Pressure was mounting on the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, on Monday following reports of a second Signal chatroom used to discuss sensitive military operations, while a former top Pentagon spokesperson slammed the US’s top military official’s leadership of the Department of Defense.

John Ullyot, who resigned last week after initially serving as Pentagon spokesperson, said in a opinion essay published by Politico on Sunday that the Pentagon has been overwhelmed by staff drama and turnover in the initial months of the second Trump administration.

Ullyot called the situation a “full-blown meltdown” that could cost Hegseth, a 44-year-old former Fox News host and national guard officer, his job as defense secretary.

“It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president – who deserves better from his senior leadership,” Ullyot wrote.

Donald Trump Jr pushed back on the opinion piece, saying the author is “officially exiled” from Trump’s political movement. “This guy is not America First,” Trump Jr wrote on X. “I’ve been hearing for years that he works his ass off to subvert my father’s agenda. That ends today.”

The warning came as the New York Times reported that Hegseth shared details of a US attack on Yemeni Houthi rebels last month in a second Signal chat that he created himself and included his wife, his brother and about a dozen other people.

The Guardian has independently confirmed the existence of Hegseth’s own private group chat.

According to unnamed sources familiar with the chat who spoke to the Times, Hegseth sent the private group of his personal associates some of the same information, including the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets that would strike Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, that he also shared with another Signal group of top officials that was created by Mike Waltz, the national security adviser.

The existence of the Signal group chat created by Waltz, in which detailed attack plans were divulged by Hegseth to other Trump administration officials on the private messaging app, were made public by the Atlantic magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who had been accidentally added to the group.

The existence of a second Signal chat, coupled with Ullyot’s devastating portrait of the Pentagon under Hegseth, is likely to increase pressure on the White House to take action.

Trump defended Hegseth at the annual Easter egg roll event at the White House.

“Pete’s doing a great job,” the president said. “Just ask the Houthis how he’s doing. It’s just fake news. They just bring up stories. It sounds like disgruntled employees. He was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people and that’s what he’s doing. You don’t always have friends when you do that.”

Hegseth himself blamed “disgruntled former employees” in remarks to reporters at the same event.

“What a big surprise that a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax,” Hegseth said. “This is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations.”

He continued: “Not going to work with me, because we’re changing the defense department, putting the Pentagon back in the hands of war-fighters. And anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news doesn’t matter.”

The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, issued a statement in a post on X on Sunday night following the New York Times report.

“Another day, another old story – back from the dead,” Parnell said. “The Trump-hating media continues to be obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda. This time, the New York Times – and all other Fake News that repeat their garbage – are enthusiastically taking the grievances of disgruntled former employees as the sole sources for their article.

“There was no classified information in any Signal chat, no matter how many ways they try to write the story. What is true is that the Office of the Secretary of Defense is continuing to become stronger and more efficient in executing President Trump’s agenda. We’ve already achieved so much for the American warfighter, and will never back down.”

Tammy Duckworth, a Democratic senator from Illinois and combat veteran, said in a statement that the second Signal chat put the lives of US men and women in uniform at greater risk:

“How many times does Pete Hegseth need to leak classified intelligence before Donald Trump and Republicans understand that he isn’t only a f*cking liar, he is a threat to our national security?

“Every day he stays in his job is another day our troops’ lives are endangered by his singular stupidity,” Duckworth said. “He must resign in disgrace.”

Jack Reed, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island and a senior member of the Senate armed services committee, said the report, if true, “is another troubling example of Secretary Hegseth’s reckless disregard for the laws and protocols that every other military service member is required to follow”.

Reed called on Hegseth to “immediately explain why he reportedly texted classified information that could endanger American service members’ lives on a commercial app that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer”.

Reed said he had “warned that Mr Hegseth lacks the experience, competence, and character to run the Department of Defense. In light of the ongoing chaos, dysfunction, and mass firings under Mr Hegseth’s leadership, it seems that those objections were well-founded.”

Ullyot warned that under Hegseth “the Pentagon focus is no longer on warfighting, but on endless drama” and said “the president deserves better than the current mishegoss at the Pentagon.”

Donald Trump offered public support for defense secretary Pete Hegseth a day after it emerged that Hegseth had shared information about US strikes in Yemen last month in a second Signal group chat that included family, his personal lawyer and several top Pentagon aides.

“He’s doing a great job. Ask the Houthis how he’s doing,” Trump said dismissively, referring to the rebel group in Yemen targeted by those missile strikes, on the sidelines of the White House Easter egg roll event on Monday.

Hegseth was revealed to have shared, in a series of messages, plans about US strikes against the Houthis on 15 March before they happened in the Signal group chat that included his wife, his brother and a number of his top military aides.

The details that Hegseth sent in were essentially the same information that he shared in a separate Signal group chat earlier this year that mistakenly included the editor of the Atlantic in addition to JD Vance and other top Trump officials, a person directly familiar with the messages said.

But pressure on Hegseth has so far come from people outside of the White House. Trump called the defense secretary on Sunday after the story broke and aides concluded that it had been leaked to the news media by a former Hegseth aide who was in the group chat but abruptly fired last week.

Trump has resisted firing top officials in his second term, not wanting to be seen as caving to a media swarm even if he has been unhappy with the negative coverage. Trump also stuck by his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, who had added the editor of the Atlantic to the first chat.

