El Salvador's president says he won't return mistakenly deported man to US

Several higher education organizations have filed a lawsuit over proposed cuts to research grants from the Department of Energy.

The department provides over $2.5 billion annually for research at more than 300 universities.

Grants come with a certain amount of money for overhead costs. The Trump administration announced Friday it would cap those payments at no more than 15% of the grant money, saying the cuts would reduce costs and improve inefficiency.

The Association of American Universities, the American Council on Education, and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities filed the lawsuit along with several universities. The plaintiffs said the cuts would set back scientific research and innovation that has boosted American manufacturing and competitiveness.

The Department of Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Commerce Department announced today that it intends to impose a 20.91% tariff on “most imports of tomatoes” from Mexico starting in July.

The department said in a news release that it is withdrawing from a 2019 agreement that suspended an antidumping investigation on fresh tomatoes from Mexico, effective in 90 days.

“The current agreement has failed to protect U.S. tomato growers from unfairly priced Mexican imports, as Commerce has been flooded with comments from them urging its termination," the release said. "This action will allow U.S. tomato growers to compete fairly in the marketplace.”

Mexico, a top U.S. trading partner, has already been hit with a 25% tariff on most of its goods imported into the U.S., and Trump threatened on Truth Social last week to place additional tariffs on Mexico over a water dispute dating back to a treaty from 1944.

The painting of Trump that displaced a portrait of former President Barack Obama in the White House’s Grand Foyer was painted by artist Marc Lipp, according to a White House official.

The painting by Lipp, who is based in South Florida, was gifted to the White House via the Blue Gallery by Andrew Pollack, a school safety activist who has been outspoken in his support for Trump and whose daughter was killed in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida.

The White House official said that since Trump's official portrait has not yet been completed, Trump elected to hang Lipp’s painting in the meantime.

The painting — depicting a bloodied Trump with his fist in the air after the July assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania — took the spot where Obama's portrait had been displayed.

In the Trump administration's court-ordered daily status update on efforts to facilitate bringing Abrego Garcia back to the United States, the administration cited Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s comments at the White House earlier today in arguing that it doesn't have the authority to return Abrego Garcia.

Joseph Mazzara, acting general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, wrote in a sworn declaration that DHS “does not have authority to forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation.”

Mazzara cited Bukele’s comments at the White House earlier today, when he compared returning Abrego Garcia to the United States to smuggling him in, calling the question of returning him “preposterous.”

“How can I return him to the United States? Like if I smuggle him into the United States?” Bukele said, sitting next to Trump in the Oval Office.

A group of former Jan. 6 prosecutors and conservative attorneys today asked a disciplinary board to investigate interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, arguing that Trump's pick for the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, D.C., has a “fundamental misunderstanding of the role of a federal prosecutor.”

The letter, addressed to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel at the U.S. District Court of Appeals, says Martin’s actions “threaten to undermine the integrity of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the legal profession in the District of Columbia.”

“In word and in deed he has portrayed himself as an advocate for private and political interests of others, in violation of his oath of office and the Rules of Professional Conduct,” the letter says.

Martin's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment tonight.

Vice President JD Vance attempted to hoist Ohio State’s national championship trophy to the tune of the U.S. Marine Band playing “We Are the Champions” — but the trophy broke in two, with its base falling to the ground. The vice president then helped reassemble the trophy.

The awkward moment took place near the end of an event at the White House with members of the team, its coach and Trump to celebrate the team's national championship in January, when it defeated Notre Dame 34-23.

Trump and Vance, a former U.S. senator from Ohio who attended Ohio State University, welcomed the Buckeyes at the White House to honor the school's first football national championship in a decade.

Vance later made light of the moment, saying, "I didn’t want anyone after Ohio State to get the trophy so I decided to break it," in a post on X.

Christopher Helali

A Palestinian man who led protests against the war in Gaza as a student at Columbia University was arrested Monday at a Vermont immigration office where he expected to be interviewed about finalizing his U.S. citizenship, his attorneys said.

