The White House said in a statement that Donald Trump has signed the Department of Homeland Security funding bill into law, which excludes immigration enforcement operations, bringing an end the longest government agency shutdown in history.
Brazil’s largely conservative congress has approved a bill reducing the prison sentence of the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was convicted last year of attempting a coup. The bill had initially been passed by congress in December, but President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vetoed it in January in a symbolic move marking three years since Bolsonaro supporters ransacked the capital, Brasília. In a session on Thursday, the lower house overturned the veto with 318 votes, well above the 257 required, and the senate followed by 49 votes, with 41 needed. If confirmed by a supreme court justice, Bolsonaro’s sentence would fall from 27 years and three months to 22 years and one month. Another significant change would be the time served in a closed regime, which could drop from what legal experts estimate at between four and six years to between two and four years, meaning the former president could move to an open regime as early as 2028. It marked a second major blow in less than 24 hours for the leftwing president, who will seek re-election in October in what is expected to be a tight race against one of Bolsonaro’s sons, the senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who took part in the vote. On Wednesday night, Lula suffered a historic defeat when he became the first president in more than 130 years to have a nominee, the lawyer Jorge Messias, to the supreme court rejected by the senate. Although both the overturning of the veto and the rejection of the court nominee had in some form been anticipated, they are being widely interpreted in Brazil as further evidence that Lula, who in polls appears virtually tied with Bolsonaro’s son, will face a difficult election. Despite the overturning of Lula’s veto, the reduction of Bolsonaro’s sentence, as he remains under house arrest, will not be automatic; his lawyers will need to file a request for a sentence review with the supreme court. The new law reduces not only his sentence but also that of about 280 others convicted over the attempted coup to overturn the result of the 2022 election, when the incumbent Bolsonaro was defeated by Lula. Lula has not yet commented on the decision. When he vetoed the bill in January, he said reducing sentences for an attempted coup would encourage similar crimes in the future. “This man [Bolsonaro] must remain in prison,” he said. The president has also not announced whether he intends to put forward a new nominee for the vacant seat on the supreme court. His previous nominee, Messias, the government’s current solicitor general, delivered an anti-abortion speech during his senate hearing and was seen as an attempt to appeal to evangelical voters, who make up 26.9% of the population and have overwhelmingly backed Bolsonaro. The senate had not rejected a presidential nominee since 1894, and the decision is widely attributed to an agreement between the senate president, Davi Alcolumbre, and the opposition led by Flávio Bolsonaro, as well as for retaliation over Lula’s refusal to nominate a candidate backed by Alcolumbre. The senate president has reportedly told close allies that he will only allow a new confirmation hearing after the election. If Flávio Bolsonaro were to win, and given the number of justices expected to retire in the next four years, along with two previously appointed by his father, the Bolsonaro family could secure a majority of six out of the court’s 11 justices.
The Republican-led Senate on Thursday again blocked a Democratic attempt to stop Donald Trump’s war in Iran, rejecting a war powers resolution that would have limited the conflict until Congress authorizes further military action. The vote was 47-50, with two Republicans – Susan Collins, a senator of Maine, and Rand Paul, of Kentucky – voting in favor and one Democrat – John Fetterman, of Pennsylvania – opposing it. It was the sixth time this year that Democrats have forced a vote on a war powers resolution related to the US’s assault on Iran. All have failed, mostly along party lines. Adam Schiff, the resolution’s author and a senator, said Thursday’s vote was critical. Friday marks 60 days since the Trump administration notified Congress that it was carrying out strikes on Iran. Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the president must terminate its military campaign at the end of the 60-day window, unless Congress has declared war or authorized the use of military force. Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, testifying earlier on Capitol Hill, said the 60-day clock was paused due to the current ceasefire with Iran, though Democrats and critics have raised concerns with that interpretation. Earlier this month, the House had also narrowly rejected another war powers resolution meant to curb military action in Iran. The resolution introduced by Greg Meeks, the top Democrat on the House foreign affairs committee, failed by a vote of 213-214, with one Republican member voting present. It required at least two more votes to pass, as tied votes fail in the House. In a sign that Democrats had solidified in opposition to the war, three congressmen who had voted against a previous resolution in March – Henry Cuellar, of Texas, Greg Landsman, of Ohio, and Juan Vargas, of California – voted in favor of this attempt. Jared Golden, of Maine, was the sole Democrat to vote in opposition, and Thomas Massie, of Kentucky the only Republican to vote for passage. Ohio’s Warren Davidson voted present, after voting in favor last month.
