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A 53-year-old man convicted of murder was put to death by lethal injection in Arizona on Wednesday in the first execution in the southwestern US state in more than two years.Aaron Gunches, who had dropped legal efforts to halt his execution, was sentenced to death for the 2002 murder of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband.”Justice for Ted Price and his family was finally served,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes told reporters following the execution at a state prison in Florence, Arizona.Media witnesses said Gunches was placed on a gurney in the death chamber and restraints were put on his arms and legs.Asked if he had any last words, Gunches shook his head to say no.Intravenous lines were then inserted into his arms and Gunches breathed heavily several times after the drugs began to flow, the witnesses said.He lost consciousness and his chest stopped moving several minutes later.Gunches was the first prisoner put to death in Arizona since November 2022.Problems with administering lethal injections in previous executions led to a suspension of capital punishments while a review was conducted.John Barcello, deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, said Gunches’s execution went as planned.”By all accounts, the process went according to plan without any incident at all,” Barcello told reporters.Gunches was executed one day after a 46-year-old man convicted of rape and murder was put to death by nitrogen gas in the southern state of Louisiana.Jessie Hoffman, who was sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of Molly Elliott, a 28-year-old advertising executive, was the first person executed in Louisiana in 15 years.Only one other US state, Alabama, has carried out executions by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a facemask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.The method has been denounced by UN experts as cruel and inhumane.- Executions scheduled in Oklahoma, Florida -The vast majority of US executions since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 have been performed using lethal injection, although South Carolina executed a man by firing squad on March 7.Two other executions are scheduled in the United States this week — in Florida and Oklahoma.Wendell Grissom, 56, is to be executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma on Thursday for shooting and killing Amber Matthews, 23, during a 2005 home robbery.Edward James, 63, is to be executed by lethal injection in Florida on Thursday.James was sentenced to death for the 1993 rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl, Toni Neuner, and the murder of Betty Dick, her 58-year-old grandmother.There have been eight executions in the United States this year, following 25 last year.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and on his first day in office called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

US President Donald Trump hailed a “very good” call with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky Wednesday, a day after Russia’s Vladimir Putin agreed to temporarily halt attacks on Kyiv’s power plants.Trump said efforts to secure a full ceasefire in Russia’s three-year-old invasion remained “on track” despite the fact that his call with Putin failed to produce any broader peace deal.As Kyiv and Moscow accused each other of continuing attacks, Zelensky said after the “frank” call that Ukraine was ready to pause strikes on both Russian energy and civilian infrastructure. Trump said he spoke for around an hour with his Ukrainian counterpart, their first conversation since they had a blazing televised row in the Oval Office just over two weeks ago.”Much of the discussion was based on the call made yesterday with President Putin in order to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.”We are very much on track.”The White House later said that during the call Trump had floated US “ownership” of Ukrainian power plants as it would be the “best protection” for them.The billionaire former real estate mogul has already pushed Kyiv into a deal to give the United States preferential access to its critical mineral resources.Trump also pledged to help Ukraine get more air defense equipment from Europe, a statement from National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.- ‘Rejected’ -But while Ukraine has already agreed to a US plan for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire with Russia, Putin is still refusing.The Kremlin leader insisted during his call with Trump that a full ceasefire was only possible if the West halts its billions of dollars in military aid to Kyiv — Moscow’s long-standing demand.Putin also demanded Ukraine must not be allowed to rearm, and that it must halt mandatory mobilization.Despite both Ukraine and Russia saying they now backed a temporary truce on power plants, each accused the other of failing to adhere to the halt.Ukraine’s defense ministry said an overnight barrage of Russian missile and drones struck the war-battered nation, killing one person and damaging two hospitals.”Today Putin effectively rejected the proposal for a full ceasefire,” said Zelensky.Ukraine’s national railway service said the barrage had hit railway energy infrastructure in the central Dnipropetrovsk region.Russia’s defense ministry reported a “deliberate” Ukrainian attack overnight on an oil depot in the south of the country, which they said was aimed at “derailing” Trump’s attempts to broker an end to the fighting.”These attacks are countering our common efforts,” added Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, referring to the US-Russian talks.Russia and Ukraine did however exchange 372 prisoners, Moscow said Wednesday, which was planned as a goodwill gesture.In Washington, US envoy Steve Witkoff said technical talks on a possible deal to end the war would begin in Saudi Arabia on Monday. He predicted that a ceasefire agreement could be reached “within a couple of weeks” and told Bloomberg Television that a meeting in the kingdom between Trump and Putin was “likely” but offered no timeline.