Author: Olive Metuge

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. In 2021, Steve Berger, an evangelical pastor who has attacked the separation of church and state as “a delusional lie” and called multinational institutions “demonic,” set off on an ambitious project. His stated goal: minister to members of Congress so that what “they learn is then translated into policy.” His base of operations would be a six-bedroom, $3.7 million townhouse blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Recently, the pastor scored a remarkable coup for a political influence project that…

Laura KuenssbergPresenter, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg•@bbclaurakReuters”Bruised but motivated,” was how one of Volodymyr Zelensky’s entourage described how they had been feeling, as a small group of journalists crammed into what felt like an even smaller room at Stansted Airport. The British state had done its best to give the Ukrainian president “all bells and whistles” when he arrived in the UK for a summit with 18 world leaders after his dressing down by Donald Trump and JD Vance on Friday night, a government source told me. He shared an embrace with Sir Keir Starmer outside No 10, where he was…

Arif Haidary, an Afghan refugee who arrived in Germany 10 years ago as an unaccompanied minor, has difficulty understanding the historic change that took place during Sunday’s vote. “The election went very, very badly,” he said.  When Haidary arrived in Germany in 2015, Angela Merkel was chancellor and the country was cited as a model for welcoming refugees. While much of the rest of Europe closed its borders, Germany opened the door to more than one million refugees in 2015. But times have changed.The centre-right Christian Democratic alliance (CDU/CSU), which has taken a hard stance on migration by promising a “fundamental” overhaul of…

EMERGENCY DOCKET By Amy Howe on Feb 27, 2025 at 11:52 am The court declined the government’s request last week to allow the temporary lower court order to run out. (Thomas Hawk via Flickr) The Trump administration on Wednesday reiterated its request for the Supreme Court to lift an order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that instructed President Donald Trump to temporarily reinstate the head of an independent federal agency tasked with protecting whistleblowers from retaliation. Last week the justices declined to freeze the order by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, instead leaving the Trump administration’s request…

Home Daily News DOJ nominees hedge on whether court orders… Constitutional Law DOJ nominees hedge on whether court orders must always be followed By Debra Cassens Weiss February 27, 2025, 3:24 pm CST D. John Sauer, the nominee to be the U.S. solicitor general, testifies during his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing Feb. 26. (Photo by Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via the Associated Press) Two Department of Justice nominees refused to say whether court orders must always be followed during questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. D. John Sauer, the U.S. solicitor general nominee, said, “Generally, if there’s…

Did you notice the change?Notice that your phone network name changed to ‘FathersFund’? If you’re wondering why, in short, it is to help highlight a national initiative by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to honour fathers.The Fathers’ Endowment campaign follows the announcement from UAE President HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan after he declared 2025 as the Year of Community. The national initiative embodies the leadership’s vision for a cohesive and prosperous community, and through the campaign, Sheikh Mohammed aims to honour fathers in the…

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. After the Trump administration moved to freeze nearly $60 billion in foreign aid in January, officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeatedly assured Americans that lifesaving operations would continue. “We don’t want to see anybody die,” he told reporters in early February. Aid organizations the world over scrambled to prove their work saved lives, seeking permission from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to continue operating. The administration conceded that many programs prevent…

Pro-Ukraine protests have taken place across the US after Donald Trump and JD Vance’s angry exchange with Volodymr Zelensky at the White House. Hundreds of people gathered in New York, Los Angeles and Boston to express their support for Ukraine after the furious row in the Oval Office.Protesters holding pro-Ukraine signs also lined a road in Waitsfield, Vermont, where Vice-President Vance and his family were visiting for a ski holiday.US media reported the family moved to an undisclosed location from their planned ski resort because of the demonstrations.A protest in Waitsfield against the Trump-Vance administration had been organised earlier in…

Israel blocked the entry of aid trucks into Gaza on Sunday as a standoff over the truce that has halted fighting for the past six weeks escalated, with Hamas calling on Egyptian and Qatari mediators to intervene.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said earlier that it had adopted a proposal by U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza for the Ramadan and Passover periods, hours after the first phase of the previously agreed ceasefire expired.If there’s agreement, the truce would halt fighting until the end of the Ramadan fasting period around March 31 and the Jewish…

OPINION ANALYSIS By Ronald Mann on Feb 27, 2025 at 3:29 pm The court’s decision in Dewberry was one of two opinions released on Wednesday. (Katie Barlow) The issue in Dewberry Group v. Dewberry Engineers is whether a federal court calculating the defendant’s profits in a trademark infringement lawsuit can include all the profits of related entities in the same corporate group. Justice Elena Kagan’s succinct opinion for a unanimous court squarely rejected the lower court’s approach, ruling that profits only of the named defendant can be awarded. Kagan noted that the statute on which the lower courts relied points…