El Salvador has said that the United States has legal jurisdiction over deported migrants being held in the Central American country, court documents show.The assertion clashes with the Trump administration’s claims that it has no authority to bring back the migrants jailed in El Salvador’s maximum security CECOT prison as they are no longer in US custody.Lawyers for Venezuelans held in the prison submitted the statements as evidence in a US court on Monday in another case challenging President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.Responding to questions from a UN working group on enforced disappearances, El Salvador said its actions were limited to making prison facilities available for people detained within the scope of the justice system and law enforcement activities of another state.”In this context, the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these persons lie exclusively with the competent foreign authorities,” it said. In mid-March, Trump sent 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans from the United States to the CECOT prison in El Salvador. The Trump administration invoked an obscure wartime law to justify the removal of the Venezuelans, accusing them of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang. The deportations sparked protests after the US government refused to bring back a Salvadoran man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had been wrongly deported.The United States claimed lack of jurisdiction until Abrego Garcia was returned in June and arrested for human trafficking, a crime he denies. His lawyers claim he was tortured in prison in El Salvador. El Salvador has agreed to imprison expelled migrants in exchange for six million dollars, according to the White House. The US Supreme Court urged the government to respect due process because migrants have the right to challenge expulsions.

Passengers at US airports will no longer have to remove their shoes to pass through security under a new policy unveiled Tuesday, 20 years after the requirement was introduced.Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the change to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) rules at a news conference at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport.Passengers at US airports have been required to take off shoes during screenings since 2006, five years after the arrest of “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid, who had explosives hidden in his footwear onboard.”In those 20 years since that policy was put in place, our security technology has changed dramatically. It’s evolved. TSA has changed. We have a multi-layered whole of government approach now to security,” Noem said.”We are very confident that we can continue to provide hospitality to folks and for American travelers and for those visiting our country, while maintaining the same standard of security for passengers and for our homeland,” she added.Reid, a member of Al-Qaeda, was overpowered by other passengers as he tried to light a fuse on his shoes on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001.Reid pleaded guilty to terrorism and other charges and is serving a life sentence at a maximum security prison in Colorado.TSA said in a statement on the shoe policy change that other security measures will remain in place.”Other aspects of TSA’s layered security approach will still apply during the TSA checkpoint process. For example, passengers subject must still clear identity verification, Secure Flight vetting, and other processes,” it said.Past attacks — both successful and thwarted — have led to a raft of new airport security measures in recent decades, especially following the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which hijackers flew passenger jets into the Twin Towers in New York as well as the Pentagon.In 2006, British authorities announced they had foiled a terror plot that aimed to blow up several planes in mid-air simultaneously with liquid explosives. Since then, tough restrictions have applied to liquids and gels, such as toothpaste.And electronics have also come in for additional screening in a bid to head off attacks, with passengers required to remove laptops from bags, for instance.

The second biggest teachers union in the United States unveiled a groundbreaking partnership Tuesday with AI powerhouses Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic to develop a comprehensive training program helping educators master artificial intelligence.”Teachers are facing huge challenges, which include navigating AI wisely, ethically and safely,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers during a press conference in New York.”In the absence of rules of the game and guardrails (from the US government)…we are working with these partners so that they understand the commitment we have to our students,” she added. The AFT represents 1.8 million members across the United States, from kindergarten through high school.The announcement came as generative AI has already begun reshaping education, with students using tools like ChatGPT for everything from essay writing to homework help. Meanwhile, teachers grapple with questions about academic integrity, plagiarism, and how to adapt traditional teaching methods.The AI giants are investing a total of $23 million in creating a New York training center to guide teachers through generative AI learning. Microsoft is contributing $12.5 million, OpenAI $10 million, and Anthropic $500,000. The five-year initiative won’t develop new AI interfaces but intends to familiarize teachers with existing tools.”What we’re saying to the world and to teachers across the country is you now have a place, you now have a home, a place where you can come and co-create and understand how to harness this tool to make your classroom the best classroom it possibly can be,” said Gerry Petrella, Microsoft’s general manager for US public policy.The National Academy for AI Teaching will launch its training program this fall, aiming to serve 400,000 people over five years. Microsoft staff are already participating in a tech refresher session this week. AFT affiliates include the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), which represents about 200,000 New York teachers.UFT President Michael Mulgrew drew parallels between AI and social media, which generated excitement at launch but proved to be “a dumpster fire,” in his view. “We’re all very skeptical, but we also are very hopeful,” he added.