- ‘Concessions’ -Zelensky warned before his call with Trump against making “any concessions” to Russia following Putin’s demand for a Western aid halt.Trump insisted on Monday night that he and Putin “didn’t talk about aid at all.”The US president has however talked about dividing up “assets” including Ukrainian land and a huge nuclear power plant currently held by Moscow’s forces.Trump’s overtures to Putin and indications Washington will no longer guarantee European security have spooked Kyiv and the United States’s NATO allies and prompted moves towards a steep increase in domestic defense spending.”I don’t believe Putin at all, not a single word. He only understands force,” said Kyiv resident Lev Sholoudko, 32.In Moscow, locals were more optimistic the talks could bring an end to the fighting — to Russia’s advantage.”Definitely this is in our favor,” said one Moscow resident, Larisa, 46. “There is no other way. What happened in 1945 will happen now,” she added, referring to the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.burs-dk

Vladimir Putin scored a coup by discussing with Donald Trump in highly anticipated phone talks everything from improving bilateral ties to Iran and even hockey matches, but stopping well short of agreeing any peace path to end the war in Ukraine, analysts say.During the call on Tuesday, Putin refused a full ceasefire agreement proposed by Washington but focused instead on reviving Russian-American cooperation that has been frozen since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.The very fact such talks took place was an achievement for the Kremlin, said Ekaterina Schulmann, a Russian political scientist based in Berlin.”The two superpowers are discussing the fate of the world and the future of humanity,” she told AFP, summing up Moscow’s thinking. “It is a great achievement for Russia which reproduces a Soviet-era narrative without being the Soviet Union.”The Kremlin said Trump had also backed Putin’s proposal to hold ice hockey matches between American and Russian players playing in the NHL and KHL, an echo of showdowns between the Soviet Union and Canada in the Cold War in the 1970s.Putin had agreed to halt attacks against Ukrainian energy targets but already the next day Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of not respecting those pledges.”Nothing will change on the front lines,” wrote Mark F. Cancian and Maria Snegovaya for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.”The artillery will still fire, the drones will still fly, the infantry will still shoot at each other, and people will keep dying.”- ‘Russia-friendly Ukraine’ -By emphasising “the absolute necessity of addressing the root causes” of the war against pro-Western Ukraine unleashed by Russia three years ago, Putin is sticking to his guns, and the direction of any future talks does not bode well for Kyiv, analysts said. “US and Russian positions on Ukraine remain irreconcilable,” said Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of political consultancy R.Politik.The France-based analyst ruled out any possibility of a genuine ceasefire in Ukraine, saying that what Putin wanted was a Russia-friendly Ukraine, “all of it”.”There won’t be a full ceasefire if Putin’s conditions are not met,” she said. “All ceasefire scenarios involve partitioning Ukraine one way or another. Under no circumstances will this scenario be acceptable to Putin.”Stanovaya suggested that Putin might be willing to allow western Ukraine to drift closer to the EU but added the Russian leader remained convinced the capital Kyiv and the southern port city of Odesa should become Russia-friendly.”Putin thinks it’s not only realistic, he thinks it will happen and there is no alternative.”Analysts said they expected Putin to keep playing for time and make insignificant concessions on Ukraine in talks with Trump as he pushes for the lifting of sanctions and the resuscitation of bilateral cooperation and joint work tackling world crises.Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said that Russia was trying to make sure that relations with the United States were compartmentalised.Under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, he said, the war in Ukraine defined Washington’s approach towards Russia in all spheres, be it climate or regional crises.”Now the approach is completely different,” he told AFP. “And even if the negotiations on Ukraine won’t reach a desired result, Russia is hoping that other tracks will remain.””It looks like 1-0″ in favour of Putin, he added.- ‘Will last for years’ -Russian political analyst Konstantin Kalachev said Moscow was likely to launch a new offensive in the spring or summer.”Russia will use its advantage on the battlefield,” he said. “The spring has arrived, everything has dried up, and this is the most favourable time to use heavy equipment.”Schulmann also said she did not expect Russia to lay down arms any time soon.”In any military conflict, negotiations begin when both sides are convinced that they will not improve their situation by military means,” she said.Russia, Schulmann added, appears to believe that it could now win more through military means than through any negotiations.French President Emmanuel Macron has been seeking to coordinate Europe’s response, attempting together with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to assemble a “coalition of the willing”, countries prepared to protect any ceasefire.But Stanovaya was pessimistic about Europe’s role in buttressing Ukraine militarily, saying if Europeans send troops to Ukraine without Russia’s consent, they would be targeted by Moscow.Stanovaya said it was impossible to solve the root causes of the conflict, given that Ukraine was not prepared to surrender.”We need to admit that the conflict will last for decades, for years at the very minimum,” she added. 