According to a person familiar with the call, Trump told Hegseth that he had his support and that disgruntled leakers were to blame for the story, which was first reported by the New York Times.

Trump also told his team to back Hegseth in public, and senior Trump aides repeated their defense line that none of the information shared in either of the group chats were classified, although the accusations have centered on why it was shared with Hegseth’s wife, for instance, since she is not a Pentagon official.

The defense secretary himself appeared furious when asked about the second Signal chat during the White House Easter egg roll event on the South Lawn, telling reporters that the story was a “hit piece” that repeated his defense that it had been pushed by “disgruntled former employees”.

But Hegseth faced growing pressure to resign after John Ullyot, his former spokesperson, wrote in an extraordinary opinion essay in Politico on Sunday that the Pentagon was “in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership”.

Republican congressman Don Bacon, who sits on the House armed services committee, did not explicitly call for Hegseth’s resignation but suggested he would not keep Hegseth in place were he was the president.

“I had concerns from the get-go because Pete Hegseth didn’t have a lot of experience,” said Bacon, a former air force general. “I’m not in the White House and I’m not going to tell the White House how to manage this … but I find it unacceptable and I wouldn’t tolerate it if I was in charge.”

Before the US launched military strikes on Yemen in March, Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, sent detailed information about the planned attacks to a private Signal group chat that he created himself, which included his wife, his brother and about a dozen other people, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

The Guardian has independently confirmed the existence of Hegseth’s own private group chat.

According to unnamed sources familiar with the chat who spoke to the Times, Hegseth sent the private group of his personal associates some of the same information, including the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets that would strike Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, that he also shared with another Signal group of top officials that was created by Mike Waltz, the national security adviser.

The existence of the Signal group chat created by Waltz, in which detailed attack plans were divulged by Hegseth to other Trump administration officials on the private messaging app, was made public last month by Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, who had been accidentally added to the group by Waltz.

The fact that Hegseth also shared the plans in a second Signal group chat, according to “people familiar with the matter” who spoke to the Times, is likely to add to growing criticism of the former Fox weekend anchor’s ability to manage the Pentagon, a huge organization which operates in matters of life and death around the globe.

According to the Times, the private chat also included two senior advisers to Hegseth – Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick – who were fired last week after being accused of leaking unauthorized information.

Hegseth has previously been criticized for including his wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, in sensitive meetings with foreign leaders, including a discussion of the war in Ukraine with Britain’s most senior defense officials at the Pentagon last month, during which she was pictured sitting directly behind her husband. Phil Hegseth, the secretary’s younger brother, is a podcast producer who was recently hired as a Department of Homeland Security liaison to the Pentagon. It is unclear why either would need to know the details of strike plans in advance.

According to the Times, Hegseth used his private phone, rather than a government device, to access the Signal chat with his family and friends.

CNN reported later on Sunday that three sources familiar with Hegseth’s private Signal group confirmed to the broadcaster that he had used it to share Yemen attack plans before the strikes were launched.

The same information was also confirmed to the Associated Press by a source familiar with the group chat who said that it included 13 people.

Shortly after the news of the second Signal chat broke, Politico published an opinion article by Hegseth’s former press secretary, John Ullyot, which began: “It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president – who deserves better from his senior leadership.”

Venezuela’s chief prosecutor has accused El Salvador’s president of being a “tyrannical” human trafficker after Nayib Bukele offered to exchange the 252 Venezuelan migrants deported to his country’s prisons by Donald Trump for the same number of political prisoners in Venezuela.

Bukele made the offer on Sunday night in a message addressed directly to his authoritarian counterpart Nicolás Maduro. “I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that includes the repatriation of 100% of the 252 Venezuelans who were deported, in exchange for the release and delivery of an identical number … of the thousands of political prisoners that you hold,” El Salvador’s leader posted.

Hours later the proposal was rebuffed by one of Maduro’s top allies, the attorney general Tarek William Saab. In a televised address, Saab claimed the Salvadorian’s “cynical” offer exposed him as a narcissistic “neo-Nazi” who had “kidnapped” more than 250 Venezuelan migrants sent to a maximum-security jail in El Salvador by the Trump administration since mid-March.

“Bukele is a serial human rights violator,” Saab said, pointing to the politician’s “horrifying” three-year anti-gang crackdown, which has seen at least 85,000 Salvadorians thrown in jail, largely without due process. Human rights activists say more than 360 prisoners have died.

Some members of Venezuela’s opposition – reeling from its failure to dislodge Maduro, despite seemingly beating him in last July’s presidential election – welcomed Bukele’s offer. Leopoldo López, an exiled opposition leader who lives in Spain, said the idea had his “full support”. The opposition’s most important leader, María Corina Machado, made no immediate comment.

However, many political and human rights activists have voiced perplexity and shock that the Venezuelan migrants being held in El Salvador – having been denied due process in the US and deported to an authoritarian foreign land – had become embroiled in the political tussle between strongman populists such as Trump, Bukele and Maduro.

“The idea that there would be a [prisoner] trade should be loathsome to anyone who actually cares about human rights,” said Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House.

Geoff Ramsey, a Venezuela expert from the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, suspected the plight of the Venezuelans being held in El Salvador and Bukele’s prisoner swap “PR stunt” had potential benefits for both Bukele and Maduro.

