US judge presses Trump administration on its refusal to return Maryland man deported to Salvadoran prison
'The Supreme Court has spoken,' Xinis said, adding that what was said in the Oval Office on Monday 'is not before the court.'
The hearing came a day after White House advisers repeated the claim they lack the authority to bring back the Salvadoran national from his native country. The president of El Salvador also said Monday that he would not return Abrego Garcia, likening it to smuggling 'a terrorist into the United States.'
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Abrego Garcia's deportation has become a national flashpoint as President Trump follows up on campaign promises of mass deportations, including to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
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An attorney for Abrego Garcia said contempt proceedings could be the logical next step after two weeks of discovery. 'This is still a win, and this is still progress,' Rina Ghandi said. 'We're not done yet, though.'
Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, said shortly before Tuesday's hearing that he was working hard to achieve the American dream for his family.
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'That dream was shattered on March 12th when he was abducted and disappeared by the United States government in front of our 5-year-old-child,' she said. 'Today is 34 days after his disappearance . . . I will not stop fighting until I see my husband alive.'
Xinis had ordered the Trump administration in early April to bring Abrego Garcia back. And the Supreme Court agreed on Thursday that the government must 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia's release.
But the White House has balked at trying to broker his return, arguing the courts can't intrude on the president's diplomacy powers.
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Governors push to ban candy, soft drinks from food stamp program
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Republican governors in Arkansas and Indiana moved Tuesday to ban soft drinks and candy from the program that helps low-income people pay for groceries, becoming the first states to ask the Trump administration to let them remove such items from the program long known as food stamps.
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said her state's request is aimed at improving the health of nearly 350,000 residents who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
'Taxpayers are subsidizing poor health,' Sanders said at a Little Rock news conference with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. 'We're paying for it on the front end and the back end.'
In Indianapolis, Governor Mike Braun was joined by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mehmet Oz, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to announce sweeping changes to 'put the focus back on nutrition — not candy and soft drinks.'
The two states are among several taking steps to strip the purchase of certain foods that may contribute to poor health through the federal program that spent $100 billion to serve nearly 42 million Americans in 2024. The restriction has been a key goal for Rollins and Kennedy and his 'Make America Healthy Again' agenda.
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The Arkansas plan, which would take effect in July 2026, would exclude soda, including no- and low-calorie soda; fruit and vegetable drinks with less than 50 percent natural juice; 'unhealthy drinks;' candy, including confections made with flour, like Kit Kat bars; and artificially sweetened candy. It also would allow participants to use benefits to buy hot rotisserie chicken, which is excluded from the program now.
The Indiana change would exclude candy and soft drinks from the list of foods eligible to be paid for with SNAP benefits. Braun also issued executive orders changing work requirements for SNAP participants; reinstating income and asset verification rules; and launching a review of 'improper payments and other administrative errors' to ensure that SNAP meets federal goals.
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US ordered to release billions for climate infrastructure projects
A federal judge in Boston ordered the Trump administration to release billions of dollars meant to finance climate and infrastructure projects across the country.
US District Judge Mary McElroy, who was appointed by President Trump during his first term, sided with conservation and nonprofit groups and issued a preliminary injunction until she rules on the merits of the lawsuit. The injunction is nationwide.
McElroy concluded that the seven nonprofits demonstrated that the freeze was 'arbitrary and capricious' and that the powers asserted by the federal agencies, including the White House's Office of Management and Budget, in halting the payouts were not found in federal law.
'Agencies do not have unlimited authority to further a President's agenda, nor do they have unfettered power to hamstring in perpetuity two statutes passed by Congress during the previous administration,' she wrote.
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The nonprofits said that an executive order issued by Trump resulted in projects funded by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act 2022 Inflation Reduction Act being put on hold. As a result, funding from many federal agencies has been frozen for everything from urban forestry projects to weatherization programs to lead pipe remediation and has resulted in 'serious and irreversible harm' to many groups.
Diane Yentel, the president and chief executive of the National Council of Nonprofits and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, welcomed the decision.
'This funding freeze has already caused serious harm in communities, as nonprofits that provide critical services to our country's most vulnerable have been forced to scale back operations, cancel projects, and consider laying off staff,' Yentel said.
The federal government responded that Congress gave agencies broad latitude to select recipients for the funding and that the plaintiffs failed to show that three of the seven agencies they sued have caused them any harm. They also argued that plaintiffs can't seek relief through this lawsuit since they are already pursuing a similar challenge in a different court.
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Former Mich. AG joins race for governor
SAUGATUCK, Mich. — Former Michigan attorney general Mike Cox on Tuesday entered the 2026 governor's race, adding to a growing field of Republicans vying to succeed term-limited Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
Cox served as attorney general from 2003 to 2011. He launched a gubernatorial bid near the end of his second term, eventually coming in third in the Republican primary.
Cox is hoping for a different outcome this time around, launching a bid Tuesday that he said will 'Make Michigan Great Again.' He served as a Marine Corps infantry rifleman before becoming a prosecutor, according to his campaign website. He defeated Democratic Senator Gary Peters in 2002 to become the state's first Republican attorney general in over 40 years.
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'I've protected people my entire life, fought and beat the worst of the worst,' Cox said in a campaign video announcing his run. 'Let's not stand by and let radical politicians or woke bureaucrats undermine us any longer.'
Cox joins Michigan Senate Republican leader Aric Nesbitt and US Reprresentative John James in the Republican primary. On the Democratic side, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist II are facing off, with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan — formerly a Democrat — running as an independent.
Republicans are aiming to retake the governor's office after eight years under Whitmer, who held full Democratic control of the Legislature from 2022 to 2024 and swiftly advanced her party's agenda. The GOP regained the state House in 2024, but both legislative chambers will be up for grabs next year.
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