The European Union defied US threats of retaliation Wednesday by accusing Google of violating its digital rules — which could trigger hefty fines — and ordering Apple to make its iPhone interact better with rivals’ devices.The moves risk opening up a new front in the already fraught relationship between the EU and President Donald Trump, who has taken a hard line against the bloc’s tech laws and warned he will hit back against any fines on American firms.The European Union hit the tech titans with decisions under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a law that forces the world’s biggest digital companies to open up to competition in the 27-country EU, but it has faced strong criticism from its targets.Apple and Google responded that the EU risked European users’ security and its moves would hinder innovation.The European Commission informed Google parent Alphabet in a “preliminary view” that its search engine treated its own services more favourably compared to rivals.It also in a separate preliminary view said the Google Play app store prevented developers from steering customers outside the store to access cheaper deals.”Both practices negatively impact many European and non-European businesses that rely on Google Search or Google Play to reach their users in the EU,” the bloc’s digital chief, Henna Virkkunen, said in a statement.Google swiftly hit back, saying the EU’s decision “will hurt European businesses and consumers, hinder innovation, weaken security, and degrade product quality”.Google can now defend itself but if the finding is confirmed, the law gives the EU the power to impose fines of up to 10 percent of a company’s total global turnover. This can rise to up to 20 percent for repeat offenders.- Apple chews out EU -The commission, the EU’s digital watchdog, separately told Apple to enhance the compatibility of its iPhone with competitors’ products, including headphones and smartwatches.”Effective interoperability for third-party connected devices is an important step towards opening Apple’s ecosystem. This will lead to a better choice for consumers,” the EU’s competition chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement.Apple has accused the EU of putting users’ security and privacy at risk with the law but the commission has repeatedly rejected the claim.”Today’s decisions wrap us in red tape, slowing down Apple’s ability to innovate for users in Europe and forcing us to give away our new features for free to companies who don’t have to play by the same rules,” Apple said.”It’s bad for our products and for our European users,” it said, adding that it would continue to share its concerns with the EU.Apple has also faced scrutiny over its closed ecosystem in the United States as part of a wide-ranging monopoly case launched last year before Trump’s victory.US prosecutors accused Apple of making it hard for its users to interact easily with Android phone users and with rival smartwatches.- Risking Trump’s ire -Apple and Facebook owner Meta faced similar accusations to Google last year, with expectations that they will be slapped with fines — although the EU has been wary following Trump’s description of the bloc’s penalties as a form of taxation.Trump went even further last month and said he would consider actions such as tariffs in response to digital services taxes, fines, and policies imposed on US firms.Big Tech has cosied up to Trump since his victory in November. Billionaire and X platform owner Elon Musk is a key ally while Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg in January called on Trump to act to defend American tech firms from EU penalties.The EU created the DMA law after years of fines against abusive Big Tech behaviour, establishing a list of do’s and don’ts that would avoid long competition probes.