“Maduro’s quite happy to feud with Bukele and point to human rights abuses in El Salvador as a way of distracting from the brutal repression and violence of his own regime,” Ramsey said. According to the human rights group Foro Penal, Maduro’s jails currently house about 900 political prisoners. Thousands were imprisoned after last year’s election when Maduro, who has ruled since 2013, ordered a crackdown to stop his apparent victor, Edmundo González, from taking power.

From Bukele’s perspective, offer was “a smart way of shifting the conversation away from concerns around the deportees being held in El Salvador back to the existence of political prisoners in Venezuela”, Ramsay said.

For the migrants caught up in the geopolitical jailings, the consequences are calamitous. Many have not been convicted of any crime and it is unclear how long they will be held.

In an interview last week, the wife of one Venezuelan prisoner, a singer called Arturo Suárez Trejo, lamented how the Venezuelan detainees seemed to have become part of a high-stakes game of chess. “And they are the pawns,” said Nathali Sánchez, rejecting claims that the father of her child was involved in crime. “It’s evil,” she added.

The Trump administration’s targeting of Venezuelan migrants – who it has accused, largely without evidence, of being gang members and terrorists – has put Venezuela’s opposition in a difficult spot.

Seemingly fearful of alienating Trump’s administration, its key leaders – including including Machado – have said little about the migration crackdown or the deportation of Venezuelan citizens to El Salvador. “[The opposition has] largely held its tongue on issues of the treatment of fellow citizens because of its larger goal of gaining the White House’s support for its preferred strategy [to defeat Maduro] and that also is reprehensible,” Sabatini said.

Among the friends and families of the incarcerated migrants – many of them opposition supporters who fled Venezuela to escape Maduro’s regime – the opposition’s failure to defend them is causing anger and frustration.

“The reality is that the Venezuelan opposition needs to have a good relationship with the White House, and they understand that they can’t be perceived as criticizing Trump,” said Ramsey. “But on the other hand, the general public in Venezuela is outraged at the situation faced by those who’ve been deported and sent to this maximum security jail in El Salvador. So it really puts the opposition in between a rock and a hard place.”

A delegation of four House Democrats has arrived in El Salvador to push for the release of Kilmar Ábrego García, part of a mission to challenge the Trump administration’s refusal to comply with a supreme court order to facilitate the return of the immigrant to the United States.

Representatives Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, Maxine Dexter of Oregon, Maxwell Frost of Florida and Robert Garcia of California touched down in Central America on Sunday, following a visit by the Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen last week. The lawmakers are seeking to meet with Ábrego García, who had lived in the US for more than a decade before being swept up in a 15 March operation.

“Even with all of the illegal actions we’ve seen over the last couple of months, I think this is the one that terrifies me the most when it comes to the future of our democracy,” Ansari told the Associated Press in an interview.

According to a congressional aide familiar with the arrangements, the delegation will meet with officials at the US embassy on Tuesday morning to advocate for Ábrego García’s release and ask about other individuals transferred from the US who are currently detained in El Salvador. The lawmakers will also receive classified briefings during their visit.

The case has become a flashpoint in the ongoing tensions between the Trump administration and the supreme court, which ruled that the government had a duty to help return Ábrego García. Justice department lawyers have argued that they lack the power to secure his release from foreign custody.

Garcia, the representative from California, said that Ábrego García deserved due process.

“They’re trying to demonize him, and we’re not here to defend him. He deserves due process, and everyone deserves due process,” Garcia told the AP. “What he did or may have done, that has to be decided by a judge.”

Ábrego García, who had protected legal status that should have prevented his deportation, was sent to El Salvador on a plane carrying alleged immigrant gang members. He is currently being held in a prison in El Salvador after being moved from the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), which has drawn praise from Republican lawmakers but criticism from human rights advocates for inhumane conditions.

The Trump administration admitted in court filings that “an administrative error” led to Ábrego García’s deportation to El Salvador – despite a 2019 immigration judge’s order protecting him – but the same officials say they will not return him to his American wife and disabled child in Maryland.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt has defended the deportation, claiming Ábrego García was involved in human trafficking and terrorism, and said that if he were to return to the US, “he would immediately be deported again”.

But the controversy has even drawn criticism from some Republicans, with Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana acknowledging on NBC’s Meet the Press that “the administration won’t admit it. But this was a screw-up.”

As minority party members in both chambers of Congress, Democrats have limited leverage over the administration but are still determined on maintaining public pressure. Ansari indicated that more Democratic lawmakers plan to visit El Salvador in the coming weeks, saying: “This is about the future of our democracy and the future of due process as American citizens.”

Ábrego GarcÍa’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, said in a statement on Monday that the lawmakers’ visit “sends a powerful message”.

“We’re deeply grateful to the members of Congress and advocates for justice now on the ground in El Salvador, building on the leadership of Senator Van Hollen,” she said in the statement, according to NBC News.

During a news conference from El Salvador on Monday afternoon, Frost told reporters that “due process applies to all people in our country”.

“We demand the release of Ábrego García,” Frost said. “We’re also worried about our own constituents.”

Frost added that the representatives had requested to see Ábrego García on Monday but that the request was denied by the Salvadorian government as it was not an official trip.

Ansari added that the delegation met with the US embassy in El Salvador on Monday morning, and that they didn’t hear anything that gave her reason “to believe that the Trump administration is doing anything to facilitate his safe return home”.

“And that is simply unacceptable,” she said, noting that they had just sent a letter to the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, “demanding daily proof of life” from Ábrego García, that he has access to counsel, and that the administration return him to the US.

