

Read the full story here.

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The government said Li Chenggang replaces Wang Shouwen, who participated in negotiations for the 2020 trade deal between the China and the U.S.

The world’s two largest economies have been steadily increasing tariffs on each other’s goods. China faces 145% taxes on exports to the U.S., while dozens of other countries were given a 90-day reprieve for most duties.

Earlier on Wednesday, China announced its economy expanded at a 5.4% annual pace in January-March, supported by strong exports. Analysts are forecasting that the world’s second largest economy will slow significantly in coming months, however, as tariffs on U.S. imports from China take effect.

Exports were a strong factor in China’s 5% annual growth rate in 2024, and the official target for this year is also about 5%.