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The Trump administration on Thursday announced new measures to target hospitals and doctors providing care to trans youth. Under the new rules unveiled by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who leads Medicaid and Medicare, the government would strip federal funding for any hospitals that provide pediatric gender-affirming care. The new rules were announced a day after the House of Representatives narrowly approved a bill that aims to criminalize providing gender-affirming medical care for any transgender person under 18 and subject providers to hefty fines and prison time.
"This is a drastic departure from any concern about science, concern about parents and their rights," says Chase Strangio, co-director of the American Civil Liberties Union's LGBTQ & HIV Project. "It is putting hospitals in an impossible situation, and just another example of this administration undermining and threatening all of our health and welfare."
We also speak with Dr. Jeffrey Birnbaum, a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist who works with transgender youth in New York City. He says the families he works with are "terrified right now," but vows to continue his work. "I refuse to stop providing this care, knowing that I could potentially face 10 years in prison and a felony charge. I'm willing to go down that route, if necessary."
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Trump Media plans to merge with a company developing nuclear fusion technology, putting the president's financial interests in competition with other energy companies over which his administration holds sway.
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The attack killed 5 people, the latest known fatalities since the attacks began in September. The Trump administration has accused those on the boats of ferrying narcotics but provided little proof.
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The Trump administration is ramping up efforts to strip more naturalized immigrants of their U.S. citizenship, with The New York Times reporting that officials are seeking 100 to 200 cases per month. The news comes less than two weeks after the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case to decide the constitutionality of President Trump's executive order aiming to end birthright citizenship.
"During the first Trump administration, they had 25 [denaturalization] cases per year, and … for the 15 years before the first Trump administration, they had fewer than 15 cases per year," says Mae Ngai, professor of Asian American studies and history at Columbia University. "So this is an incredible escalation."
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We get an update on the extraordinary case of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland father who first made headlines in March when he was wrongfully deported to El Salvador and held in the notorious CECOT mega-prison. Ábrego García was returned to the United States after months of public outrage, but his ordeal continued as the Trump administration has threatened to deport him to Uganda, Eswatini and Liberia, despite having no ties to those African countries. Last week, a federal judge ordered him released from an ICE jail in Pennsylvania and blocked further arrests as a denial of due process.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Ábrego García's attorneys, says the administration's actions are primarily meant "to punish him" for standing up for his rights. "It's also about the government using him, more or less at random, to stand for the principle that they get to do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want — and, specifically, courts can't stop them."
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Former immigration judge Tania Nemer, who was fired in February, is now suing the Trump administration, alleging that she was discriminated against despite strong performance reviews. Nemer is one of about 100 immigration judges who have been fired or reassigned since Trump took office. The system is notoriously backlogged, with more than 3 million cases pending. "I was pulled away in the middle of the hearing," she says.
Nemer filed a discrimination complaint with the Department of Justice, which officials dismissed, citing Article II of the Constitution on presidential powers. "I've been practicing employment law and representing federal employees for almost 30 years, and I have never seen a federal agency dismiss a complaint for this reason," says Nemer's attorney, James Eisenmann.
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The attack on Wednesday brings the total number killed to at least 99 since the Trump administration began bombing boats suspected of ferrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
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President Trump has ordered what he called a "total and complete blockade" of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, as the United States escalates pressure on the government of President Nicolás Maduro. The move comes amid a major U.S. military buildup in the region and days after U.S. forces seized an oil tanker carrying Venezuelan oil. Since September, the U.S. military has carried out at least 25 airstrikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific near Venezuela, killing at least 95 people.
The administration's actions against Venezuela signal "the total renunciation of liberal internationalism" and further abandonment of "a world governed by common laws," says Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Yale University professor Greg Grandin. This comes as Latin America is on a "knife's edge between the left and the right," with the Trump administration eager to boost its authoritarian allies across the region, says Grandin.
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As the Trump administration expands its immigration crackdown nationwide, President Trump is simultaneously creating new pathways for wealthy noncitizens to obtain U.S. visas. Earlier this week, Trump officially launched a program allowing affluent visitors to fast-track permission to live and work in the United States. For a $1 million payment, applicants can receive a so-called Trump Gold Card, which promises to speed up U.S. residency applications "in record time." The administration says it will also soon offer a $5 million "Trump Platinum Card" that would allow participants to avoid paying some U.S. taxes. The announcement comes as new rules published this week would require visitors from 42 countries in the visa waiver program to submit up to five years of social media history, along with phone numbers, email addresses and biometric data.
Shev Dalal-Dheini, director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, says the changes show that "if you're wealthy, if you can pay to play, then you're welcome to come to the United States. But if you're not — if you're coming as a tourist, or you're coming to seek humanitarian protection — then we're going to make it much tougher for you to come here and really put a lot of hurdles along the way in the guise of security and vetting."
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As the Trump administration escalates pressure on Venezuela, U.S. military activity across the Caribbean continues to grow. The U.S. has deployed more than 15,000 troops to the region and carried out airstrikes on over 20 boats, killing at least 83 people in operations the White House has justified, without providing evidence, as targeting drug traffickers. On Monday, the administration also designated the so-called Cártel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization, alleging President Nicolás Maduro leads the group.
"It's certainly not a cartel," says Phil Gunson, senior analyst for the Andes region with the International Crisis Group. He explains that while some parts of the Venezuelan military are involved in the drug trade, "these people are in it for the money," and declaring them terrorists is "ridiculous."
We also speak with Alexander Aviña, associate professor of Latin American history at Arizona State University, who says the anti-Maduro campaign is part of a "broader plan" to remake the entire region. "It's not just about Venezuela."
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