Ansari said that this “isn’t just about Kilmar, it is the fact that our government is relentlessly going after any immigrants trying to come to the US, or in in US, without any regard for due process”.

“They have not been convicted of a crime, they should not be imprisoned here,” she said.

• This article was amended on 21 April 2025 to say that Kilmar Ábrego García is now being held in a Salvadorian prison and no longer in Cecot.

US stock markets fell again on Monday as Donald Trump continued attacks against the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, who the US president called “a major loser” for not lowering interest rates.

“There can be a slowing of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates, NOW,” Trump wrote on social media.

In recent days, Trump has amped up attacks against the Fed chair, pushing Powell to lower interest rates to offset the inflationary impacts of the new tariffs.

Trump is pressuring the Fed to cut rates, likely to appease the stock market, which plummeted after he announced his newest slate of tariffs. But Wall Street isn’t taking the bait and appears to be reacting in opposition to Trump’s attacks against Powell and the independence of the US central bank.

The Dow ended the day down 2.5%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell over 2.5% down and the S&P 500 fell 2.4%. Former tech stocks favorites including Tesla and Nvidia lost ground, while the value of the dollar fell to multiyear lows against most major currencies.

Stock markets had recovered the losses they endured after Trump rolled out his “liberation day” tariffs proposals, which would have imposed huge levies on all of the US’s trading partners. But almost all the gains made in the stock market following Trump’s announcement of a 90-day pause of his so-called reciprocal tariffs have been erased amid these new jabs against Powell.

Powell, known to be extremely measured in his public remarks, has in recent weeks spoken out about Trump’s tariffs and warned that they may lead to a “challenging scenario” for the Fed, implying that the Fed has no plans to cut interest rates anytime soon.

“Tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation. The inflation effects could also be more persistent,” Powell told reporters on 16 April.

US inflation peaked at 9% in June 2022 but has slowly come down over the last few years, largely due to the Fed’s careful adjustment of interest rates. The Fed has set its inflation rate target at 2%.

Powell often refers to the central bank’s “dual mandate” – to keep inflation in check while maximising employment. Higher interest rates can bring down prices, though it can come at the risk of higher unemployment. Over the last few years, the Fed has been able to bring down inflation while keeping the unemployment rate relatively low, around 4%. Last month, inflation cooled to 2.4%, though the most recent government figures do not account for the Trump tariffs.

The Fed has long been treated as a nonpartisan, nonpolitical federal agency, though Trump has recently floated the idea of terminating Powell, whose term is up in May 2026. “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!” Trump wrote on social media last week.

Such a move would be unprecedented and would likely put Wall Street into a further tailspin. In an interview with CNBC, Krishna Guha, the vice-chair of Evercore ISI, an equity research firm, said that there would be a “severe reaction” from markets if Trump fires Powell.

“I can’t believe that’s what the administration is trying to achieve,” Guha said.

It’s also unclear whether Trump has the authority to remove Powell from his post. The supreme court is currently hearing a case that could give Trump more power to fire federal officials before their terms are up, though it’s unclear whether that could reach the Fed.

Last week, Powell emphasized the importance of the Fed’s independence from political forces.

“Our independence is a matter of law,” Powell said. “We serve very long terms, seemingly endless terms, so we’re protected by the law.”

But that doesn’t mean the Trump administration isn’t trying. On Friday, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told reporters that the administration “will continue to study” if they can legally fire Powell.

Fed officials meet monthly to discuss potential changes to the interest rate. The next meeting between officials will take place 6 and 7 May.

A Delta aircraft caught on fire on the tarmac at the Orlando international airport on Monday morning, forcing frightened passengers to evacuate the jet via slides.

The Delta flight, which was headed for Atlanta, Georgia, had left its gate at about 11.15am ET when one of the aircraft’s engines caught fire, according to a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Video of the aircraft posted to social media shows flames and smoke coming out of the back of the airplane’s engine. Staff on the runway helped usher passengers off the aircraft, as seen in later video.

Those aboard the plane, including 282 passengers, 10 flight attendants and two pilots, were evacuated and taken to the airport’s terminal building.

The fire was contained and put out, the FAA confirmed. No injuries were reported.

“Delta flight crews followed procedures to evacuate the passenger cabin when flames in the tailpipe of one of the aircraft’s two engines were observed,” the airline said in a statement.

Delta added that maintenance crew would examine the plane to understand what initially caused the fire, ABC News reported.

The latest emergency evacuation comes after several high-profile incidents involving airplanes at US airports.

In January, an American Airlines passenger jet collided with a military helicopter as it was landing at Ronald Reagan national airport in Washington DC. Sixty-seven people died as a result of the collision.

Wyoming’s only abortion clinic is resuming abortions after a judge on Monday suspended two state laws.

One suspended law would require clinics providing surgical abortions to be licensed as outpatient surgical centers. The other would require patients to get an ultrasound before a medication abortion.

Wyoming Health Access in Casper had stopped providing abortions on 28 February, the day after the Republican governor, Mark Gordon, signed the licensing requirement into effect.

The result: at least some people seeking abortions had to travel out of state. Now, people will once again be able to get abortions in central Wyoming while the two laws continue to be contested in court, Wellspring Health Access’s founder and president, Julie Burkhart, said on Monday.

“We are immediately shouting it from the rooftop to make sure our patients know,” Burkhart said following the ruling. “We are back to seeing patients the way we were on February 27.”

