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DHL to suspend global shipments of over $1,000 to US consumers

DHL Express, a division of Germany’s Deutsche Post, said it would suspend global business-to-consumer shipments worth over US$800 (S$1,000) to individuals in the United States from April 21, as US customs regulatory changes have lengthened clearance.

The notice on the company website was not dated, but its metadata showed it was compiled on April 19.

DHL blamed the halt on new US customs rules that require formal entry processing on all shipments worth over US$800. The minimum had been US$2,500 until a change on April 5.

DHL said business-to-business shipments would not be suspended but could face delays.

Shipments under US$800 to either businesses or consumers were not affected by the changes.

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“Unnamed Pentagon Officials Have Slandered Our Character with Baseless Attacks”: Hegseth Aides Ousted in Leak Probe Fire Back, Say They Were Never Told What They Were Accused Of

Three senior advisers to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—Dan Caldwell, Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll—were abruptly ousted this week amid an expanding probe into alleged information leaks.

The trio, all veterans and key figures in the Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to reform the Pentagon, have publicly condemned their dismissals as unjust and politically motivated.

In a joint statement, Caldwell—an advisor to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; Selnick, Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff; and Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg—expressed profound disappointment over their treatment, asserting that they were never informed of the specific allegations against them.

Read their full joint statement below:

“We are incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended. Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door.

All three of us served our country honorably in uniform – for two of us, this included deployments to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And, based on our collective service, we understand the importance of information security and worked every day to protect it.

At this time, we still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of “leaks” to begin with.

While this experience has been unconscionable, we remain supportive of the Trump-Vance Administration’s mission to make the Pentagon great again and achieve peace through strength. We hope in the future to support those efforts in different capacities.”

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Island dripping with GOLD could be Trump’s next win if he seizes chance for ‘deal of the century’

Trump’s love of gold is no secret. From the gilded splendor of Trump Tower to Mar-a-lago’s gleaming ballroom, the president is known to revel in all that glitters. 

But has a golden opportunity just arisen for Trump to take control of a tropical island complete with its own gold mine? 

Bougainville, which is currently part of Papua New Guinea, voted overwhelmingly for independence in 2019, but the poll wasn’t binding. Now a local leader says he is open to a deal for it to become part of the United States. 

Given the island’s strategic significance in any future war with China, it could be well worth its weight! 

Bougainville’s president, former rebel commander Ishmael Toroama, says: ‘If the US comes and says, “Yes, we support Bougainville independence,” then, I can say, “Well, the Panguna mine is here. It’s up to you.”‘

‘Bougainville is for independence. It is only a matter of time,’ he told The World in October, setting 2027 as the target for full statehood. 

At the center of the battle for independence lies Bougainville’s immense natural wealth — particularly the dormant Panguna mine, once one of the world’s biggest sources of copper and gold. 

It’s estimated to still hold 5.84 million tons of copper and nearly 20 million ounces of gold — worth around $60 billion today.

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SCOTUS Showdown: Justice Alito Issues Scathing Rebuke of Politically Motivated Order Blocking Trump from Deporting Foreign Terrorists Under Alien Enemies Act

In a blistering dissent, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, has called out the reckless and legally dubious move by the Court’s liberal majority to block President Donald Trump’s lawful efforts to deport dangerous foreign nationals under the Alien Enemies Act.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a late-night, unsigned emergency order blocking President Donald Trump from deporting foreign nationals tied to the violent Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, who are being held at the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Texas under the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act.

According to the order:

“There is before the Court an application on behalf of a putative class of detainees seeking an injunction against their removal under the Alien Enemies Act. The matter is currently pending before the Fifth Circuit. Upon action by the Fifth Circuit, the Solicitor General is invited to file a response to the application before this Court as soon as possible.

The Government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court. See 28 U. S. C. §1651(a). Justice Thomas and Justice Alito dissent from the Court’s order. Statement from Justice Alito to follow.”

The ruling came in response to a hastily filed emergency appeal from the ACLU on behalf of a “putative class” of noncitizen detainees.

According to ACLU, “Plaintiffs learned that the government has begun giving notices of removal to class members, in English only, which do not say how much time individuals have to contest their removal or even how to do so… And officers last night told class members that they will be removed within 24 hours, which expires as early as this afternoon. Upon information and belief, individuals have already been loaded on to buses.”

In a fiery dissent joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Alito took direct aim at the Court’s liberal majority, blasting their eleventh-hour injunction as legally questionable and procedurally incoherent.