Ukraine and Russia on Wednesday accused each other of not respecting a halt on energy infrastructure strikes, after talks between Washington and the Kremlin aimed at ending the grinding three-year conflict.US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin held a 90-minute call on Tuesday, in which the Kremlin leader backed a limited 30-day halt on strikes against Ukraine’s power grid.President Volodymyr Zelensky also said Kyiv supported the moratorium but on Wednesday Ukraine’s defence ministry said an overnight barrage of Russian missile and drones struck the war-battered nation.”Today Putin effectively rejected the proposal for a full ceasefire,” said Zelensky.One person was killed and two hospitals were damaged, the defence ministry reported.Ukraine’s national railway service said the barrage hit railway energy infrastructure in the central Dnipropetrovsk region.”So much for a pause in the attacks on the energy sector or an energy truce executed by the enemy!” a railway statement added.  Russia’s defence ministry reported a “deliberate” Ukrainian attack overnight on an oil depot in the south of the country which was aimed at “derailing” Trump’s attempts to broker an end to the fighting.”These attacks are countering our common efforts,” added Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, referring to the US-Russian talks.Zelensky is due to speak to Trump on Wednesday to learn more about the US leader’s conversation with Putin and “next steps” in ceasefire talks.But he warned beforehand against making “any concessions” to Russia after Putin in his call to Trump demanded an end to Western military aid to Ukraine during any ceasefire.Putin told Trump that for a full ceasefire to work, Ukraine must not be allowed to rearm and must halt mandatory mobilisation.Kyiv said that would leave the nation vulnerable to further Russian attacks and wants the United States to oversee a ceasefire against energy infrastructure.- ‘Ready to end war’ -Tuesday’s highly anticipated call did not secure the breakthrough ceasefire endorsed by Ukraine last week but according to the Kremlin saw Putin order his military to pause strikes against Ukraine’s power grid for 30 days.Russia and Ukraine exchanged 372 prisoners, Moscow said Wednesday, which was planned “as a goodwill gesture”.Trump’s overtures to Putin have spooked the United States’s NATO allies and indications Washington will no longer guarantee European security have prompted calls for a steep increase in domestic defence spending.Zelensky has accused Russia of not being “ready to end this war” and in Kyiv, war-weary Ukrainians were prone to agree.”I don’t believe Putin at all, not a single word. He only understands force,” said Lev Sholoudko, 32.Trump, who says he has an “understanding” with Putin, stunned the world in February when he started direct talks with Russia to end the conflict, sparking fears among allies that he would capitulate to Moscow’s demands. Trump hailed the call with Putin as “good and productive”.The Kremlin statement after the talks referred to “energy infrastructure” whereas Trump’s interpretation is the broader “energy and infrastructure” which would include all civil infrastructure and not just energy-specific sites like power stations, transformers, and oil installations.- ‘Count on us’ -Trump acknowledged in an interview on Fox News that pressing Putin into a full ceasefire would be tough as “Russia has the advantage”.Since seizing Crimea in 2014 and launching its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Moscow now occupies around a fifth of Ukraine.Washington has made clear that Ukraine will likely have to cede territory in any deal.The UK and French governments have been cobbling together a so-called “coalition of the willing” to protect any ceasefire in Ukraine.German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron vowed after the Kremlin statement that they would keep sending military aid to Ukraine.”Ukraine can count on us,” Scholz said.But soldiers on Ukraine’s front line remained doubtful peace could soon be at hand.”How can you trust people who attack you and kill civilians, including children?” said Oleksandr, 35, who has returned to military training in the Donetsk region after being wounded in combat.burs-phz/jm

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said a recent spate of attacks on Tesla property, owned by key President Donald Trump’s ally Elon Musk, was akin to terrorism and vowed to impose severe punishments on perpetrators.”The swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism,” Bondi said in a statement Tuesday. She said the Department of Justice has already charged “several perpetrators with that in mind,” including some cases that involve charges with five-year mandatory minimum sentences.”We will continue investigations that impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes,” she said.Billionaire Musk is one of Trump’s closest advisers, as well as top financial donor, and is spearheading highly controversial attempts to slash entire US government departments as part of what he says is a cost-and-fraud-cutting drive.Tesla share prices have plunged as the brand’s image suffers from the fallout.Bondi’s statement came after the latest incident in which a fire was started at a Tesla Collision Center in Las Vegas, damaging five vehicles, according to city police. “As officers arrived, they located several vehicles fully engulfed in flames and the word ‘Resist’ spray painted on the building,” the police said in a statement Monday.Musk also shared a video of the Las Vegas torching on his social media platform X, calling it “domestic terrorism.” “Tesla just makes electric cars and has done nothing to deserve these evil attacks,” he said.Compounding the company’s public relations woes, the Vancouver International Auto Show announced it was removing Tesla from the event on the eve of its Wednesday kickoff, citing security concerns.Politics “has absolutely no bearing on the decision,” the show’s executive director Eric Nicholl said late Tuesday. “This is purely from a safety point for our guests and our attendees.”In an interview at the White House late Tuesday, Musk told Fox News he was “shocked” at the attacks on Tesla vehicles and the “hatred and violence from the left.””Tesla is a peaceful company, we’ve never done anything harmful,” he said.Several Tesla vehicles, dealerships and charging stations across the United States and Europe have been vandalized in recent weeks. A Tesla charging station in the US state of Massachusetts was “intentionally set” on fire in early March, authorities said, while in Colorado police said last month they arrested a woman for vandalizing a dealership “with incendiary devices.”Trump expressed support for Musk last week, saying the perpetrators would be caught and will “go through hell.” Analysts also say Musk’s political endeavors — including backing far-right parties in Europe and sharing conspiracy theories online — could badly damage Tesla’s traditionally liberal market base.