Mohsen Mahdawi, a legal permanent resident who has held a green card since 2015, was detained at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Colchester by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, his lawyers said.

The attorneys said they do not know where he is. They filed a petition in federal court seeking an order barring the government from removing him from the state or country.

Read the full story here.

Nicolas Tucat, Pool Photo via AP

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget has proposed gutting the State Department’s budget by almost 50%, closing a number of overseas diplomatic missions, slashing the number of diplomatic staff, and eliminating funding for nearly all international organizations, including the United Nations, many of its agencies and for NATO headquarters, officials said.

The proposal, which was presented to the State Department last week and is still in a highly preliminary phase, is not expected to pass muster with either the department’s leadership or Congress, which will ultimately be asked to vote on the entire federal budget in the coming months.

Officials familiar with the proposal say it must still go through several rounds of review before it even gets to lawmakers, who in the past have amended and even rejected White House budget requests. Though the proposal is preliminary, it gives an indication of the Trump administration's priorities and coincides with massive job and funding cuts across the federal government, from Health and Human Services and the Education Department to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Notes from an internal meeting about the proposal have been circulated in online chat groups among foreign service officers since the weekend but exploded Monday when the State Department was due to present a separate unrelated reorganization plan to the OMB.

Despite a court order, a reporter and photographer from The Associated Press were barred from an Oval Office news conference on Monday with President Donald Trump and his counterpart from El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.

Last week's federal court decision forbidding the Trump administration from punishing the AP for refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico was to take effect Monday. The administration is appealing the decision and arguing with the news outlet over whether it needs to change anything until those appeals are exhausted.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit set a Thursday hearing on Trump's request that any changes be delayed while case is reviewed. The AP is fighting for more access as soon as possible.

Since mid-February, AP reporters and photographers have been blocked from attending events in the Oval Office, where President Donald Trump frequently addresses journalists, and on Air Force One. The AP has seen sporadic access elsewhere, and regularly covers White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s briefings. Leavitt is one of three administration officials named in the AP's lawsuit.

Community celebrations being planned to commemorate the nation's 250th anniversary next year are at risk of being significantly scaled back or canceled because of federal funding cuts under President Donald Trump's administration, according to multiple state humanities councils across the country.

The councils have been working on programming for America250, an initiative marking the milestone anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. But the Republican administration's deep cost-cutting effort across the federal government has led the National Endowment for the Humanities to cancel its grants for state humanities councils. That has left them with less money for programming to plan for the celebration, ranging from themed K-12 school curriculums to special events at public libraries.

Read the full story here.

A group of five small businesses on Monday sued President Donald Trump, seeking to block new tariffs that he has imposed on foreign imports in recent weeks.

The lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade alleges that Trump has illegally usurped Congress’ power to levy tariffs by claiming that trade deficits with other countries constitute an emergency.

The Liberty Justice Center, which is representing the owner-operated companies, said Trump’s so-called Liberation Day tariffs of at least 10% on import from most countries “are devastating small businesses across the country.”

“His claimed emergency is a figment of his own imagination: trade deficits, which have persisted for decades without causing economic harm, are not an emergency,” the suit says. “Nor do these trade deficits constitute an ’unusual and extraordinary threat.”

The Democratic senator from Maryland wrote to El Salvadoran diplomats to “urgently request” meeting with the country’s president, Nayib Bukele, to discuss the potential return of a former Maryland resident, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to the Central American nation by the Trump administration.

A federal judge ruled Garcia should be returned to the U.S., a decision that was unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court last week.

“If Kilmar is not home by midweek — I plan to travel to El Salvador this week to check on his condition and discuss his release,” Van Hollen wrote in a letter address to El Salvador’s ambassador to Washington.

El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said during a Monday Oval Office meeting that he did not intend to return Kilmar to the U.S.

That’s according to court records unsealed Monday.