An abortion opponent questioned the need to contest the laws if the clinic was safe.

“The abortion business here in Casper could prove that they are providing safe services by complying with laws. Would that not make their point?” Ross Schriftman, the president of Natrona county Right to Life, said in an email statement on Monday.

Abortion has remained legal in Wyoming despite bans passed since 2022. The bans include the nation’s first explicit ban on abortion pills.

A judge in Jackson blocked the bans then struck them down in November on the grounds that abortion is allowed by a 2012 state constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right of competent adults to make their own healthcare decisions.

The Wyoming supreme court heard arguments in that case on Wednesday and is unlikely to rule for at least several weeks.

Meanwhile, the same people challenging the bans – Wellspring Health Access, the abortion access advocacy group Chelsea’s Fund, and four women, including two obstetricians – have sued to block Wyoming’s most recent two abortion laws.

The surgical center licensing requirement would require costly renovations to make Wellspring Health Access compliant, the clinic said in its lawsuit.

Gordon vetoed the requirement for an ultrasound at least 48 hours before a pill abortion, calling it onerous in cases of abuse, rape or when a person’s health is at risk. State lawmakers voted to override the veto on 5 March.

The ultrasound requirement did not significantly affect clinic operations but Wellspring Health Access also suspended offering pill abortions to avoid legal complications. The law stands to add to the cost and complications for patients getting pill abortions.

Opponents call laws like Wyoming’s requirements “targeted restrictions on abortion providers” because they can regulate clinics and abortion access out of existence even if abortion remains legal.

In blocking the laws while the lawsuit proceeds, district judge Thomas Campbell in Casper ruled that they too stand to violate the constitution.

Despite the new restrictions, Wellspring Health Access has remained open to consult with patients and provide hormone replacement therapy for transgender patients. The clinic opened in 2023, almost a year late after heavy damage from an arson attack.

Wyoming’s only abortion clinic is resuming abortions after a judge on Monday suspended two state laws.

One suspended law would require clinics providing surgical abortions to be licensed as outpatient surgical centers. The other would require patients to get an ultrasound before a medication abortion.

Wyoming Health Access in Casper had stopped providing abortions on 28 February, the day after the Republican governor, Mark Gordon, signed the licensing requirement into effect.

The result: at least some people seeking abortions had to travel out of state. Now, people will once again be able to get abortions in central Wyoming while the two laws continue to be contested in court, Wellspring Health Access’s founder and president, Julie Burkhart, said on Monday.

“We are immediately shouting it from the rooftop to make sure our patients know,” Burkhart said following the ruling. “We are back to seeing patients the way we were on February 27.”

An abortion opponent questioned the need to contest the laws if the clinic was safe.

“The abortion business here in Casper could prove that they are providing safe services by complying with laws. Would that not make their point?” Ross Schriftman, the president of Natrona county Right to Life, said in an email statement on Monday.

Abortion has remained legal in Wyoming despite bans passed since 2022. The bans include the nation’s first explicit ban on abortion pills.

A judge in Jackson blocked the bans then struck them down in November on the grounds that abortion is allowed by a 2012 state constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right of competent adults to make their own healthcare decisions.

The Wyoming supreme court heard arguments in that case on Wednesday and is unlikely to rule for at least several weeks.

Meanwhile, the same people challenging the bans – Wellspring Health Access, the abortion access advocacy group Chelsea’s Fund, and four women, including two obstetricians – have sued to block Wyoming’s most recent two abortion laws.

The surgical center licensing requirement would require costly renovations to make Wellspring Health Access compliant, the clinic said in its lawsuit.

Gordon vetoed the requirement for an ultrasound at least 48 hours before a pill abortion, calling it onerous in cases of abuse, rape or when a person’s health is at risk. State lawmakers voted to override the veto on 5 March.

The ultrasound requirement did not significantly affect clinic operations but Wellspring Health Access also suspended offering pill abortions to avoid legal complications. The law stands to add to the cost and complications for patients getting pill abortions.

Opponents call laws like Wyoming’s requirements “targeted restrictions on abortion providers” because they can regulate clinics and abortion access out of existence even if abortion remains legal.

In blocking the laws while the lawsuit proceeds, district judge Thomas Campbell in Casper ruled that they too stand to violate the constitution.

Despite the new restrictions, Wellspring Health Access has remained open to consult with patients and provide hormone replacement therapy for transgender patients. The clinic opened in 2023, almost a year late after heavy damage from an arson attack.

US transportation secretary Sean Duffy issued a warning to New York governor Kathy Hochul on Monday saying that the state of New York “risks serious consequences” if it does not suspend its congestion pricing program.

New York City’s congestion pricing initiative, which was approved by the Biden administration last year and began on 5 January, charges a $9 toll on most passenger vehicles entering Manhattan south of 60th Street during peak hours.

Similar systems are already in some major global cities such as London and are popular with environmental groups.

In a letter dated Monday and addressed to Hochul, the Trump administration reiterated its demand that she halt the collection of congestion pricing tolls and gave the governor until 21 May to either certify that the collection of tolls has ceased, or provide an explanation for why its continuation does not violate federal law.

“I write to warn you that the State of New York risks serious consequences if it continues to fail to comply with Federal law,” Duffy wrote.

