MicroWave

State law makes it a crime to enter the state as an ‘unauthorized alien’ — but it’s blocked by a judge, and Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez was born in the U.S.

A 20-year-old United States citizen was held in a Florida jail at the request of federal immigration authorities despite his mother showing his birth certificate and Social Security information to a judge in court.

Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez was taken to Leon County Jail after a traffic stop and charged with illegally entering the state as an “unauthorized alien” under a state law that has been temporarily blocked from enforcement by a federal judge.

The charge was dropped, but Leon County Judge LaShawn Riggans claimed on Thursday that she did not have jurisdiction to release him after Immigration and Customs Enforcement requested that he remain in detention, according to court records. The Florida Phoenix first reported the arrest.

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen met Thursday in El Salvador with 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 posted a photo of the meeting on X, saying he also called Abrego Garcia’s wife “to pass along his message of love.” The lawmaker did not provide an update on the status of Abrego Garcia, whose attorneys are fighting to force the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the U.S., saying he would have more details Friday.

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele posted images of the meeting minutes before Van Hollen shared his post, saying, “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.” The tweet ended with emojis of the U.S. and El Salvador flags, with a handshake emoji between them.

Actions by state department to terminate students’ legal status place them at risk of deportation and detention

Several international students who have had their visas revoked in recent weeks have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, arguing the government denied them due process when it suddenly took away their permission to be in the US.

The actions by the federal government to terminate students’ legal status have left hundreds of scholars at risk of detention and deportation. Their schools range from private universities such as Harvard and Stanford to large public institutions such as the University of Maryland and Ohio State University and to some small liberal arts colleges.

At least 901 students at 128 colleges and universities have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since mid-March, according to an Associated Press review of university statements and correspondence with school officials.

Jennifer Vasquez Sura criticizes DHS’s attempt to smear her wrongly deported husband over 2021 civil protective order

The wife of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man unlawfully deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador, has strongly criticized the Trump administration’s attempt to smear his character, saying a temporary restraining order against him was “out of caution” and that “he is a loving partner and father” who is being denied justice.

Jennifer Vasquez Sura said she “acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar” when she got the civil protective order in 2021, according to a statement emailed to the Baltimore Sun.

Vasquez Sura said she decided not to follow through with the civil court process because “things did not escalate” with her husband.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell broke down in court this week, telling a judge he has no money left to pay the sanctions imposed against him in a defamation case brought by voting technology company Smartmatic.

“I’m in ruins,” Lindell said tearfully during a virtual hearing before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols on Wednesday, according to a report from ABC News. “I borrowed everything I can. Nobody will lend me any money anymore.”

Lindell was ordered to pay $56,369 in sanctions to Smartmatic, which sued him for defamation in 2022 over his baseless claims that the company helped rig the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump.

Summary

The Tesla Cybertruck is in crisis. The automaker is still sitting on a ton of old inventory, which it is now heavily discounting, and it is throttling down production.

Tesla is expected to currently be selling the Cybertruck at a rate of about 25,000 units a year – a tenth of what Musk predicted.

Tesla began the second quarter with 2,400 Cybertrucks in inventory, valued at over $200 million. Tesla is now offering deeper discounts on the new inventory of Cybertrucks.

The automaker has reduced its Cybertruck production teams and now operates at a fraction of its original capacity.

Summary

Law firms that complied with former Trump’s demands are now facing consequences, including lost clients and potential damage to their reputations.

Trump is reportedly delighted by the situation, viewing it as a victory.

The firms, who believed they could appease Trump, are now in turmoil as he continues to demand more from them.

Move paves the way for Moscow to normalise ties with leadership of Afghanistan

Russia has suspended its ban on the Taliban, which it had designated for more than two decades as a terrorist organisation, in a move that paves the way for Moscow to normalise ties with the leadership of Afghanistan.

No country currently recognises the Taliban government that seized power in August 2021 as US-led forces staged a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of war. But Russia has been gradually building ties with the movement, which Vladimir Putin said last year was now an ally in fighting terrorism.

The Taliban was outlawed by Russia as a terrorist movement in 2003. State media said the supreme court lifted the ban on Thursday with immediate effect.

Summary

China has shrugged off the latest U.S. tariff hike, dismissing the Trump administration's threats as a "meaningless tariff numbers game."

Donald Trump's move to impose tariffs "wiped trillions of dollars off Wall Street" and raised duties on foreign goods, claiming to bring back U.S. manufacturing jobs.

A White House fact sheet announced tariffs on some Chinese imports would rise to 245%.

China’s Commerce Ministry said the move "fully exposes the fact that the United States has become irrational" and vowed to see the trade war "through to the very end."

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) openly admitted that she and her Republican colleagues were “all afraid” of “retaliation” from Donald Trump as she criticized what she called “unlawful” executive overreach and sweeping federal cuts.

Murkowski’s comments came during a 45-minute session at The Foraker Group’s annual leadership summit and stands as one of the starkest public admissions from a Republican yet of the political pressure facing those in the party who push back against Trump policy or rhetoric.

“We are all afraid,” Murkowski told the crowd on Monday.

Pausing, she added: “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

Dr. Lisa Anderson, 58, was born in Pennsylvania and is a U.S. citizen.

A doctor born in the United States says she received an email from federal immigration authorities demanding that she leave the country immediately.

Lisa Anderson, a physician from Cromwell, Connecticut, told NBC Connecticut on Wednesday that she recently received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security telling her, “It is time for you to leave the United States."

Immigration authorities have been pushing noncitizens to leave of their own volition, or “self-deport,” as the number of deportations remains at similar levels to last year.

The question now is what happens next? Will our most thin-skinned political leaders accept opposition from a bunch of snot-nosed nerds?

Harvard said no. No to government minders, no to intellectual dishonesty, no to conservative DEI.

In a forceful letter of rebuke to the Trump administration’s threat to withhold federal money from the university if it does not acquiesce to a series of “ham-handed” demands—including government audits to monitor “ideological capture”—Harvard president Alan M. Garber basically told the government to f--k all the way off. He said it in a more Harvard way, but that was the message.

In response, the government said it would be withholding $2.2 billion in already-appropriated grant money to the school. This is money that Garber said, in the past, “has led to groundbreaking innovations across a wide range of medical, engineering, and scientific fields.” Oh well. We probably didn’t need innovations, anyway.

Harvard’s defiance stands in embarrassing contrast to the actions of Columbia University, which, faced with similar demands, folded like a cheap diploma. (I’m exaggerating. In this country, there’s no such thing as a cheap diploma.)