China ‘seriously concerned’ over US Golden Dome defense system
China is concerned about a US project to build the Golden Dome missile defense shield and urged Washington to abandon its development and deployment, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Donald Trump said on Tuesday he had selected a design for the project and named a Space Force general to head the ambitious program aimed at blocking threats from China and Russia, Reuters reported.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, when asked about the project at a regular press conference, said it carries “strong offensive implications” and heightens the risks of the militarization of outer space and an arms race.
“The United States, in pursuing a ‘US-first’ policy, is obsessed with seeking absolute security for itself. This violates the principle that the security of all countries should not be compromised and undermines global strategic balance and stability. China is seriously concerned about this,” Mao said.
She urged Washington to abandon the development of the system as soon as possible and take actions to enhance trust among major powers.
Key events
Fellow lawmakers have called Gerry Connolly, who died this morning, a tireless public servant, and noted his work in recent months as his constituents – many tied to the federal government – grappled with cuts from the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Doge task force.
“Even as he battled a difficult cancer diagnosis, Ranking Member Connolly continued to push back against the unprecedented attacks on the federal workers in his district and across the country,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement.
Virginia’s Republican governor Glenn Youngkin also offered his condolences in a post on X: “His decades of public service reflect a deep commitment to Virginia.” He did not say what steps would be taken to fill the House seat.
We are deeply saddened by the passing of Congressman Gerry Connolly. His decades of public service reflect a deep commitment to Virignia. Suzanne and I send our heartfelt prayers to his family, friends, and all who mourn his loss.
— Glenn Youngkin (@GlennYoungkin) May 21, 2025
US abandons police reform accords sought over deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and seeks to retract prior findings of wrongdoing by police departments
The US justice department is abandoning efforts to secure court-approved settlements with Minneapolis and Louisville, despite its prior finding that police in both cities routinely violated the civil rights of black people, Reuters reports.
Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the department’s civil rights division, said in a statement that her office will seek to dismiss the pending litigation against the two cities and retract the department’s prior findings of constitutional violations.
Overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs, turning that power over to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda.
She also announced that the department will be closing out investigations and retracting prior findings of wrongdoing against the police departments in Phoenix, Arizona, Memphis, Tennessee, Trenton, New Jersey, Mount Vernon, New York, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and the Louisiana state police.
The move comes four days before the 25 May five-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd, a black man who was murdered in Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a white police officer who knelt on his neck as Floyd repeatedly pleaded that he couldn’t breathe. His killing, as well as the killing of Breonna Taylor who was shot to death by Louisville Police executing a no-knock warrant, sparked worldwide protests about racially-motivated policing practices during the final year of Donald Trump’s first term.
Louisville and Minneapolis were the two most high-profile cities to be investigated during the Biden administration for systemic police abuse, and were the only two cities that agreed in principle to enter into a court-approved settlement with the DOJ known as a consent decree. Minneapolis also separately entered a similar type of settlement with the state of Minnesota to reform its police practices.
Congress authorized the justice department to conduct civil investigations into constitutional abuses by police, and the civil rights division launched 12 such “pattern or practice” investigations into police departments including Phoenix, New York City, Trenton, Memphis and Lexington, Mississippi. But during those four years it failed to enter into any court-binding consent decrees, an issue that legal experts warned could put the department’s police accountability work at risk of being undone.
Under Dhillon’s leadership, the civil rights division has lost more than 100 of its attorneys through deferred resignation agreements, demotions and resignations. And last month, she demoted senior attorneys who handled police abuse investigations to other low-level assignments, such as handling public records requests or adjudicating internal discrimination complaints.
Those moves are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to upend the civil rights division’s traditions of pursuing cases to protect the civil rights of some of the country’s most vulnerable and historically disenfranchised populations.
Since January, it has paused probes of alleged police abuse, launched its first investigation into whether Los Angeles violated gun rights laws, and following Trump’s lead, changed the department’s stance on transgender rights and probed alleged antisemitism at US colleges involving pro-Palestinian protesters.
The department also recently ended a decades-old school desegregation order in Louisiana that came about in the wake of the supreme court’s Brown v. Board of Education case.
Judge orders US officials to appear in court to answer questions about deportations to South Sudan
A federal judge has ordered US officials to appear at an emergency hearing today to answer questions about their apparent deportation of immigrants to South Sudan and other countries, The Associated Press reports.