The only two Democrats on the US Federal Trade Commission have been fired by President Donald Trump, the White House said, opening the door for the Republican to appoint loyalists at the independent regulatory agency.The FTC’s primary function is to protect the American public against deceptive or unfair business practices.Speaking on condition of anonymity, a White House official confirmed that FTC commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter were dismissed.The FTC consists of five commissioners, typically representing both major political parties.”The president just illegally fired me,” Bedoya wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “This is corruption plain and simple.”Bedoya vowed to “see the president in court” over the dismissal.Layoffs of federal workers have been rampant since Trump took office in January and established a “Department of Government Efficiency” headed by billionaire Elon Musk, a senior advisor and key financial backer of the Republican’s 2024 campaign.”The FTC is an independent agency founded 111 years ago to fight fraudsters and monopolists,” Bedoya said in a post. “Now, the president wants the FTC to be a lapdog for his golfing buddies.”Newly appointed FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson thanked the two commissioners for their service in a statement Tuesday, adding that his agency “will continue its tireless work to protect consumers, lower prices, and police anticompetitive behavior.”He added that Trump is “vested with all of the executive power of our government.””I have no doubts about his constitutional authority to remove commissioners, which is necessary to ensure democratic accountability for our government,” Ferguson said.But the removal of commissioners of the opposing party in order to pack the FTC with loyalists is outside the norm.The FTC itself says on its website that while the president chooses the chair, “no more than three Commissioners can be of the same political party.”- Trump’s preferences -Under Trump and former president Joe Biden, the FTC has taken on Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook parent Meta over how they wield market power.In an interview with Fox Business in February, Ferguson confirmed that ongoing cases against Amazon and Meta would proceed, emphasizing his commitment to “holding Big Tech’s feet to the fire.”Questions have lingered, however, on whether the Trump administration will continue with the cases, given an apparent alignment between tech billionaires and the Republican since he won last year’s election.Since that victory, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made major changes at his company to bring it in line with Trump’s preferences.He has axed US fact-checking on Facebook, named Trump ally Dana White to Meta’s board, and appointed a Republican advisor as head of global policy.Amazon boss Jeff Bezos visited Trump during the transition period, and has sought to make his Washington Post newspaper less hostile to the president. The billionaire quashed the Post’s planned election endorsement of Democrat Kamala Harris, and has imposed restrictions on its opinion section.