US and Venezuelan officials have hailed a new era in diplomatic relations as the first direct commercial flight between the two countries in more than seven years landed in Caracas. Nearly four months ago, US special forces attack helicopters and planes swept into the skies over Venezuela’s capital after Donald Trump ordered the capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro. On Thursday afternoon it was a very different kind of aircraft that descended towards Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar international airport: an American Airlines passenger jet from Miami, heralding the start of a strange new chapter in the long-toxic ties between Caracas and Washington. “This is a historic day,” José Freig, the carrier’s vice-president of international operations, declared before handing Venezuela’s transport minister, Jacqueline Faría, a model of one of his company’s planes. Speaking in Spanish, the US chargé d’affaires in Venezuela, John Barrett, hailed a “historic milestone”, saying: “We are witnessing the reconstruction of our economic ties, Venezuela’s reopening to global commerce and the reconnecting of our peoples.” Barrett called the new flight “a direct result” of Trump and secretary of state Marco Rubio’s three-phase plan for post-Maduro Venezuela: stabilising Venezuela, rebooting its moribund economy and eventually securing a political transition back towards democracy. “We are only just getting started,” Barrett told dozens of journalists who had assembled by the runway before Flight 3599 touched down at 1.15pm local time. Faría said: “This country wants to connect itself to the world and it is a great pleasure for us to once again open the doors to the entire world.” The airport has long been a symbol of Venezuela’s devastating migration crisis: millions fled abroad as a result of the country’s economic meltdown under Maduro and because of political repression, with foreign journalists and Venezuelan activists frequently deported or interrogated while trying to enter or leave the increasingly authoritarian state. But on Thursday there was a much lighter mood, as the US flight approached Venezuela’s northern coast and Venezuelan passengers queued up to travel on the return flight. A Venezuelan saxophonist celebrated the moment with muzak renditions of Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York, Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine and Hotel California by the Eagles. Oliver Blanco, a senior Venezuelan diplomat, said: “We are writing a new chapter in coexistence [and] economic opening.” Félix Plasencia, Venezuela’s top diplomat in the US and a former ambassador to London, told journalists: “We are thrilled to have you here for this very first flight … and this should be the first one of many.” As he prepared to check in, Eloy Montenegro, a 71-year-old civil engineer flying to Miami, said the new route would make travel between the US and Venezuela easier. Of the years-long breakdown of relations between the two countries, Montenegro said: “That should never have happened but it happened. And things are much better now.” “But that’s politics – and that’s none of my business,” he added diplomatically before strolling towards the check-in desk past an arch of red, blue and white balloons. The last US commercial flight to take off from Caracas did so in March 2019, in Trump’s first term, as relations collapsed amid Trump’s effort to force Maduro from power through sanctions and threats. Other US airlines had already halted their flights as a result of the political and social turmoil sweeping Venezuela amid one of the world’s worst economic collapses outside a war zone. The new partnership between the White House and its longstanding anti-imperialist foes in Caracas represents a once improbable diplomatic handbrake turn. Since Maduro’s capture, his vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, has assumed power with Trump’s blessing, and has overseen a series of major economic concessions involving Venezuela’s oil and mining industries. Trump has repeatedly praised the actions of Rodríguez, who he warned would face an even worse fate than Maduro if she refused to toe the line. “I see it as a viceroyship,” said John Feeley, a veteran former US diplomat in Latin America and ambassador to Panama, of Venezuela’s highly unusual new relationship with the US. “It’s a powerful king-like figure that extracts rent from overseas territories and the person in charge who makes sure that the king or the crown, or in this case Washington, gets its due is Delcy.” Many are sceptical that the third phase of the plan – a political transition back towards democracy – will happen, with Rodríguez’s administration apparently in no rush to give up power or hold fresh elections. “It’s not time for elections,” the powerful interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, said on the eve of the flight’s arrival. Feeley, who resigned from the foreign service during Trump’s first term, did not completely rule out that the US intervention in Venezuela might eventually benefit the people of that country, after years of economic chaos, international isolation and increasingly autocratic rule. “We can never predict the future with any accuracy and I don’t … want to foreclose the possibility that this unconstitutional and, by international law, illegal action by the United States could not still result in a net positive for the Venezuelan people in terms of their democracy. I want to believe that can happen,” Feeley said. “[But] I’m pessimistic because of the track record of the Trump team and Donald Trump himself and his own attitudes towards democracy. “If Donald Trump is an autocratic-style president internally in the United States, what leads one to conclude he would be promoting democracy in another country?”