A criminal complaint charges Jamison R. Wagner, 40, with federal arson charges in connection with the vandalism in February at a Tesla showroom in Bernalillo, New Mexico, where authorities found two Tesla Model Y vehicles ablaze as well as spray-painted graffiti messages including “Die Elon” and “Die Tesla Nazi.”

Elon Musk is the billionaire CEO of Tesla and close ally of President Trump who’s helped engineer a massive downsizing of the federal government and purge of employees.

The arrest is part of a federal crackdown on what Attorney General Pam Bondi has described as a wave of domestic terrorism against property carrying the logo of Musk’s electric-car company.

Harvard University won't accept "unprecedented" demands for continued federal funding from the Trump administration that violate the storied school's First Amendment rights, President Alan Garber said in a statement Monday.

"We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement. The University will not negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights," Garber said in a letter to the community.

The Trump administration had issued demands of Harvard earlier this month, saying they had to be met to continue receiving nearly $9 billion in grants and contracts. The money is being threatened during an investigation into allegations of campus antisemitism.

Read the full story from NBC Boston here.

Former President Joe Biden will deliver his first public speech since departing the Oval Office at a national conference of the disability aid group Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled tomorrow in Chicago.

Biden's remarks come as Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern about protecting Social Security benefits amid recent cuts to the agency's workforce.

Former Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., former Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and former governor and Social Security Administrator Martin O’Malley, D-Md., will join Biden at the conference.

Trump floated deportations of "homegrown criminals" out of the U.S. in remarks at an Oval Office meeting with the president of El Salvador, which would mark a sharp departure from legal norms and would be guaranteed be challenged in court.

"I'd like to go a step further. I said it to Pam, I don't know what the laws are, we always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they're not looking, that are absolute monsters," Trump said, referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi by her first name.

"I'd like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country, but you'll have to be looking at the laws on that, Steve, okay?" Trump added, appearing to refer to White House adviser Stephen Miller.

That’s nearly two months after President Trump fired his predecessor. A formal White House ceremony is expected this week.

Caine, a decorated F-16 fighter pilot and well-respected officer, took over the role Saturday and was at the Pentagon over the weekend after Trump signed the necessary documents to allow him to fill the job.

He’ll serve the remainder of the four-year term of Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr., who was fired by Trump as part of a broader purge of military officers believed to endorse diversity and equity programs.

The man charged in connection with an arson at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home over the weekend allegedly climbed the residence’s fence, used a hammer to break a window and threw Molotov cocktails in to start the blaze, prosecutors revealed.

Cody A. Balmer, 38, was charged with attempted criminal homicide, aggravated arson, burglary, terrorism and other counts in connection with the early Sunday morning attack, the Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday. 

Read the full story here.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said Monday that he would not return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States despite a U.S. Supreme Court order that says the Trump administration should facilitate his return.

“I mean, the question is preposterous,” Bukele said at the White House during a meeting with Trump, when he was asked about sending Abrego Garcia back from the notorious Salvadoran prison where he has been held.

“How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” Bukele said. “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”

Read the full story here.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has arrived at the White House for his meeting with Trump, who greeted him as he stepped out of his vehicle.

When the Supreme Court last year wrestled with whether to grant then-former President Donald Trump broad immunity from prosecution, conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch stressed the ruling did not just apply to Trump but was “for the ages.”

His comment during the April 2024 oral argument encapsulates how at least some members of the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, appear to view Trump, now in office again, as just another Republican president — even as commentators and lower court judges, both Republican and Democratic appointees, have raised the alarm about what they view as unlawful policies and conduct.

Read the full NBC News story here.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded with President Donald Trump to visit his country to “understand what Putin did” after two Russian ballistic missiles tore into a city, killing 34 people and injuring 119 others Sunday.

"Please, before any kind of decisions, any kind of forms of negotiations, come to see people, civilians, warriors, hospitals, churches, children destroyed or dead,” Zelenskyy said while referring to Trump in a CBS interview broadcast Sunday.

