SmartNews

'Welp': Expert flags 'crazy' new Trump strategy — military takeover of public land

President Donald Trump appears to be employing a radical new strategy to get around federal law that prohibits the use of the military to enforce immigration law, said a prominent immigration rights attorney on Friday.

The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the use of the military for civilian law enforcement except in very narrow circumstances, which do not apply to Trump's efforts to ramp up expulsion of immigrants from the country. But Trump's apparent end-run around became clear on Friday evening when he dropped a new presidential memorandum directed at the Secretaries of Defense, Interior, Agriculture, and Homeland Security.

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MAGA homebuilder admits 'higher-end customers' putting plans on hold amid Trump tariffs

A Trump-backing homebuilder from Tennessee joined CNN on Friday evening to discuss how President Donald Trump's draconian new tariff regime, rippling through the stock market, is impacting his industry — and while he broadly tried to downplay it as a serious threat to his own business, he admitted it's been suffering at least to some degree.

"Maybe it's just too soon to tell, but I'm just wondering if any potential customers have expressed any concerns just because of the volatility of the market and the potential impact of the tariffs," said anchor Jake Tapper.

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'Escalating threats': Judges are getting ominous messages — delivered on pizza boxes

A federal judge whose son was shot and killed by a gunman posing as a FedEx delivery driver in a 2020 attack meant for the judge revealed a shocking new escalation to the hostility targeting the judiciary.

U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas on Friday said that not only are pizzas being delivered to the homes of judges, but they are also being sent to the homes of their children.

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'Different': Wall Street execs warn 'we’ve never seen' anything like Trump's tariff chaos

Top Wall Street executives are still reeling from the chaos caused by President Donald Trump's tariffs — and they're warning that we're about to see economic instability of a type that hasn't occurred in living memory, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

"Financiers came into the year excited for President Trump’s tenure, expecting corporate tax cuts and lower regulation to lift stocks, dealmaking and corporate confidence," reported Alexander Saeedy, AnnaMaria Andriotis, and Gina Heeb. "One quarter in, the tone is entirely different and executives are worried about tariffs and their impact, especially after the market gyrations of this month. Some economists are predicting a recession by the second half of 2025."

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'Only happened a handful of times': Analyst sounds alarm at rare economic 'red flag'

A massive sell-off in U.S. bonds led a CNN analyst to sound the alarm about a rare "red flag" as financial markets reel.

The country saw a significant sell-off in U.S. bonds this week, driven by concerns over President Donald Trump's tariff policies and broader economic uncertainty. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note surged to as high as 4.53%, marking its highest point since February and a dramatic increase from Monday’s low of 3.87%. This reflects a sharp decline in bond prices, as yields and prices move inversely.

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Trump administration now owes daily updates in effort to return wrongly deported migrant

U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis had a contentious day in court with the Justice Department in dealing with the deportation of a Maryland man.

In the Friday hearing, the DOJ was told to deliver information about a man they admitted they had wrongfully deported. The hearing came after a Thursday night ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld a lower court decision that the DOJ must “facilitate” his return.

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‘Troubling’: Elon Musk signals displeasure with new Trump White House move

Elon Musk took on reports that President Donald Trump’s proposed budget includes massive cuts to NASA’s science funding in a sign that tech billionaire isn’t done taking swipes at the administration's MAGA policies he disagrees with.

Musk’s second split from the administration came after his vocal opposition to the president’s tariff plan – an action that impacts the entrepreneur’s companies and comes amid reports that his role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency could be winding down, Politico said Friday.

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'Calamitous': Ex-agency head sounds alarm over latest DOGE cuts

A former head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, issued a dire warning Friday over the Trump administration's plans to effectively gut the agency, Politico reported on Friday.

The plan, outlined by the Office of Management and Budget under Russ Vought, calls for shutting down the primary research arm of NOAA altogether and redirecting its mission to promote fossil fuels.

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NC Supreme Court makes eyebrow-raising ruling in effort to toss 65K ballots

The North Carolina Supreme Court issued a partial ruling Friday on a judge's effort to toss 65,000 ballots from the 2024 election, according to a report.

The court said that the largest group of challenged voters could not have their ballots discarded because registration issues were not due to voter misconduct, but rather errors from the State Board of Elections. However, the ruling left open the possibility for thousands of other votes to be invalidated under certain conditions.

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New plan eyes mass deportations — by making part of Central American prison US territory

Military contractors pitched a novel way to facilitate mass deportations — simply designate part of a Central American maximum security prison as U.S. territory, Politico reported Friday afternoon.

Former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and a group of defense contractors unveiled their plan to Donald Trump's White House on how they could help greatly expand deportations to El Salvador, according to the report.

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‘Pawns’: Critics blast 'fake' judge who ruled Trump can deport Columbia activist

A federal immigration judge’s ruling on Friday that allowed the Trump administration to move forward with the deportation of former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was roundly criticized by legal observers stunned by the decision.

The ruling greenlighting the deportation of the 30-year-old legal U.S. resident came at the end of a hearing in Louisiana as Immigration Judge Jamee E. Comans concluded that the government “established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable,” according to The Associated Press.

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MSNBC host warns 'wish-casting' Trump just 'overplayed his hand'

MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle said she thinks the markets have been topsy-turvy all week because, in the past, the underlying economy was "a disaster." What's happening now, however, is "completely self-made."

Speaking to Nicolle Wallace on Friday, Ruhle said, "It's why the market this week has been up and down and up and down, because investors are hoping and begging and praying that Trump just scratches this thing. Because if he does, we actually have a good economy. But if he doesn't, he has us on a collision course for disaster."

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'We actually build things here': Trump official takes a swipe at Musk's DOGE

The Trump administration's Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, took a barely-concealed swipe at tech billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency task force while addressing the public about the latest string of air disasters that have unfolded since the new administration took office.

These incidents have included the devastating crash of American Eagle Flight 5342 over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., the first fatal commercial air accident on U.S. soil in 15 years, as well as a number of other smaller incidents, including the crash of a small aircraft in Boca Raton, Florida, on Friday morning.

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