Donald Trump has again lashed out at Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, saying he should focus on “fixing his broken country” and trying to end the Russia-Ukraine war – and spend less time “interfering” in Iran. “The Chancellor of Germany should spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!),” Trump wrote in a social media post. Merz should instead focus on “fixing his broken Country,” he wrote, “especially Immigration and Energy, and less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran Nuclear threat, thereby making the World, including Germany, a safer place!” Trump’s latest outburst came a day after he suggested the US military presence in Germany was being reviewed, with a “possible reduction” of troops under consideration. Between 36,000 and 39,000 US personnel are stationed in Germany, most of whom are at its two largest bases in Stuttgart and Ramstein – much fewer than at their cold war peak. Trump’s comments appear to have been prompted by Merz’s unusually blunt comments earlier this week, when the chancellor said the US was being “humiliated” by Iran and criticised Washington for having no exit strategy from the war. On Thursday, Merz sought to strike a more conciliatory tone at a visit to a German military base in Münster, emphasising the importance of ties with Nato and the US, and criticising Iran for refusing to take part in peace negotiations. Without mentioning Trump, Merz said he believed in a Nato-led solution to the conflict in the Middle East, referring to a “reliable transatlantic partnership”. German officials were keen to dampen the row. Throughout Thursday they were at pains to point out the threats from the US to withdraw troops from German soil were far from new – Trump had made them during his first term in office – and they were ready for them. Speaking on a visit to Morocco, the German foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said not only had Trump made such statements in the past but so, too, had presidents Biden, Obama and Clinton. Barack Obama had made it clear the US would concentrate its troops more in the Pacific zone, he said. “That might yet happen. Let’s take a look at that together, calmly and thoroughly,” Wadephul said. He added: “We are prepared for that, we are discussing it closely and in a spirit of trust in all Nato bodies, and we are expecting decisions from the Americans about this.” He said a “shifting of forces” was already taking place, and the German military was preparing for the changes. “We have to take on more responsibilities, we have to develop stronger shoulders,” he added. But he also said it was hard to see the US withdrawing from the Ramstein airbase in south-western Germany, as it had “an irreplaceable function for the United States and for us alike”. Claudia Major, a leading expert on transatlantic security at the German Marshall Fund, said Trump’s attempt to “use Ramstein as leverage” was nothing new. “It ties in with the debate we had about Greenland, when the Europeans were considering how seriously to take Trump’s threats,” she said. While the messages coming from the US were “very unsettling … and we wonder to what extent it’s still reliable”, at the same time Europeans had to learn to become less dependent on US support, she said. But this, she added, would mean “less security and more instability for all involved”. The defence policy expert for Merz’s Christian Democrats, Roderich Kiesewetter, cautioned against overreacting to Trump’s statement. “Troop reductions were announced some time ago and are no surprise,” he told German media. “The main thing is that they are carried out in an orderly and consensual manner.” He said having US troops in Germany – in particular the US’s large military hospital in Landstuhl, the strategic hub in Ramstein and the training grounds in Grafenwöhr – was of indispensable interest “especially for the US”. He said rather than primarily ensuring the defence of Germany, these locations supported “the global American projection of power”.
