It’s Wednesday, April 22. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Why the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is the perfect place for Trump. Eli Lake on the Iraq militias helping Iran. The next installment of Will Rahn’s investigation into what we know about UFOs. Plus: How screens changed everything. And much more.
But first: The unlikely Americans standing behind Haitian immigrants.
President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign once looked unstoppable. But today, the gang of dissenters is growing, including in some unexpected places.
The House voted last week to extend a program that lets about 500,000 Haitian immigrants temporarily live and work in the U.S. with no risk of being sent home. Four Republicans joined Democrats to support the extension to a program the Trump administration said last year it planned to scrap. Though the bill will likely stall in the Senate, the GOP defections reflect deepening unease with Trump’s approach.
The move in Congress to shield Haitians with temporary protected status signals a broader shift. At least one deeply conservative community is rallying behind these immigrants. Members of First Baptist Church in Panhandle, Texas, were shocked when they learned that two Haitian members of their church had received deportation orders, as Carrie McKean reports. Many First Baptist members voted for Trump, but they are now desperate to spare their neighbors from his deportation campaign—and they believe that they are upholding Christian values through their efforts.
But what if the law is on the president’s side? Haitians have suffered mightily, with causes including a devastating 2010 earthquake and unending political violence. But their fast track into the United States was meant to be temporary, Charles Lane argues, and the president gets to decide when to close it. Next week, the Supreme Court will hear a case about Trump’s effort to finally shut the door.
—The Editors
For the first time in his presidency, Donald Trump is attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the same event where Barack Obama roasted him in 2011. That fateful night, by legend, set Trump on his path to the White House. James Kirchick previews the president’s appearance and argues that journalists protesting his presence this weekend are missing the point: The dinner was never a particularly noble setting to begin with.
Iran’s proxy forces in neighboring Iraq have emerged as a potent and inconvenient threat in the war against Iran. Eli Lake writes that the same Iraqi militias that helped defeat the Islamic State a decade ago have mounted attacks on U.S. bases and on allies such as Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Many analysts and U.S. officials see no quick or certain way to stop the militias.
Trump has promised the imminent release of secret government UFO documents. In the second part of our video series What Should You Think About Aliens?, Will Rahn sits down with Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, one of science’s most credible, albeit controversial, voices on extraterrestrial life. Loeb argues that dismissing the possibility of alien visitation isn’t skepticism, it’s arrogance.
We don’t just look at screens anymore. We have become new people inside them. Megan Garber, in an essay adapted from her new book “Screen People,” argues that living under constant surveillance has turned us into performers—and is driving us out of public life and into isolation. Read Megan’s piece to understand how “feeling seen” went from a blessing to a curse.
Twenty years ago, Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” turned climate change into a defining political issue. Roger Pielke Jr. argues that the film’s real legacy isn’t its science, some of which was wrong, but something that sowed the seeds for the poisoned climate politics of today.
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THE NEWS
President Trump extended the U.S.-Iran ceasefire on Tuesday, just hours before it was set to expire, saying he would hold off on attacks “until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.” The Strait of Hormuz remains closed, and each side continues to accuse the other of violating the truce.
Trump’s nominee to replace Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, faced his Senate confirmation hearing, pledging independence from the White House even as Trump said he would be “disappointed” if Warsh doesn’t cut interest rates immediately. Warsh’s nomination is in limbo, with Senator Thom Tillis vowing to block it until the Justice Department drops a criminal investigation of Powell.
Virginia voters passed a redistricting plan that will help Democrats and boost their prospects in the midterm elections. The redrawn map will give Democrats a chance to flip as many as four Republican seats. Redistricting efforts have spread across the United States, with each party angling for an advantage in the battle to control the House.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was indicted on fraud charges over its past use of paid informants to infiltrate hate groups. The Justice Department alleged that money from donors fueled white supremacy and extremism. The SPLC said it regularly shared what it learned with local and federal law enforcement, including the FBI.
Michael and Susan Dell are giving $750 million to the University of Texas at Austin to build what school leaders are calling the country’s first “AI-native” hospital, set to open in 2030 and designed to integrate artificial intelligence from the ground up rather than retrofit it onto existing infrastructure.
The FBI is investigating possible connections between the deaths and disappearances of 10 scientists and staff at U.S. nuclear and space tech laboratories. The pattern has fueled online speculation about foreign espionage.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ended the military’s long-standing flu vaccine mandate, saying service members can now decide for themselves whether to get the annual shot.
Sullivan & Cromwell, one of Wall Street’s most prestigious law firms, apologized to a federal judge after submitting a court filing that contained AI-generated errors, including fabricated case citations. The mistakes were caught not by the law firm itself, but by opposing counsel.
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Pete Hegseth sneezes at the flu virus for folks in the military who generally live in close contact. Ahchoooo. George Washington, no slouch in matters of leading the military and the country, mandated smallpox vaccines to protect his troops. Just saying....
I am so happy for the transcript button as I almost never listen to a podcast. And can read the transcript in a fraction of the time that the podcast takes to listen to.