“President Trump and I will not sit back while Governor Hochul engages in class warfare and prices working-class Americans out of accessing New York City,” Duffy wrote. “The federal government sends billions to New York — but we won’t foot the bill if Governor Hochul continues to implement an illegal toll to backfill the budget of New York’s failing transit system We are giving New York one last chance to turn back or prove their actions are not illegal.”

Duffy warned that the administration could begin taking action against the state as early as 28 May if the congestion tolls remain in place, such as withholding federal funding and approvals for future transportation projects in the state.

The latest letter follows multiple deadlines previously set by the Trump administration to cease the program.

The administration had given Hochul a deadline of 20 April and before that 21 March, but both times Hochul did not end the program.

New York leaders have said that the program for Manhattan was designed to reduce traffic congestion, lower pollution, and generate revenue for public transit projects and improvements in the state.

In February, the Trump administration said it was terminating the program by revoking the federal approval.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), which operates the tolls, has challenged the administration’s decision in federal court and says the scheme does not violate federal law – a position backed up so far by a judge.

Since the program took effect, both the MTA and the governor have defended the program, asserting that it is already achieving its intended goals.

In March, Hochul touted the early success of the program, saying that “traffic is down and business is up” since the program took effect.

According to her office, traffic declined 11% in February, compared to the same period last year. That month, traffic also moved 30% faster on bridge and tunnel crossings, per the governor’s office.

Commuters entering the zone are also reportedly saving up to 21 minutes per trip, she said.

The MTA CEO and chair, Janno Lieber, said in March: “Congestion relief is working, cars and buses are moving faster, foot traffic is up and even noise complaints are down.”

The program, according to the New York Times, is also delivering financially, reporting in February that the program raised $48.6m in tolls during its first month, exceeding expectations.

MTA data released earlier this month also shows that around 560,000 vehicles entered the congestion zone daily in March – a 13% drop from the roughly 640,000 vehicles the agency projected would have entered without tolling.

The agency also said in late March that the program is on track to generate $500m in revenue by the end of the year.

A March survey found that 42% of New York City residents support keeping the toll, according to NBC New York, while 35% backed Donald Trump’s attempts to squash it.

Statewide, favorability for the program is weaker, with only about one-third of people in New York state supporting the program, compared to 40% who want it halted, per NBC.

Just last week, according to the Associated Press, a federal judge in Manhattan dismissed a number of arguments in lawsuits filed by the local trucking industry and other groups attempting to block the tolling system.

Investors in Boeing are braced to learn the full impact of Donald Trump’s trade war, amid fears the US planemaker could be hit harder than first expected after jets intended for a Chinese airline were returned to the US.

A Boeing 737 Max 8 plane intended for use by a Chinese airline returned to the US on Monday from Boeing’s China finishing centre, according to flight data cited by Reuters. It followed the arrival in the US on Sunday of another 737 Max painted in the livery of China’s Xiamen Airlines at Boeing’s US production hub in Seattle.

Boeing’s share price fell by nearly 3% on Monday, in line with a sell-off across Wall Street. US stock markets have been hit with much higher volatility this month as investors have tried to work out the effects of Trump’s tariffs.

The aviation industry has been caught up in the trade war. Trump’s tariffs on goods from almost all countries have caused disruption across the world, but trade in goods between the US and China has been most affected, with levies of 145% on US imports and 125% on goods going the other way.

A new 737 Max has a market value of about $55m (£41.4m), according to IBA, an aviation consultancy. That makes a 125% tariff prohibitive without significantly changing the business model of the airline business.

The return of the Boeing jets underlines the vulnerability to tariffs of the US’s biggest manufacturing exporter. It adds to Boeing’s problems just as it was trying to recover from a mid-air door panel blowout in January 2024 that prompted the company to replace its chief executive.

Kelly Ortberg, who took over Boeing after the safety crisis, will reveal the company’s first-quarter financial results on Wednesday. Analysts expect a significant improvement in sales compared with a year earlier, with revenues forecast to have risen 20% to $19.8bn, although they still expect losses of $466m for the quarter.

However, the results are likely to be overshadowed by questions over the effect of tariffs on the business.

Douglas Harned, an analyst at Bernstein, a research company, said he did not expect “definitive answers” on the tariff hit but was “concerned that risks are larger than expected” given airlines’ discomfort with paying tariffs, and possible delays to production to try to avoid levies.

Harned said the pause on Chinese deliveries could hit cash generation in 2025, although he added that he expected the planes to be delivered eventually.

Yet investors are having to contend with huge uncertainty over the White House’s intentions. Trump’s current policy is to raise tariffs on many countries after the end of a 90-day “pause” on higher rates that excluded China, announced by the US president after market turmoil spread to the bond market.

Richard Aboulafia, the managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, a consultancy, said the Trump administration had showed a “profound and hard-earned level of ignorance” of how the aerospace industry works, and that long-term tariffs would be damaging for Boeing.

Aboulafia said the short-term hit to Boeing’s cash should be relatively limited but added that the company should push back hard against Trump’s tariffs, particularly to avoid a “catastrophic trade war with the rest of the world”.

For the Chinese market, “in the long term it starts to matter”, Aboulafia said. Chinese airlines are expected to account for as much as a fifth of new aircraft sales in one of the key markets for Boeing and its European rival Airbus. “You can’t just leave that to Airbus,” Aboulafia said.

In a sign that the trade war could intensify beyond the US-China relationship, on Monday, Beijing warned it would take “resolute and reciprocal” countermeasures against other countries negotiating with the US if they made a deal at China’s expense.

