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Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) announced on Thursday evening that he has finally managed to get in touch with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father mistakenly deported to El Salvador and detained in the country's infamous CECOT megaprison.

"I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance," Van Hollen posted to Bluesky, along with a picture of him speaking with Abrego Garcia, apparently still in good health. "I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return."

Former Pentagon special counsel and federal prosecutor Ryan Goodman delivered a blunt interpretation of an appeals court ruling on Thursday that blasted the Trump administration’s handling of deportations.

“It’s just damning,” Goodman, an NYU School of Law professor said on CNN.

The violent attempt to firebomb the mansion of Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) sent shockwaves rippling through the political sphere, particularly as it has become clear the suspect, Cody Balmer, has a deep-seated antisemitic hatred for the Jewish governor. But as far as the Pennsylvania GOP chair is concerned, Shapiro himself ought to be condemning his own party as responsible for the attack.

"My heart goes out to Governor Shapiro and his family, and we thank God that he's fine and they're fine," said Greg Rothman on Newsmax. "But he needs to, as a member of the Democratic Party, call out this violence. Just last month, the Republican state headquarters in New Mexico was firebombed, and you know what's going on in the Tesla dealerships."

Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks is widely seen as a measured figure who frequently calls out anything radical or removed from the center — but that's decidedly not the tone he struck in his latest article, calling for a "civic uprising" to defend American values against the assault of the Trump administration.

"Over the centuries, people built the sinews of civilization: Constitutions to restrain power, international alliances to promote peace, legal systems to peacefully settle disputes, scientific institutions to cure disease, news outlets to advance public understanding, charitable organizations to ease suffering, businesses to build wealth and spread prosperity, and universities to preserve, transmit and advance the glories of our way of life," wrote Brooks. "These institutions make our lives sweet, loving and creative, rather than nasty, brutish and short."

A former federal prosecutor gushed over a judge's rebuke of the Trump administration, calling it a "beautiful exercise in writing" and declaring, "put that on a monument."

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit issued a strongly worded, unanimous opinion earlier Thursday rejecting the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower court order in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. The appeals court’s decision allowed the district court judge to continue trying to require the administration to facilitate Garcia’s return and review what steps have been taken to comply with previous orders.

Economic worries created by President Donald Trump’s massive tariff campaign have sunk investor sentiment into one of its lowest points on record – even lower than the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

That’s according to a report in the Independent, which detailed a new survey that found attitudes among global fund managers have now entered their fifth lowest point on record.

A Texas school district scrubbed a lesson about the Commonwealth of Virginia from its curriculum, reported Axios on Thursday — because the state flag depicts a woman's bare breast.

"Lamar CISD, a school district around 30 minutes from Houston, last fall removed a section about Virginia from its online learning platform used by 3rd-5th graders, Texas Freedom to Read Project co-director Anne Russey tells Axios," said the report. "The reason: The bare breast on Virginia's flag, a picture of which was included in the lesson, violated the district's recently adopted ban on any 'visual depictions or illustrations of frontal nudity' in elementary school library material."

The US Supreme Court announced Thursday it would hear arguments next month on President Donald Trump's push to end birthright citizenship -- a principle enshrined in the Constitution for over 150 years.

The Trump administration had filed an emergency application asking the justices to lift or limit lower court rulings that paused an executive order he signed on his first day in office.

A CNN reporter delivered a blunt assessment as he pushed back on President Donald Trump's claim his administration has been in active negotiations with China to strike a deal amid a trade war that sent tariffs to 145%.

A reporter asked Trump on Thursday, "They've reached out since the 145% tariffs?"

President Donald Trump has spent his first few months in office threatening and targeting various institutions he dislikes and using the power of the presidency to coerce them into making concessions, ranging from universities to law firms to media companies. But he's hit a brick wall with three in particular who just might not be in a mood to negotiate with him, former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote for The Guardian on Thursday.

"Encouraged by the ease with which many big US institutions caved in to their demands, the Trump regime – that is, the small cadre of bottom-feeding fanatics around Donald Trump (JD Vance, Elon Musk, Russell Vought, Stephen Miller and RFK Jr) along with the child king himself – have overreached," wrote Reich. "They’ve dared China, Harvard and the Supreme Court to blink. But guess what? They’ve met their matches. None of them has blinked – and they won’t."

President Donald Trump’s latest threat against his political opposition was doused with the reality that he could be violating federal law for publicly airing his retaliatory request, according to American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.

Trump on Thursday openly floated the possibility of the IRS changing the tax status of organizations that disagree with his administration’s MAGA policies, including immigration and environmental rights organizations.

Scientists whose research has been under attack by President Donald Trump's administration are reportedly clamoring to escape to a place where their contributions will be welcomed and respected.

The Guardian reported Thursday that France's Aix-Marseille University is now offering roughly 20 researchers a three-year position through a program dubbed "Safe Place for Science." The university was apparently inundated with hundreds of applications from scientists in multiple continents around the world for the small number of positions, which are expected to be filled in June.

by Joseph PREZIOSO

Republicans in the US Congress announced an investigation into Harvard University on Thursday, accusing it of flouting civil rights law in an escalation of President Donald Trump's attacks on elite institutions.