Since avian flu turned eggs into a luxury item, pastry chef Annie Clemmons has spent countless hours in her Maryland workshop, racking her brains about how to replace them in her recipes.”It won’t taste like chickpeas!” she told AFP as she poured aquafaba — the watery byproduct of the cooked pulses — into the bowl of her electric mixer.A customer had recently ordered a meringue-based red fruit pavlova, and requested that it be delivered the same day.Instead of beating egg whites until they are stiff, as in the traditional recipe, Clemmons uses an alternative well known to vegan and egg-intolerant cooks.”It takes a bit longer,” she said, adding: “you won’t see the difference in color or taste.” And for the custard, she uses cornstarch as a thickener. “It won’t be as creamy,” she said, adding a spoonful of cardamom to enhance the flavor.- ‘Like gold’ -The increasing number of outbreaks of avian flu on US farms has made eggs an expensive — and rare — commodity. And so Clemmons has been looking for ways to replace this “foundational ingredient.” “They’re like gold,” she said, showing off the 20 eggs she still has in stock. “Never in a million years did I think it would be a luxury item.”She estimates that an egg that used to cost eight cents now costs 45 cents — more than five times the price.The 51-year-old set up Chapman’s DC — a pastry home-delivery business — in 2020, after her hotel and restaurant-sector work dried up due to the Covid-19 pandemic.”I have to think really hard about when I’m going to use those eggs,” said Clemmons, whose business delivers to homes in the Washington metro area. “I don’t know next time I’ll be able to use eggs with abandon.””I’m grateful again that I have substitutes and other tools to use, but I really, really wish we could get the egg back soon,” she added. – No end point -The White House this week touted a sharp drop in wholesale prices for standard eggs “for three straight weeks.”According to the United States Department of Agriculture, this is the result of both sluggish demand in the face of high prices and a respite of avian flu, which has so far led to the euthanasia of more than 30 million laying hens.”However, these declines have yet to be reflected at store shelves,” the agency said in a recent statement. According to consumer price index data, egg prices increased by over 12 percent in February, and by close to 59 percent from a year before. Clemmons noted that President Donald Trump promised that the price of groceries would start to fall on the day after he took office.”I can’t see the end point,” she said. The single mother said she prides herself on her customers’ support when they are faced with adjusted recipes or price increases.But, she added, the new administration’s mass layoffs of federal workers has undoubtedly hampered demand for her cakes.  “I live in the Washington DC area and a huge portion of my community has suffered a disruption, this upheaval of losing their income, their jobs, their livelihood,” she said. “People are being a little more cautious with their spending,” she added. “So I don’t get as many orders.” Beyond eggs, Clemmons said she is also concerned about a potential knock-on effect from Trump’s tariff policies on another essential ingredient: sugar.If sugar prices were to rise sharply, Clemmons expects she would then reach her limit, and could be forced to start looking for a new job.

Donald Trump’s rumbling conflict with the judiciary burst into open confrontation on Tuesday as Supreme Court Justice John Roberts issued a rare public rebuke of a US president over his call for the impeachment of a federal judge.”For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a brief statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”Roberts’s extraordinary rebuke of the president came after Trump called for the impeachment of District Judge James Boasberg, who ordered the suspension over the weekend of deportation flights of alleged illegal migrants.The White House has been sharply critical of district courts that have blocked some of the president’s executive actions.However, this was the first time Trump has personally called for a judge’s impeachment since he took office in January, saying that Boasberg was a “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama.” “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” he said in a Truth Social post earlier Tuesday.Hours later, Brandon Gill, a Republican lawmaker from Texas, announced on social media platform X that he had introduced articles of impeachment in the House against Boasberg, whom he described as a “radical activist judge.”Following Roberts’s rare statement, Trump said in another post: “If a President doesn’t have the right to throw murderers, and other criminals, out of our Country because a Radical Left Lunatic Judge wants to assume the role of President, then our Country is in very big trouble, and destined to fail!”Federal judges are nominated by the president for life and can only be removed by being impeached by the House of Representatives for “high crimes or misdemeanors” and convicted by the Senate.Impeachment of federal judges is exceedingly rare and the last time a judge was removed by Congress was in 2010.Trump, the first convicted felon to serve in the White House, has a history of attacking the judges who presided over his civil and criminal cases.Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor, described Roberts’s intervention as “extremely rare” and recalled that the chief justice made similar remarks after Trump criticized the rulings of federal judges during his first term.Roberts was compelled to respond at the time by saying the federal bench “does not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges, or Clinton judges,” Tobias said.- Court hearing -Boasberg ordered a suspension on Saturday to the deportation flights taking alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to El Salvador, where they were put in prison.The White House invoked little-used wartime legislation known as the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as legal justification for the move.However, no evidence has been made public to confirm the deportees were gang members or even in the country illegally.Boasberg held a hearing on Monday on whether the White House had deliberately ignored his orders by carrying out the flights.Justice Department lawyers told the judge the more than 200 Venezuelan migrants had already left the United States when he issued a written order barring their departure.Boasberg no longer had jurisdiction once the planes had left US airspace, they claimed.The Justice Department had previously filed a motion with an appeals court seeking to have the judge removed from the case for allegedly interfering with the president’s lawful “conduct of foreign policy.”- ‘I WON’ -Trump, in his Truth Social post earlier Tuesday, said Boasberg “was not elected President.””I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY,” he wrote.The Yale-educated Boasberg, 62, was appointed to the DC Superior Court by president George W. Bush, a Republican, and later named a district court judge by Obama, a Democrat.The White House has repeatedly lashed out following court rulings it disagrees with, such as the rejection of Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship.Trump’s bid to amass power in the executive has increasingly raised fears he will openly defy the judiciary, triggering a constitutional crisis.