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Judges are now controlling the military: Congress can stop it

Former Majority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer recently admitted that he is responsible for confirming 235 “progressive” judges who are “ruling against Trump time after time.”  Activist judges are Schumer’s Plan B.

Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution empowers Congress to make policy for the military. But as things stand now, unelected, unaccountable federal judges are overruling President Trump’s Executive Orders and arrogating to themselves power to run the armed forces.

Unless the 119th Congress intervenes, President Joe Biden’s radical policies regarding transgender people in the military will continue indefinitely.

Self-Appointed “Supreme Judicial Commanders” Take Charge

President Donald Trump’s January 27 Executive Order #14183, titled “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” is one of several calling for an undistracted focus on military warrior ethos, not “political agendas or other ideologies harmful to unit cohesion.”

Executive #14168 (January 20) defined biological reality – differentiating “sex” from subjective “gender identity” and proclaiming the existence of two immutable sexes, male and female. This EO also prohibited male access to women’s sleeping, changing, or bathing facilities and discontinued use of inaccurate invented pronouns and bureaucratic markers that reflect subjective gender identity instead of biological sex.

The reality-based principles stated above, applied to DoD policies regarding persons having a history of gender dysphoria or identifying as transgender, logically justified orders to revoke President Joe Biden’s Executive Orders and Directives accommodating persons with gender dysphoria or identifying as transgender in the military.

Trump’s EOs and directives restored gender dysphoria to the DoD list of physical and psychological conditions that affect eligibility to serve, and ended Biden-era mandates and subsidies for irreversible treatments and surgeries for “transitioning” purposes that attempt to change sex.

Trump’s Executive Orders also mandated respectful treatment for persons separating with generous benefits due to gender dysphoria, and protected vulnerable children from chemical and surgical mutilation based on “junk science” recommended by discredited “experts” like the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).

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Chris Van Hollen’s El Salvador Visit May Violate the Logan Act — and Trigger Criminal Charges

Senator Chris Van Hollen’s sudden trip to El Salvador to try to free deportee Kilmar Abrego Garcia may have been illegal.

Van Hollen traveled to the Central American nation on Thursday to meet with Abrego Garcia and lobby for his return to the United Statesm despite the fact that he is not a citizen.

Legal experts and conservative commentators are increasingly arguing Maryland Democrat may have violated The Logan Act, which prohibits unauthorized diplomacy with foreign nations.

The 1799 statute, named after Pennsylvania Senator George Logan, bans communication with foreign officials “with intent to influence the[ir] measures … in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States.”

The Logan Act was previously weaponized by Democrats to harass President Trump’s former National Security advisor Michael Flynn.

While punishment involves a fine or imprisonement of up to three years, nobody has ever been convicted under the act, which is largely seen as symbolic.

The American Accountability Foundation sent a letter to Senate leadership on Thursday highlighting the Trump administration’s evidence that Kilmar Abrego Garcia has connections to the violent transnational gang MS-13, which is designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

“Mr. Abrego-Garcia is essentially an enemy combatant in the ongoing invasion of the United States by transnational gangs,” AAF President Thomas Jones wrote to the heads of the Senate Ethics Committee and Majority Leader John Thune, in a letter obtained by The New York Post.

“Despite the overwhelming evidence, Senator Van Hollen decided that he would use Senate funds to fly to El Salvador and advocate for an enemy of the United States,” the letter said.

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Israel considers ‘limited strike’ on Iran – Reuters

Israel is considering a “limited strike” on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, despite Washington’s refusal to support military action, Reuters reported on Saturday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The deliberations come as the second round of US-Iran negotiations have concluded in Rome, with expert-level talks expected to continue on April 26 in Oman.

According to Reuters, Israeli officials are weighing a “limited strike” that would require minimal US support – unlike the larger and prolonged bombing campaign previously under consideration.

West Jerusalem reportedly presented Washington with several strike options, “including some with late spring and summer timelines.” A senior Israeli official told the outlet that no final decision had been made.

On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that US President Donald Trump had rejected an Israeli proposal for “extensive” strikes, opting instead to pursue diplomacy.

“I’m not in a rush to do it, because I think that Iran has a chance to have a great country and to live happily without death, and I’d like to see that. That’s my first option,” Trump told reporters on Thursday.

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MSNBC Suggests Trump Plans to Deport African-Americans

The latest racial-tinged conspiracy theory that the TDS-addled corporate state media is running with is that the Trump administration is developing plans to deport African-Americans, otherwise known as “people of color.”

