Key Highlights
- It expands on the list of 19 countries already facing travel restrictions, which includes Afghanistan, Burma, Burundi, Chad, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela and Yemen. Noem did not specify which countries would be added to the list. Immigration groups and lawmakers sharply criticized the escalation and plan to halt applications from the 19 countries already named, a decision that comes amid reports that naturalization ceremonies for people on the travel ban list are also being canceled. Noem reveals plans to widen US travel ban“I won’t be specific on the number, but it’s over 30, and the president is continuing to evaluate countries,” she said in an interview with Fox News. An expansion of the list would mark a further escalation of immigration measures the administration has taken since the shooting of two national guard members in Washington DC last week. Read the full storyUS supreme court to decide on legality of Trump birthright citizenship orderThe justices will hear the president’s request to uphold his executive order on birthright citizenship, issued just hours after Trump took office for his second term and immediately blocked from taking effect. The order was a contentious part of the administration’s far-reaching immigration crackdown – and a step that would transform the interpretation of a 19th-century constitutional provision. Read the full storySurvivors clung to boat wreckage for an hour before second deadly attackTwo men who survived a US airstrike on a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean clung to the wreckage for an hour before they were killed in a second attack, according to a video of the episode shown to senators in Washington. The men were shirtless and unarmed and carried no visible radio or other communications equipment.
- They also appeared to have no idea what had just hit them, or that the US military was weighing whether to finish them off, two sources familiar with the recording told Reuters. Read the full storyUS policy paper lays bare Trump support for Europe’s far rightDonald Trump’s administration has said Europe faces “civilisational erasure” within the next two decades as a result of immigration and EU integration, arguing in a policy document that the US must “cultivate resistance” within the continent to “Europe’s current trajectory”.
- Billed as “a roadmap to ensure America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history and the home of freedom on earth”, the US National Security Strategy makes explicit Washington’s support for Europe’s far-right parties. Read the full storyCDC panel votes to limit hepatitis B vaccines for newbornsThe US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s vaccine advisers voted on Friday morning to limit hepatitis vaccines in a major move signaling the Trump administration’s regressive approach to vaccines that have been given safely and effectively for decades. The panel of advisers to US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr voted to remove the broad recommendation that all newborns in the US receive a hepatitis B vaccine. Read the full storyUS federal judge orders release of Epstein grand jury materia.