New York’s JFK airport is an overlapping patchwork of open terminals, giant building sites and burgeoning infrastructure, wedged in by thousands of homes on one side and the ocean on the other.Passengers and project executives alike describe the $19 billion mega-project to completely overhaul the United States’ largest global aviation gateway as “organized chaos” — even as the airport remains open and passenger numbers grow.”For me, it’s the most complex project I’ve ever worked on,” said Gina Bigler, a senior engineer of construction at the JFK Redevelopment Program to entirely remodel the airport that handles more international passengers than any other in North America.Around her, temporary bridges redirected roads to make space for new permanent crossings and flyovers, while giant excavators shifted sandy earth near two brand new terminals in varying stages of completion.”There’s multiple different contractors and the fact is the passenger volume is way higher than other projects,” said Bigler, wearing a hardhat and high-vis jacket as she watched the delivery of plastic piping to the site of a new parking garage.”We have the constant push and pull of who’s going to go first. There’s tons of conversations.”A complex web of contractors, terminal tenants, investment consortiums and airlines all coordinate with the Port Authority of New York-New Jersey (PANYNJ) which oversees every aspect of the project, from what art will be displayed in terminals to the tiles selected for the bathrooms.- Political headwinds -Despite the Coronavirus disruption and the project’s scale and complexity, currently the largest of its type in the US, the redevelopment remains on budget and on schedule.Collaboration between the airport owner and private businesses guaranteed “oversight from a public oversight perspective,” said JFK Millennium Partners CEO Steve Thody, responsible for the airport’s new Terminal Six.”But it allows you to bring private money into the deal, which allows you to advance infrastructure probably at a faster pace than you could do otherwise.”PANYNJ executive director Rick Cotton said that approach — with no taxpayer money involved — meant the airport redevelopment was insulated from political headwinds as it did not depend on federal funding.The way Cotton’s agency was structured meant it could “prioritize the transportation priorities of the region — and it was precisely intended to have political considerations take a back seat.”Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has threatened to withhold federal funds from states and cities that do not bend to his will, like Illinois over immigration sanctuary policies.At the airport, the new Terminal Six is long but narrow, wedged in to the limited space available between runways and a people-mover track.The largest piece of the puzzle is the entirely new Terminal One. Measuring 2.5 million square feet (232,000 square meters), the cavernous $9.5 billion megastructure is shaped like a butterfly taking flight and used as much steel as five Eiffel Towers.Financing came from an unprecedented public-private tie-up that reportedly included a $6.5 billion bank loan.- Environmental concerns -Ultimately, the goal is to create airy new terminal space and eradicate the massive traffic jams currently plaguing approaches to the airport.Recognizing the proximity to dense neighborhoods and businesses, the airport has worked to reduce dust, noise and traffic at the sprawling construction project.But campaigners are critical of green initiatives around inherently polluting sites like airports, with aviation accounting for two to three percent of total current global human-induced carbon emissions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.Cotton, of the PANYNJ, acknowledged that “obviously, the transportation sector generates a lot of greenhouse gasses.”But he said redeveloped JFK would offer airlines more sustainable fuel, as well as electrifying airside vehicles and installing New York’s largest solar array.It has also made use of giant barges to ship in construction material and steel for the terminals and new bridges, taking some 300,000 truckloads off the congested local roads according to project leaders.