US district judge Brian E Murphy in Massachusetts ruled late on Tuesday that the Trump administration must retain custody and control of those “currently being removed to South Sudan or to any other third country, to ensure the practical feasibility of return” if he finds such removals were unlawful. Lawyers for the immigrants said the administration appears to have begun deporting people from Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan despite a court order restricting removals to other countries.
The judge left the details to the government’s discretion, but said he expects the migrants “will be treated humanely”.
Attorneys for the migrants told the judge that immigration authorities may have sent as many as a dozen people from several countries to parts of Africa. The lawyers say that violates a court order that people have a “meaningful opportunity” to argue that sending them to a country outside their homeland would threaten their safety.
The apparent removal of one man from Myanmar was confirmed in an email from an immigration official in Texas, according to court documents. He was informed only in English, a language he does not speak well, and his lawyers learned of the plan hours before his deportation flight, they said.
A woman also reported that her husband from Vietnam and up to 10 other people were flown to Africa on Tuesday morning, attorneys from the National Immigration Litigation Alliance wrote.
The lawyers asked Murphy for an emergency court order to prevent the deportations.
Murphy previously found that any plans to deport people to Libya without notice would “clearly” violate his ruling, which also applies to people who have otherwise exhausted their legal appeals.
The judge summoned US officials to court today to identify the migrants impacted, address when and how they learned they would be removed to a third country and what opportunity they were given to raise a fear-based claim. He also ruled that the government must provide information about the whereabouts of the migrants apparently already removed.
South Sudan’s police spokesperson major general James Monday Enoka told AP on Wednesday that no migrants had arrived in the country and that if they do, they would be investigated and again “redeported to their correct country” if found not to be South Sudanese.
The state department’s annual report on South Sudan, published in April 2024, says “significant human rights issues” include arbitrary killings, disappearances, torture or inhumane treatment by security forces and extensive violence based on gender and sexual identity.
South Sudan’s diplomatic relations with the US grew tense in April when a deportation row led to the revocation of visas and a ban on South Sudanese nationals.
Trump nominates Darryl Nirenberg as new US ambassador to Romania
Donald Trump has chosen Darryl Nirenberg, a lawyer and former Senate staffer, to serve as the next US ambassador to Romania, Reuters reports.
The White House and state department have yet to comment on the outcome of Romania’s presidential election on Sunday, which was won by the centrist mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, who defeated a far-right candidate.
Nirenberg, a longtime Washington lawyer currently at Steptoe LLP law firm, was chief of staff for late Republican senator Jesse Helms and was a counsel for the Senate foreign relations committee.
The nomination requires approval by the Senate.
US judge nixes treasury’s bid to cancel IRS workers’ union contract
A federal judge has rejected a bid by the US treasury department to cancel a union contract covering tens of thousands of IRS staff, Reuters reports, in an early blow to Donald Trump’s efforts to eliminate collective bargaining rights for many federal workers.
US district judge Danny Reeves in Lexington, Kentucky, said in a written opinion late on Tuesday that the department lacked legal standing to bring a lawsuit against the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).
After Trump issued an executive order exempting treasury and other agencies from union bargaining obligations, the agency sued an affiliate of the NTEU that represents the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees, to invalidate a bargaining agreement reached in 2022.
Reeves dismissed the case, saying the lawsuit was premature because the treasury had not yet taken any steps to implement Trump’s order. “This decision says nothing of the merits of the case,” the judge wrote. “Had Treasury filed suit in response to an invasion or threatened invasion of its sovereign right to enforce [Trump’s order], a different result likely would have been reached.”
A US appeals court last week paused a ruling by a judge in Washington DC that had blocked seven agencies including the treasury from implementing Trump’s order in a lawsuit by the NTEU.
Trump’s executive order excluded from collective bargaining obligations agencies that he said “have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work”. It applies to the justice, state, defense, treasury, veterans affairs, and health and human services departments, among other agencies. The NTEU has said the order applies to about 100,000 of its 160,000 members.
The treasury department sued the NTEU affiliate a day after Trump issued the order, seeking a declaration that gave the treasury the authority to end its bargaining relationship with the union.
The department said federal civil service law empowers the president to exempt agencies from bargaining when he deems it necessary to protect national security, and that courts lack the authority to review and second guess those determinations.
NTEU and other federal worker unions have accused Trump of issuing the order to punish them for bringing legal challenges to a number of his policies.
US district judge Paul Friedman in DC ruled in the NTEU’s lawsuit in April that Trump had not adequately justified reversing decades of practice and exempting large swaths of the federal workforce from bargaining. But an appeals court panel in blocking that ruling said it was likely to be overturned on appeal.