However, the rest of the world’s aviation industry may be less likely to be affected by countermeasures, given China’s reliance on US and European planes.

Reuters reported that the 737 Max 8 landed in the US territory of Guam on Monday, after leaving Boeing’s Zhoushan completion centre near Shanghai, data from the flight-tracking website AirNav Radar showed.

A spokesperson for Xiamen Airlines on Monday confirmed to Reuters that two planes marked for the carrier had gone to the US but declined to provide a reason.

Boeing was approached for comment.

The US supreme court on Monday heard arguments in a case that could threaten Americans’ access to free preventive healthcare services under the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

At issue is the constitutionality of the US preventive services taskforce, which plays a critical role in determining which preventive services health insurers must cover without cost to patients. The 16-member panel of medical experts, appointed by the health secretary without Senate confirmation, has designated dozens of life-saving screenings and treatments as essential preventive care.

If the justices uphold the lower court’s ruling, health associations said in a filing, life-saving tests and treatments that have been cost-free would become subject to co-pays and deductibles, deterring many Americans from obtaining them.

The case represents the latest in a long series of legal challenges to Barack Obama’s signature healthcare legislation to reach the nation’s highest court since its passage in 2010. A big critic of the program during his first term, Trump and his administration have now taken over the case after the Biden administration initially filed the appeal.

In oral arguments, the justices posed sharp questions over whether the law gives the HHS secretary the appropriate level of supervision over the taskforce, including the power to influence its recommendations and fire members at will, or if the group operates as a largely independent governmental body whose recommendations effectively have the force of law.

Jonathan Mitchell, the conservative lawyer representing the plaintiffs who previously represented Trump in ballot access litigation, insisted that taskforce members are “principal officers” because “their preventive care coverage mandates are neither directed nor supervised by the Secretary of Health and Human Services”.

Mitchell’s argument hinges on interpreting statutory language requiring the task force to be “independent” and “protected from political pressure”, which he argues is incompatible with secretary oversight: “We don’t see any way that statutory language can be squared with the regime envisioned by the government,” he told the justices.

Several justices appeared skeptical of Mitchell’s reading of the statute, with Justice Elena Kagan questioning whether Congress would create a board without specifying who appoints its members: “I mean, it would be an odd statute. I doubt you could find another where Congress has set up a board and … just not said who should appoint.”

The taskforce is made up of medical experts who serve four-year terms on a volunteer basis. It reviews medical evidence and public feedback and issues recommendations about which preventive services would be most effective for detecting illnesses earlier or addressing ailments before a patient’s condition worsens.

The taskforce has identified dozens of preventive services as having a high or moderate net benefit to patients including screenings to detect diabetes and various types of cancer, statin medications to lower the risk of heart disease and stroke, and interventions to help patients quit smoking or unhealthy alcohol use.

The New Orleans-based fifth US circuit court of appeals ruled in 2024 that the taskforce’s structure violates the constitution, as the plaintiffs claimed. The government’s appeal of the fifth circuit’s decision initially was filed by Biden’s administration before being taken up by Trump.

Trump’s administration argued in a supreme court brief that the taskforce’s preventive care recommendations cannot become legally binding on insurers without the HHS secretary’s permission.

“The secretary can remove them at will, and the threat of removal is the ultimate tool for control over final decisions on recommendations,” justice department lawyers wrote.

For this and other reasons, justice department lawyers argued, the taskforce’s members should be seen as so-called “inferior officers”, meaning they can be lawfully appointed by an executive branch department head – like the HHS secretary – and do not require Senate confirmation under the constitution.

In a supreme court filing, the plaintiffs argued that the Affordable Care Act has transformed the longstanding taskforce from an advisory body into one that now issues “decrees” to insurers, adding that the HHS secretary has no authority to stop taskforce recommendations from becoming binding law.

The taskforce’s lack of supervision, they argued, makes its members “principal officers” who must be presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed under the constitution.

Before the case was narrowed to the appointments issue, the lawsuit included a religious objection to being required to cover pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV. They claimed that such drugs “facilitate and encourage homosexual behavior, prostitution, sexual promiscuity and intravenous drug use”.

The fifth circuit’s ruling also rejected the government’s request to remove certain offending words from the Obamacare provision at issue – a process called severing – in order to make that part of the law conform to the constitution. That issue was also part of the appeal before the supreme court.

The supreme court’s decision was expected by the end of June.

The UN’s humanitarian agency, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and Gaza’s civil defence service have rejected the findings of an Israeli military investigation that concluded the killings of 15 Palestinian medics and rescue workers in Rafah last month were caused by “professional failures”.

Eight PRCS paramedics, six members of the civil defence rescue agency and one employee of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, were carrying out two rescue missions when they were shot and killed by Israeli troops in southern Gaza in the early hours of 23 March.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at first claimed the medics’ vehicles were not using emergency signals when troops opened fire, but backtracked after mobile phone footage emerged contradicting the account. On Sunday, it said an internal investigation had “identified several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident”.

Gaza’s civil defence agency, which rescues victims of airstrikes, dismissed the Israeli army report, accusing the military of lying in an attempt to justify targeting the rescue convoys.

“The video filmed by one of the paramedics proves that the Israeli occupation’s narrative is false and demonstrates that it carried out summary executions,” Mohammed al-Mughair, a civil defence official, told Agence-France Presse on Monday, accusing Israel of seeking to “circumvent” its obligations under international law.

