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Ábrego García sighting, birthright hearing and Google's monopoly loss

 
Today's IMMIGRATION story

Court rebukes Trump as senator visits Ábrego García

What happened
A federal appeals court yesterday upheld U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis' efforts to compel the Trump administration to facilitate the return of wrongfully deported migrant Kilmar Ábrigo García, criticizing the administration's conduct in the case as "shocking." Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said last night he had met with Ábrego García in El Salvador after two days of thwarted efforts.

Who said what
Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. 4th District Court of Appeals in Virginia, declined to "micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court's recent decision" that the Trump administration actively work to extricate Ábrego García from El Salvador's infamous CECOT prison. 

The government's assertion of "a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process" and then claim "there is nothing that can be done" about it "should be shocking not only to judges" but all Americans with an "intuitive sense of liberty," said Wilkinson, a Ronald Reagan appointee. "If the government is confident" in its unsubstantiated claim that "Ábrego García is a terrorist and a member of MS-13," it "should be assured that position will prevail" in a deportation hearing, he said. "Regardless, he is still entitled to due process."

Wilkinson is "one of the nation's most prominent conservative appellate judges," Politico said, and his opinion is the "latest — and most scorching — judicial rebuke" of Trump's "moves to sidestep court orders." Legal experts said his "unusually strong language for a simple procedural decision was aimed at a broader public audience," Reuters said.

What next?
"I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance," Van Hollen said on X, with a photo of the two talking in a San Salvador hotel. "I look forward to providing a full update upon my return." El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, echoing the Trump administration, said now that Ábrego García has "been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador's custody." 

 
 
Today's NATIONAL story

Supreme Court takes up Trump birthright appeal

What happened
The Supreme Court yesterday said it will consider President Donald Trump's emergency request to lift or limit nationwide injunctions blocking his order to deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants and temporary residents. Three federal judges have halted Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship, enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and appellate courts have declined to intercede.

Who said what
By taking on such a weighty issue "at this stage — before it has been fully aired" in lower courts, The Wall Street Journal said, the Supreme Court is "setting the stage for a decisive ruling" on Trump's authority to "unilaterally alter an age-old understanding of a fundamental right provided by the Constitution." The oral arguments are expected to focus more narrowly on the "scope of the nationwide orders," not the "constitutionality of the administration's proposal," The Washington Post said. But the "justices probably will find it hard to avoid that underlying issue," said The Associated Press. 

Trump said he was "so happy" the court had agreed to hear his appeal, adding that the case was "so misunderstood" and "birthright citizenship is about slavery." New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin (pictured above) said a constitutional right like birthright citizenship "cannot be turned on or off at the whims of a single man."

What next?
The Supreme Court left the nationwide blocks on Trump's order intact at least until its May 15 hearing.

 
 
Today's BUSINESS Story

Google ruled a monopoly over ad tech dominance

What happened
A federal judge yesterday ruled that Google's online ad technology unit constitutes an illegal monopoly, raising the possibility that the search giant may be forced to divest itself of a lucrative pillar of its business. The decision gave the Justice Department its second major antitrust victory against Google in eight months.

Who said what
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said Google had "willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power" in the online exchanges that match ad buyers and sellers and the tools web publishers use to sell ad space, "substantially" harming publishers and, "ultimately, consumers of information on the open web." She said the Justice Department had "failed to show," however, that Google's purchases of DoubleClick and Admeld, two of the backbones of its ad-sales dominance, "were anticompetitive." 

"We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half," Google's Lee-Anne Mulholland said on X. Attorney General Pamela Bondi hailed the ruling as a "landmark victory in the ongoing fight to stop Google from monopolizing the digital public square."

What next?
A second federal judge, Amit Mehta, has a hearing Monday to start deciding the consequences from August's finding that Google's search engine was an illegal monopoly. Possible sanctions include splitting off its Chrome browser. The penalty hearings for Brinkema's ruling will "likely begin late this year or early next year," The Associated Press said. Google's appeals of both rulings "could take years," The Wall Street Journal said.

 
 

It's not all bad

An African giant pouched rat named Ronin is being celebrated for sniffing out 109 landmines and 15 undetonated explosives in Cambodia over the last three years. Ronin is the nonprofit APOPO's most successful mine detection rat. He honed his skills during positive reinforcement training and is "not just an asset," said his handler, Phanny. "He's a valued partner and colleague." Ronin is expected to keep working for two more years before retiring.

 
 
Under the radar

With the electric vehicle market plateauing, one form of green transportation is taking hold: electric ferries. Many cities are adopting these vessels, said Condé Nast Traveler, as "destinations the world over are clamoring for cleaner forms of energy."

Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore use electric ferries. And Stockholm recently unveiled a fleet made by the company Candela, where each ferry "rises above the waves on a set of underwater wings known as hydrofoils," said The Washington Post. This allows the boat to "travel faster than the diesel ferries that ply Stockholm's waterways while using much less energy." 

In the U.S., San Francisco and Seattle use e-ferries. And the same company that built Stockholm's fleet plans to "launch a 30-passenger" hydrofoil in Lake Tahoe, said the Reno Gazette-Journal, with service to "begin by late 2025 or early 2026." 

Transportation "accounts for about a quarter of annual global greenhouse gas emissions," said Condé Nast Traveler. And ships are "responsible for nearly 3% of that, or about a billion metric tons of CO2 each year." 

Putting more electric ferries into service can "help ease congestion on roads and existing public transit routes, while making transit cleaner, faster or more direct," said Condé Nast Traveler. They "won't solve everything," Valentin Simon, a data analyst for the European nonprofit Transport & Environment, said to the Post, "but for short journeys, they can significantly cut emissions and improve local air quality."

 
 
On this day

April 18, 1980

Zimbabwe achieved independence from the United Kingdom, one of a slew of African nations in the mid-20th century to break away from colonial rule. The last country to gain independence from the U.K. was Brunei in 1984, while the territory of Hong Kong left Britain's control in 1997.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

"Tragedy at FSU," as two people were killed and six injured in a shooting on the campus of Florida's largest university, the Miami Herald says on Friday's front page. The suspect in the Florida State shootings is the "son of a sheriff's deputy and used her weapon," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says. "Stagflation, court troubles dog" President Donald Trump, USA Today says. "Trump escalates feud with Fed, eyes firing chair" Jerome Powell, The Wall Street Journal says. "Trump badgers Fed on rate cuts" and "berates" Powell after "chair's warning on tariffs stokes president's rage," The Washington Post says. "Weight-loss drug to lose coverage" amid "soaring costs" for GLP-1 shots, The Boston Globe says. "Pill could do the job of weight-loss injection," The New York Times says.

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Polly want a soap cake?

Firefighters in Gothenburg, Sweden, recently came to the aid of a filthy-mouthed pet parrot who screeched "f--k you!" and other insults at them while stuck in a tree. The bird spent hours perched on a branch, shouting profanities in English, until nightfall, when its owner pulled out a pack of smokes and lured the parrot down with a cigarette. Firefighters found that despite using rude language, the parrot was "charming and harmless," said the Göteborgs-Posten newspaper.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Press Office Senator Van Hollen, via AP; AP Photo / Michael Casey; Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu via Getty Images; Candela