He also referred to his catastrophic White House meeting with Trump and Vice President JD Vance in February that unraveled into a live-on-air clash, with Vance leading some of the strongest attacks on Zelenskyy during the extraordinary exchange.

“It seems to me that the vice president is somehow justifying Putin’s actions,” he said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I tried to explain, ‘You can’t look for something in the middle. There is an aggressor and there is a victim. The Russians are the aggressor, and we are the victim.’”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said today that he has requested a meeting with Bukele to discuss what the Trump administration has said was the accidental deportation of a Maryland man to a prison in the Central American country.

Van Hollen also said he would visit the country himself if the man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was not back in the U.S. within days.

The senator "urgently" requested the meeting in a letter to Milena Mayorga, El Salvador's ambassador to the U.S.

"I have met with Mr. Abrego Garcia’s wife, mother and brother and, as you can imagine, they are extremely worried about his health, safety, and continued illegal confinement, as am I," Van Hollen said in the letter.

Bukele is in the U.S. this week and will meet with Trump this morning.

The Trump administration responded over the weekend to U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis' demands for daily status reports on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who the administration said was mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador.

Xinis had asked the government to detail Abrego Garcia's whereabouts and conditions and explain any efforts taken to bring him back to the U.S.

“It is my understanding based on official reporting from our Embassy in San Salvador that Abrego Garcia is currently being held in the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador,” wrote Michael G. Kozak, a State Department official, in a sworn declaration. “He is alive and secure in that facility. He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.”

Abrego Garcia's lawyers urged the court to order the government to take specific steps to bring the Maryland man back to the U.S., including by requesting his release and providing transportation back to the U.S.

The government objected to the requests yesterday, pointing to El Salvador's Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's visit with Trump today as a reason it can't provide further information.

The fight for the Senate in 2026 is beginning to take shape, with more candidates launching campaigns in recent days and additional announcements expected in the coming weeks. But both parties are still waiting to see if they can convince a governor to try to flip one of their top targeted states next year.

Democrats will have to reach into GOP territory to net the four seats they need to flip the chamber, while also defending competitive seats they currently hold in Georgia, Michigan and elsewhere. Republicans, meanwhile, are looking to grow their 53-47 majority in next year’s elections while defending blue-leaning Maine, battleground North Carolina and some redder states.

Read the full NBC News story here.

Members of Congress are back in their districts for a two-week recess, potentially bracing for more anger from constituents.

But voters in Republican districts might not have much of a chance to question their representatives.

Weeks after Rep. Richard Hudson, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, advised Republican members of Congress not to hold in-person town halls, it appears that most of them are heeding his advice.

According to press releases and publicly posted event notices, the majority of town halls and town hall-style events taking place over the congressional recess will be hosted by Democrats.

Read the full NBC News story here.

As he prepared to take office for a second time, Trump made it clear to his economic team that his tariffs needed to be imposed quickly.

One candidate for a top position suggested to him during the transition that it might be a better idea to move more deliberately. He didn’t get the job, a person briefed on the matter said.

 “He [Trump] was not very sympathetic” to those advising a go-slow approach, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The president is in a hurry. Executive orders, tariffs, mass firings — all are happening at a speed that has made it hard for the nation to keep up. And tough for Trump to carry out.

Read the full NBC News story here.

Trump is hosting Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, at the White House on Monday as the small Central American nation becomes a critical lynchpin of the U.S. administration's mass deportation operation.

Since March, El Salvador has accepted from the U.S. more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants — whom Trump administration officials have accused of gang activity and violent crimes — and placed them inside the country's notorious maximum-security gang prison just outside of the capital, San Salvador. It is also holding a Maryland man who the administration admits was wrongly deported but has not been returned to the U.S., despite court orders to do so.

That has made Bukele, who remains extremely popular in El Salvador due in part to the crackdown on the country’s powerful street gangs, a vital ally for the Trump administration, which has offered little evidence for its claims that the Venezuelan immigrants were in fact gang members, nor has it released names of those deported.

Read the full story here.