Eight federal agencies have filed a separate lawsuit against the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal worker union, seeking to invalidate existing union contracts covering thousands of workers. The union has moved to dismiss that case, with a hearing scheduled for June.
Democratic representative Gerry Connolly dies at age 75
Democratic US representative Gerry Connolly has died, his family said in a statement posted to his account on X this morning following the Virginia lawmaker’s cancer diagnosis last year. He was 75.
Connolly was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2008 and served as the top Democrat on the House committee on oversight and government reform.
“We were fortunate to share Gerry with Northern Virginia for nearly 40 years,” his family wrote, calling him “a fierce defender of democracy” and a champion for the environment. “Gerry lived his life to give back to others and make our community better.”
At the end of last month, Connolly announced he would be retiring from Congress at the end of this term and stepping back from his role as ranking member on the House oversight committee after finding out his cancer had returned.
In their statement, his family said he “passed away peacefully at his home this morning surrounded by family”.
Germany and the European Union are in talks with all concerned parties in the United States on new sanctions against Russia over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, a German government spokesperson said in comments reported by Reuters.
“I cannot comment on these internal American debates, but rest assured that Europe and the [German] federal government are also talking to all the players in the USA,” the spokesperson said at a regular government press conference.
China said on Wednesday that trade talks with the United States were an important step to bridge gaps but that multilateralism is “indispensable” to find a way out from global trade turmoil.
“While bilateral talks may sometimes work, China believes multilateralism is the inevitable and ultimate choice to address global challenges,” China said. “We need to find the way out,” it added.
China and dozens of other countries were stung by a slew of so-called reciprocal tariffs imposed by Donald Trump in recent months, before talks were held between the two major trading partners earlier in May to reduce rising trade tensions.
Immigrant rights advocates have accused the Trump administration of deporting about a dozen migrants from countries including Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan in violation of a court order, and asked a judge to order their return.
Lawyers for the migrants made the request in a court filing on Tuesday directed to US district judge Brian Murphy, who had barred the Trump administration from swiftly deporting migrants to countries other than their own without first hearing any concerns they had that they might be tortured or persecuted if sent there.
They said they learned that nearly a dozen migrants held at a detention facility in Texas were flown to South Sudan on Tuesday morning. Murphy told a lawyer with the US Department of Justice during a hastily arranged virtual hearing that the potential violation might constitute criminal contempt and he was weighing ordering a plane carrying the migrants to the African country to turn around.
Those migrants included an individual from Myanmar, identified by the initials NM in court documents, whose lawyer received an email on Monday from an official with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement informing the attorney of the intent to deport his client to South Sudan.
According to court documents, NM – who has “limited English proficiency” – refused to sign the notice of removal, which was provided to him only in English, in violation of a previous court order.
The migrant’s lawyers said they learned their client had been flown to South Sudan on Tuesday morning.
A small southern California school district must immediately pause its ban on critical race theory (CRT), a California appeals court ruled on Thursday morning.
The 4th district court of appeals ruling put a halt to the Temecula Valley unified school district ban until its litigation is settled in the California legal system. The decision is the latest in a long-running legal battle over the CRT ban, which was first adopted as a resolution by the Temecula Valley board of education in December 2022 as they attempted to purge elementary school textbooks that reference gay rights icon Harvey Milk.
The recent decision, authored by Judge Kathleen O’Leary, and concurred by the panel’s other two judges, said that the vague nature and lack of legal or academic terminology in the resolution jeopardized its constitutionality.
“The Resolution defined CRT as ‘a divisive ideology that assigns moral fault to individuals solely on the basis of an individual’s race’ and, therefore, is itself a racist ideology,” O’Leary’s ruling said. “The Resolution operates as if this definition is universally accepted, but the text does not indicate where this definition is derived, or whether it is shared with anyone else besides the Board.”
The ruling pointed to the resolution’s lack of examples of CRT, and lack of guidance for teachers looking to modify their curriculum.
Kremlin says Russia and US should resume strategic stability contacts
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that the course of events meant that Russia and the United States should resume contacts about strategic stability.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that US plans for the launch of the “Golden Dome” anti-missile system was a sovereign matter for the United States, Reuters reports.
“This is a sovereign matter for the United States. If the United States believes that there is a missile threat, then of course it will develop a missile defence system,” Peskov said, adding the plan would require resuming nuclear talks with Washington.