Jonathan Whittall, the UN’s humanitarian chief for Gaza, said the investigation did not go far enough. “A lack of real accountability undermines international law and makes the world a more dangerous place,” he said.

“Without accountability, we risk continuing to watch atrocities unfolding, and the norms designed to protect us all eroding.”

Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the PRCS, said: “The report is full of lies. It is invalid and unacceptable, as it justifies the killing and shifts responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different.”

The PRCS has previously called for an international investigation into the incident.

Sunday’s IDF report said the deputy commander of the Golani Brigade would be dismissed owing to his responsibilities in the field and for “providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief”. Another commander, whose unit was also operating in the area, would be disciplined for “his overall responsibility for the incident”, the military said.

According to the IDF, soldiers fired on the humanitarian workers travelling in ambulances and a fire truck because of “poor night visibility” and soldiers then violated orders by shooting at a UN vehicle which drove past 15 minutes later, resulting in the death of the driver.

The bodies and vehicles were put in a sandy mass grave that could not be accessed by a UN retrieval team until several days later, after which the UN said the medics had been killed “one by one” and two witnesses claimed at least one victim had his hands and feet bound.

Postmortem results released last week showed that the men were mostly killed by “gunshots to the head and torso” as well as injuries caused by explosives, and none of the victims had visible signs of restraint.

The army denied in its report that there had been “indiscriminate fire” and maintained that six of the killed men were Hamas militants, allegations the humanitarian agencies involved deny. None of those killed were armed.

During 18 months of war, Israeli forces have killed hundreds of medical workers and the staff of aid agencies and UN organisations in Gaza. In April last year, seven members of the charity World Central Kitchen died in a sustained Israeli attack on their clearly marked vehicles.

Human rights organisations have long accused the Israeli military of a culture of impunity, with few soldiers ever facing justice. In 2023, fewer than 1% of complaints made against Israeli troops in the occupied Palestinian territories ended in a conviction, according to the latest US state department annual human rights report.

Dan Owen, a researcher who analyses army data for the Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din, said the vast majority of incidents go unreported.

The IDF is yet to respond to a Yesh Din request made in June 2024 under freedom of information laws regarding the number of investigations and indictments in cases in which soldiers are suspected of harming civilians in the war in Gaza.

In August last year, the military said it had received approximately 1,000 complaints filed by lawyers and human rights groups related to the Gaza war, and had opened 74 investigations. Four concerned the deaths of Palestinians held in Israeli detention, eight concerned allegations of torture in prisons, and the rest were related to property damage and theft.

Humans have gathered to feast and enjoy a tipple together for thousands of years, but research suggests chimpanzees may also bond over a boozy treat.

Wild chimpanzees in west Africa have been observed sharing fruit containing alcohol – not in quantities to get roaring drunk but, possibly, enough for a fuzzy beer buzz feeling.

The researchers, led by scientists from the University of Exeter in the UK, caught chimpanzees on film sharing fermented African breadfruit in Guinea-Bissau’s Cantanhez national park.

“For humans, we know that drinking alcohol leads to a release of dopamine and endorphins, and resulting feelings of happiness and relaxation,” said Anna Bowland, from the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at Exeter’s Penryn campus in Cornwall.

“We also know that sharing alcohol, including through traditions such as feasting, helps to form and strengthen social bonds.

“Now we know that wild chimpanzees are eating and sharing ethanolic fruits, the question is: could they be getting similar benefits?”

Using motion-activated cameras, the researchers filmed chimpanzees sharing the large, dense and fibrous fermented fruit on 10 occasions. The fruit shared was tested for alcohol content. The highest level found was the equivalent of 0.61% alcohol by volume (ABV).

“Chimps don’t share food all the time, so this behaviour with fermented fruit might be important,” said Kimberley Hockings, also from the University of Exeter.

Though the alcohol level is relatively low, the chimpanzees ate a lot of fruit every day so might ingest a fair quantity of alcohol, she said. “They can feed on kilograms of the stuff every day. It’s probably analogous to us sipping on a light beer.”

Hockings and her colleagues published a paper in 2015 describing how chimpanzees in west Africa stole and consumed palm sap alcohol created by humans. Some of them appeared to become troublesome, causing mischief such as not letting others build their night nests.

The researchers behind the latest study, however, said chimpanzees were unlikely to get “drunk” on the breadfruit because it would not improve their survival chances.

The sharing seemed to take place between all ages and sexes. Two adult females, nicknamed Chip and Até, were seen ignoring a larger hunk of breadfruit in favour of a smaller but fermented piece.

Two adult males, Mandjambé and Gary, were observed approaching ripe breadfruit with aggressive stances. Mandjambé claimed a piece and began to feed, while another adult male, Bobby, kept Gary at bay. They all had a taste of the ripe breadfruit in the vicinity in the end.

The paper, which appears in the journal Current Biology with the title “Wild chimpanzees share fermented fruits”, asks the question: “Do the origins of feasting behaviour derive from a shared common ancestor?”

Hockings said: “We need to find out more about whether the chimpanzees deliberately seek out ethanolic fruits and how they metabolise it, but this behaviour could be the early evolutionary stages of feasting. If so, it suggests the human tradition of feasting may have its origins deep in our evolutionary history.”

She said the number of observations was small but they could lead to “an explosion” of research into the topic.