UK PM Starmer says Trump has a point on European defense commitment

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks as he visits a military base to meet planners mapping out next steps in the Coalition of the Willing in Greater London, Britain, March 20, 2025. (REUTERS)
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Updated 23 March 2025
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UK PM Starmer says Trump has a point on European defense commitment

  • Starmer is trying to assemble a multinational military force that he calls a coalition of the willing to keep Ukraine’s skies, ports and borders secure after any peace settlement

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said US President Donald Trump has a point that European countries must bear a greater burden for their collective self-defense, the New York Times said on Sunday.
“We need to think about defense and security in a more immediate way,” he told the newspaper in an interview.
Starmer is trying to assemble a multinational military force that he calls a coalition of the willing to keep Ukraine’s skies, ports and borders secure after any peace settlement, the report said.
On Trump, Starmer said, “On a person-to-person basis, I think we have a good relationship.” But, he said, the US leader’s actions, from imposing a 25 percent tariff on British steel to berating President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, had generated “quite a degree of disorientation.”


Federal judge accuses Trump administration of ‘terror’ against immigrants in scathing ruling

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Federal judge accuses Trump administration of ‘terror’ against immigrants in scathing ruling

  • The judge said that the White House had also “extended its violence on its own citizens”
  • “The threats posed by the executive branch cannot be viewed in isolation”

CALIFRONIA: A federal judge has accused the Trump administration of terrorizing immigrants and recklessly violating the law in its efforts to deport millions of people living in the country illegally.
Citing the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota, the judge said that the White House had also “extended its violence on its own citizens.”
“The threats posed by the executive branch cannot be viewed in isolation,” US District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Riverside, California said in her scathing decision issued late Wednesday.
Sykes ordered the US Department of Homeland Security to provide detained immigrants around the country with notice of her earlier decisions that they may be eligible to seek release on bond.
Under past administrations, people with no criminal record could generally request a bond hearing before an immigration judge while their cases wound through immigration court unless they were stopped at the border. President Donald Trump ‘s White House reversed that policy in favor of mandatory detention.
Sykes, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, a Democrat, ruled in November and again in December that the change violated the law and extended her decision to immigrants nationwide. The Republican administration, however, has continued denying bond hearings.
That has prompted thousands of immigrants to file separate petitions in federal court seeking their release. More than 20,000 habeas corpus cases have been filed since Trump’s inauguration, according to federal court records analyzed by the AP.
An email Thursday to the Department of Homeland Security was not immediately returned.
Sykes said Wednesday by violating her decision, the administration had “wasted valuable time and resources” and deprived immigrants of their “liberty, economic stability, and fundamental dignity.”
She also slammed the claim that the immigration crackdown was removing the worst criminals, saying most of the people arrested did not fit that description.
“Americans have expressed deep concerns over unlawful, wanton acts by the executive branch,” she wrote. “Beyond its terror against noncitizens, the executive branch has extended its violence on its own citizens, killing two American citizens— Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.”