China ‘seriously concerned’ over US Golden Dome defense system
China is concerned about a US project to build the Golden Dome missile defense shield and urged Washington to abandon its development and deployment, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Donald Trump said on Tuesday he had selected a design for the project and named a Space Force general to head the ambitious program aimed at blocking threats from China and Russia, Reuters reported.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, when asked about the project at a regular press conference, said it carries “strong offensive implications” and heightens the risks of the militarization of outer space and an arms race.
“The United States, in pursuing a ‘US-first’ policy, is obsessed with seeking absolute security for itself. This violates the principle that the security of all countries should not be compromised and undermines global strategic balance and stability. China is seriously concerned about this,” Mao said.
She urged Washington to abandon the development of the system as soon as possible and take actions to enhance trust among major powers.
Trump rolls out Golden Dome missile defense project and appoints leader
Hugo Lowell
Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that his administration will move forward with developing the so-called “Golden Dome” missile defense system that he envisions will protect the United States from possible foreign strikes using ground and space-based weapons.
Flanked by the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, in the Oval Office, Trump also said that he wanted the project to be operational before he left office. He added that Republicans had agreed to allocate $25bn in initial funding and Canada had expressed an interest in taking part.
“Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world, and even if they are launched from space,” Trump said, “forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland.”
What exactly the Golden Dome will look like remains unclear. Trump has not yet decided which of three options proposed by the defense department he wants to pursue. Pentagon officials recently drafted three proposals – small, medium and large – for Trump to consider.
The proposals all broadly combine ground-based missile interceptors currently used by the US military with more ambitious and hi-tech systems to build a space-based defense program.
The option that Trump chooses will determine its timeline and cost. The $25bn coming from Republicans’ budget bill is only set to cover initial development costs. The final price tag could exceed $540bn over the next two decades, according to the congressional budget office.
Donald Trump Jr on running for president: “that calling is there”
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and will be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.
Let’s start with the news that Donald Trump‘s eldest son Donald Trump Jr said in Qatar on Wednesday that he could maybe run for president one day, adding “that calling is there.”
“So the answer is I don’t know, maybe one day. You know, that calling is there. I’ll always be very active in terms of being a vocal proponent of these things. I think my father has truly changed the Republican Party,” he said, speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum.
When asked by the panel moderator if he would run and “pick up the reins” after his father leaves office, his initial reaction was: “Here we go. Well … oh boy,” to faint applause from the audience, adding, “it’s an honour to be asked and an honour to see that some people are OK with it.”
Speaking alongside 1789 Capital founder Omeed Malik, Trump, 47, joked that the people clapping were “the couple of people we know”.
In other news:
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The Trump administration said it will permit use of Covid vaccines by adults over 65 and those with certain medical conditions in the fall, raising questions about whether some people who want a vaccine will be able to get one. The FDA framework, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, urges companies to conduct large, lengthy studies before tweaked vaccines can be approved for healthier people.
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A federal judge said that the Trump administration appeared to have violated his April court order by deporting a Burmese immigrant to South Sudan without giving him sufficient time to contest the removal, especially given the risk of being sent to a country that is not his own. Judge Brian E Murphy in Boston made the remarks during a hearing in federal district court after immigration attorneys raised alarm that at least one other immigrant may also have been deported to South Sudan without due process.
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Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a “comprehensive review” of the United States’ chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, an evacuation operation in which 13 US service members and 150 Afghans were killed at Kabul’s airport in an Islamic State bombing. It was unclear how Hegseth’s review would differ from the many previous reviews that have been carried out – including by the US military, the state department and even Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives.
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The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, told the Senate foreign relations committee that the number of visas he has revoked was “probably in the thousands”, adding that he believed there was still more to do. “I don’t know the latest count, but we probably have more to do. A visa is not a right, it’s a privilege.”
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The Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, couldn’t correctly state what habeas corpus is when pressed to define the concept by the Democratic US senator Maggie Hassan. Asked what habeas corpus is, Noem claimed it’s “a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country and suspend their right to –”.
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A group of fired federal workers held a sit-in on the House-side steps of the US Capitol in an effort to pressure members of Congress to do more to reign in Doge’s “harmful and illegal cuts to federal programs”. According to the Fork Off Coalition, the group includes “federal employees illegally terminated by Doge; contractors on cancelled federal contracts; and other workers harmed by Doge”.
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Donald Trump defended the justice department’s decision to charge the Democratic representative LaMonica McIver of New Jersey for allegedly assaulting law enforcement officers earlier this month. McIver faces a felony assault charge over a physical confrontation with Ice officials outside an immigrant detention facility in New Jersey.