US: White House denies flouting court order on deportations

Britain's King Charles III was praised on Monday for being a "defender" of Canada by the country's new prime minister, Mark Carney, while tensions with the United States rumble on.

The meeting at Buckingham Palace between Charles, who is monarch of Canada, and Carney comes amid trade threats toward Canada from President Donald Trump, who has also suggested that he would annex the US's northern neighbor, making it a state.

After their meeting Carney, who is a former governor of the Bank of England, posted on X: "My thanks to His Majesty King Charles III for his warm welcome and gracious hospitality today. Canada is fortunate to have a steadfast defender in our sovereign."

Buckingham Palace said it would not be offering details on the nature of the meeting, but Canada has been participating in talks regarding a coalition of countries willing to help toward a peacekeeping force in Ukraine as it continues to fend off Russia's invasion.

Charles met the outgoing Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, at the start of the month, a day after he received Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Sandringham.

The monarch was hailed for offering a show of solidarity to Zelenskyy by warmly welcoming him just days after the Ukrainian president's Oval Office clash with Trump and the US Vice President JD Vance.

Trump said during a visit to the Kennedy Center that he will release all of the files related to the1963 assassination of former President John F. Kennedy.

"People have been waiting for decades for this," Trump told reporters. "It's going to be very interesting," he said.

Trump said there were 80,000 pages of documents and there would be no executive summary. "We have a tremendous amount of paper, you've got a lot of reading," he said. 

"I don't believe we're going to redact anything," he added, noting that he was fulfilling a campaign promise.

The US National Archives has released thousands of documents tied to Kennedy's assassination, but some were classified out of national security concern.

Trump promised to unseal all documents related to the assassination on his 2024 campaign trail.

Donald Trump on Monday withdrew secret service protection for former US President Joe Biden's children Hunter Biden and Ashley Biden.

"Hunter Biden has had Secret Service protection for an extended period of time, all paid for by the United States Taxpayer," Trump said in a post his own social media platform, Truth Social.

"Please be advised that, effective immediately, Hunter Biden will no longer receive Secret Service protection. Likewise, Ashley Biden who has 13 agents will be taken off the list," Trump wrote.

The announcement came hours after the current US president was asked by a reporter about Hunter Biden's Secret Service detail. The president said he had not been aware of it but would investigate.

The Federal Aviation Administration is reinstating 132 employees who were fired on February 14 as part of the mass layoffs across federal agencies, according to a union.

The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union said the probationary employees will receive back pay and should return to duty status on March 20.

"This is a win for public safety and for a critical workforce dedicated to the FAA’s mission," the union said.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said last month that the FAA cut 352 probationary employees out of about 45,000 total. 

He said none were in "safety critical" positions.

Venezuela's National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez said that Venezuelans deported over the weekend to El Salvador by the US have been denied due process.

"What is being committed against the Venezuelans held hostage in El Salvador and against the Venezuelan migrants in the United States is a crime against humanity," Rodriguez said.

"The alleged American dream turned Salvadoran nightmare is not worth it," Rodriguez said Monday. "What is happening is a vulgar kidnapping." he added.

The lawmaker added during a press conference that the people deported under a Trump administration claim that they belong to the Tren de Aragua gang (see below) are not known to have committed any crimes in the US or El Salvador, and that Venezuela will do everything it can to have them returned home.

The EU warned that the Trump administration's deep cuts to US-funded media outlets risked "benefiting our common adversaries." 

Over the weekend, Trump directed his administration to reduce the functions of several agencies to the minimum required by law.

That included the US Agency of Global Media, which runs Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia and Radio and Television Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba.

"We see these media outlets really as beacons of truth, of democracy, and of hope for millions of people around the world," said European Commission spokeswoman Paula Pinho.

"Freedom of the press... is critical for democracy. And this decision risks benefitting our common adversaries," she said without naming countries or broadcasters.

EU foreign ministers discussed matters of funding during a meeting in Brussels on Monday.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters that the EU would not "automatically... fill the void that the US is leaving." "We have a lot of organizations who are coming with the same request to us," she said.

"But there was really a push from the foreign ministers to discuss this and find the way, so this is the tasking to our side to see what can we do," she added.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has postponed book tour events amid backlash from fellow Democrats over his decision to advance a Republican spending bill last week.  

Many lawmakers felt Schumer gave away a rare piece of leverage when he, along with nine other Democrats, voted with Republicans to advance the spending bill.

The bill is set to cut spending by about $7 billion and does not halt Trump's campaign to slash the government.

Schumer was scheduled to appear across cities on the East Coast for his book, "Antisemitism in America: A Warning."

"Due to security concerns, Senator Schumer’s book events are being rescheduled," representatives for Schumer said in a statement.

Some progressive activists had planned protests around Schumer's book events.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus once again sounded the alarm about the Trump administration's aid freeze.  

Tedros said there could be "10 million additional cases of HIV and three million HIV-related deaths," adding: "We ask the US to reconsider its support for global health."

The Trump administration has set into motion its plan to eliminate the majority of US development and humanitarian help abroad.

USAID delivers billions of dollars to countries at only a fraction of the overall US budget. Tedros warned that yearslong battles against a long line of diseases, from HIV to measles to polio, would suffer immensely.

The Associated Press has reported citing an internal memo that the administration was set to eliminate 90% of USAID foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall US assistance around the world. 

US President Donald Trump said on social media that former President Joe Biden's last-minute pardons to people before he left office are "void" because he used an autopen to sign the acts of clemency.  

Autopens have been used for decades by presidents. A memorandum opinion from the US Justice Department said a president can sign a bill by directing a subordinate to "affix the President’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen."

Trump argued in his social media post that Biden "did not know" anything about the papers he signed to give consent for pre-emptive pardons issued to a number of people, including relatives, members of the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on Congress and Trump's perceived enemies.

"The 'pardons' that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump told reporters Sunday that those on the House committee should be investigated "at the highest level."

His remarks followed a report from an arm of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank with deep roots in Washington, that argued Biden used an autopen to sign the pardons.

A US judge ordered Trump administration officials to explain whether they violated his order by deporting hundreds of alleged Venezuela gang members over the weekend. 

Trump administration officials on Sunday announced the deportation of hundreds of immigrants who the White House alleges are members of a Venezuelan gang to El Salvador.

The deportations were carried out under an 18th-century wartime declaration — the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — targeting Venezuelan gang members.

They came after a judge temporarily blocked the effort Saturday, but lawyers told the judge that two planes with immigrants were already in the air at the time of the ruling — with one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras.

"This administration acted within the confines of the law," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday. 

In a statement on Sunday, Leavitt said: "The administration did not 'refuse to comply' with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory."

The acronym refers to the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang, whose members Trump said could be arrested, restrained and removed from the country.