The US justice department has charged the governor of Sinaloa and nine other current and former Mexican officials for alleged ties to the Sinaloa cartel, accusing them of aiding in the massive importation of illicit narcotics into the United States. Some officials were members of Mexico’s progressive ruling party, Morena, posing a political conundrum for Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum as she seeks to offset mounting pressures from the Trump administration. In her daily press conference on Thursday, Sheinbaum said her government would investigate the allegations – but suggested the motivation behind them might be political. “We will not cover up for anyone who has committed a crime,” she said. “However, if there is no clear evidence, it is evident that the objective of these charges by the Department of Justice is political.” The 10 people charged in Manhattan federal court are current and former government or law enforcement officials in Sinaloa, including Rubén Rocha Moya, 76, who has been the governor of Mexico’s Sinaloa state since November 2021. The indictment alleges the governor was elected in 2021 with the help of the Sinaloa cartel, which allegedly kidnapped and intimidated political rivals in exchange for protection of their operations once in power. Charges against Rocha Moya included narcotics importation conspiracy and possession of machine guns and destructive devices, along with another conspiracy count. If convicted, he could face life in prison or a mandatory minimum of 40 years behind bars. Responding to the indictment, Rocha Moya wrote on X that he “categorically and unequivocally reject[s]” the charges, which were “completely untrue and without any basis”. “It is part of a perverse strategy to violate (Mexico’s) constitutional order, specifically on national sovereignty,” he wrote in a post on X on Wednesday afternoon. “We will show them that this slander doesn’t have any sort of foundation.” The US ambassador to Mexico, Ronald Johnson, said that combating transnational crime was a shared priority between the US and Mexico. “Our countries have pledged to strengthen transparency, enforce anti-corruption laws, and uphold the rule of law. That is what our citizens on both sides of the border want and, as I have said repeatedly, this is what they deserve.” But Sheinbaum questioned Johnson’s comments. “An ambassador cannot have an interventionist attitude,” she said on Thursday. She added: “We will not allow any foreign government to come and decide the future of the Mexican people.” Mexico’s attorney general’s office said it would analyse the evidence received from the US to see whether it justified the request that the 10 individuals charged be detained and extradited. It will also start its own parallel investigation. Sheinbaum said that if the attorney general’s office received or found “compelling and irrefutable evidence”, then the case “must proceed in accordance with the law under our jurisdiction”. The foreign relations secretariat released a statement saying it had received various extradition requests from the US government, adding that the attorney general’s office would determine whether there was sufficient evidence to detain those charged. In the indictment, US authorities alleged the defendants played critical roles in helping the cartel ship fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine from Mexico into the US. The Sinaloa cartel is among eight Latin American crime groups designated as terrorist organisations by the US government. Under pressure from the Trump administration, which has threatened tariffs and unilateral military action, the Mexican government has ramped up its arrests and drug seizures across the country, transferred roughly 100 high-level cartel operatives to US prisons, and launched operations against kingpins. In the last two months, the Mexican military killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho”, the leader of the Jalisco new generation cartel, and arrested Audias Flores Silva, who was a possible successor. With Associated Press
… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today! US president Donald Trump has doubled down on his criticism of German chancellor Friedrich Merz, telling him to “spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine” and “fixing his broken country” after Merz’s criticism of the US war against Iran (15:46). Trump’s latest outburst comes a day after he suggested the US military presence in Germany was being reviewed with a “possible reduction” under consideration and a decision expected to be made shortly (10:01). The falling out between the two leaders appears to have been caused by Merz’s unusually blunt comments earlier this week in which he said the US is being “humiliated” by Iran’s leadership, and criticised the US for no exit strategy from the war. Without offering a direct response to Trump’s comments, the German chancellor sought to strike a notably different and more conciliatory tone at a visit to a German military base in Munster, stressing the importance of ties with Nato and the US, and criticising Iran for refusing to take part in peace negotiations (12:44). Trump’s renewed attack on Merz’s record in government comes just days before his first anniversary in office (15:46). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.