Following deadly floods in Texas, misinformation from both left- and right-wing users was roiling social media, with liberals baselessly blaming staffing cuts at US weather agencies for flawed warning systems and conservatives ramping up conspiracy theories.The catastrophic floods over the weekend have left more than a 100 people dead, including more than two dozen girls and counselors at a riverside summer camp, with rescuers racing on Tuesday to search for dozens of people still missing.Multiple left-leaning accounts on the platform X peddled the unfounded claim that staffing cuts at the National Weather Service (NWS) by President Donald Trump’s administration had “degraded” its forecasting ability.While the NWS, like other agencies, has experienced deep staffing and budget cuts under the Trump administration, experts say its forecasters rose to the challenge despite the constraints.”There have been claims that (weather agencies) did not foresee catastrophic (Texas) floods — but that’s simply not true,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, wrote on Bluesky.”This was undoubtedly an extreme event but messaging rapidly escalated beginning (around) 12 (hours) prior…Locations that flooded catastrophically had at least 1-2+ hours of direct warning from NWS.”There were 22 warnings from the NWS for Kerr County and the Kerrville area, which experienced the worst flooding, according to a CBS News analysis.”This truly was a sudden & massive event and occurred at worst possible time (middle of the night). But (the) problem, once again, was not a bad weather prediction: it was one of ‘last mile’ forecast/warning dissemination,” Swain wrote.Meanwhile, right-wing conspiracy theorists on social media falsely claimed that the government caused the flooding through cloud seeding, an artificial technique that stimulates rainfall.Multiple experts have said that such weather-modification technologies were not responsible for the Texas floods.The misinformation echoes past conspiracy theories, including claims that weather manipulation by the government caused Hurricane Milton — which struck Florida’s Gulf Coast last year — and that cloud seeding efforts were behind last year’s flooding in Dubai.- ‘Classic tale of misinformation’ -“False claims from both the left and right have spread widely on social media following the catastrophic floods in Texas,” Sarah Komar and Nicole Dirks from the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard wrote in a report that debunked several falsehoods.  “When extreme weather events occur, conspiracy theories about humans creating or controlling them often soon follow.”Following natural disasters, misinformation often surges across social media — fueled by accounts from across the political spectrum –- as many platforms scale back content moderation and reduce their reliance on human fact-checkers.Traditional media outlets were not immune to misinformation swirling on the internet.”Like other disasters before it, the (Texas) floods had attracted fast-spreading misinformation and served as a warning about the vigilance required of journalists during emotionally charged news events,” said the nonprofit media institute Poynter.Kerr County Lead, a local outlet, was forced to retract a false story about the miracle rescue of two girls who clung to a tree in the floods. The story first surfaced in social media posts that quickly went viral, but a local official said the reports were “100% inaccurate.””Like everyone, we wanted this story to be true, but it’s a classic tale of misinformation that consumes all of us during a natural disaster,” Louis Amestoy, Kerr County Lead’s editor, wrote in a note to readers on Sunday.”Unfortunately, the story is not true and we are retracting it.”

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu met for the second time in 24 hours Tuesday as the US president intensified the pressure on the Israeli prime minister to reach a deal to end the “tragedy” of the war in Gaza.Netanyahu’s return to the White House for fresh talks came after Qatari mediators warned it would take time to seal an elusive ceasefire between Israeli and Hamas at talks in Doha.”It’s a tragedy, and he wants to get it solved, and I want to get it solved, and I think the other side wants to,” Trump told reporters as he announced that Netanyahu was coming back.Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said he hoped for an agreement within days.”We are hopeful that by end of this week we will have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day ceasefire,” Witkoff said.The deal would include the return of 10 live hostages held by Palestinian militant groups since Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, and nine dead hostages, Witkoff added. The Israeli leader, who had dinner with Trump on Monday evening, arrived back at the White House for talks that were being held without any media access.Asked earlier as he met US House speaker Mike Johnson if a ceasefire announcement was imminent, Netanyahu replied: “We’re certainly working on it.”- ‘Need time’ -Trump has kept up strong US support for Israel, especially over the recent Iran-Israel war, but has also been stepping up the pressure to end what he calls the “hell” in Gaza.Qatar however said Tuesday more time was needed for negotiations for a breakthrough between Israel and Hamas, as indirect negotiations extended into a third day in Doha.”I don’t think that I can give any timeline at the moment, but I can say right now that we will need time for this,” Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said.Qatar, a mediator along with the United States and Egypt, said the meetings in Doha were focused on a framework for the talks, while a Palestinian official close to the negotiations said no breakthrough had been achieved so far.Hostilities meanwhile continued on the ground.Gaza’s civil defence reported 29 killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday, including three children.Five Israeli soldiers were killed in combat in northern Gaza — one of the deadliest days this year for Israeli forces in the Palestinian territory.Netanyahu described the soldiers’ deaths as a “difficult morning.” They were reportedly killed by improvised explosive devices near Beit Hanun in northern Gaza.And Lebanon said three people were killed Tuesday in a strike near Tripoli that the Israeli military said targeted a Hamas militant, the first in the area since a November ceasefire with Hezbollah.- ‘Torn to shreds’ -Trump has been trying to seize on the momentum from the recent ceasefire between Iran and Israel, which was precipitated by US airstrikes on Tehran’s nuclear program.France’s foreign intelligence chief said Tuesday that the program has been “very, very delayed” by US and Israeli strikes, wading into a contentious debate over just how hard it was hit.Israel and Hamas began the latest round of negotiations on Sunday, with representatives seated in separate rooms within the same building.An Israeli official accompanying Netanyahu to Washington said the proposal under discussion was “80-90 percent of what Israel wanted.”But far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir opposed negotiations with Hamas, saying that “there is no need to negotiate with those who murder our fighters; they must be torn to shreds.”The war has created dire humanitarian conditions for Gaza’s more than two million people.The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.Of 251 hostages taken by Palestinian militants during attack, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 57,575 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN considers the figures reliable.burs-dk/jgc