Let the brutal ogre and former Kamala Harris press ops goon who has rebranded herself as a journalist, Symone Sanders, explain:

We’ve been talking about this all week, but Janai Nelson of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, she penned an op-ed in The Nation this week. And her op-ed talked about that we think democracies are — the way they die is dramatically, through these wars, and blood is shed, and it’s cinematic in a sense. But really, the realistic way in which democracies die, is it is dismantled brick by brick, piece by piece. And she says that what we are seeing now with the lawlessness from this administration are really the canaries in the coal mine gasping for air. I’m paraphrasing here. But to me, that is why Kilmar Abrego-Garcia’s specific case, the case of the gentleman who’s a make-up artist out of California who was also sent to that prison, that’s what the more — the 75% of the folks who have been sent, the men who have been sent there that don’t have criminal records — that is why this is so important. If they can do it to them, if they can snatch students off the street without any pushback or recourse, they will do it to any of us. To be very clear, it’s going to be the people of color, and vulnerable communities that are next in line.

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ANOTHER ONE: Oregon Democrat Rep. Heads to El Salvador to Demand Release of MS-13 Terrorist Kilmar Garcia

Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) has announced she will travel to El Salvador to personally demand the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a deported illegal alien with alleged ties to the recently designated terrorist organization MS-13.

This is yet another example of Democrats prioritizing criminals over law-abiding Americans.

Dexter’s press release on Friday, dripping with sanctimonious outrage, claims Garcia’s deportation is a “constitutional crisis” and a “government-funded kidnapping.” She wails that Garcia, a so-called “legal U.S. resident,” had his “due process rights ripped away” and is now languishing in a Salvadoran prison.

But let’s cut through the leftist spin: Garcia was deported in March after the Trump administration identified him as a suspected MS-13 member, a designation backed by a 2019 Maryland police report and a Department of Homeland Security investigation that flagged him for potential human trafficking in 2022.

Court documents reveal Garcia was stopped in Tennessee with eight people crammed in his car, all suspiciously claiming the same address and carrying no luggage.

He played dumb with officers, pretending he couldn’t speak English. And then there’s the 2021 protective order filed by his own wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, who accused him of physical abuse and documented bruises he allegedly inflicted. This is the “family man” Dexter is championing?

President Trump himself has highlighted photos of Garcia’s knuckles, reportedly sporting MS-13 tattoos, though Democrats cry “Photoshop” to dodge the truth.

“Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, M.D. (OR-03) announced that she will travel to El Salvador to demand the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” according to the press release.

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Van Hollen Backtracks As El Salvador Stunt Backfires Spectacularly

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is frantically backpedaling after his ill-conceived El Salvador publicity stunt blew up in his face. The Maryland Democrat, who initially trumpeted his mission to “rescue” a deported MS-13 gang member, is now desperately trying to rewrite the script of his adventure gone wrong.

When Van Hollen first landed in the country, he couldn’t wait to broadcast his virtuous mission to the world. “I just landed in San Salvador,” he proclaimed proudly, promising to secure the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom he claimed was “illegally abducted.” 

Fast forward a few days, and suddenly the senator’s bold crusade has morphed into a classic attempt to backpedal. While Van Hollen was making a fool of himself, the Trump administration revealed the evidence that Abrego Garcia is, in fact an MS-13 gang member, but also that he reportedly engaged in human trafficking and domestic abuse.

Suddenly, this photo-op to own Trump and his immigration policies became an epic self-own, and Van Hollen’s tone has shifted dramatically, evening accusing El Salvador president Bukele of setting him up.

“I just want to take a moment—I hadn’t planned to do this,” Van Hollen said during a hastily arranged press availability. “But as I was landing on the airplane, I got a transcript of some questions President Trump was asked at the White House today about what I would call ‘Margaritagate.’ I don’t know if you guys have been following this…”

Van Hollen tried to explain away the photo as a staged deception. “When I first sat down with Kilmar, we just had glasses of water on the table, I think maybe some coffee,” he insisted. “And as we were talking, one of the government people came over and deposited two other glasses on the table with ice and I don’t know if it was salt or sugar around the top. But they looked like margaritas.”

He also accused the Salvadoran government of manipulating the scene to make it appear as though he and the deported gang member were drinking together. “If you look at the one they put in front of Kilmar, it actually had a little less liquid than the one in front of me, to try to make it look, I assume, like he drank out of it,” Van Hollen said. “Let me just be very clear. Neither of us touched the drinks that were in front of us.”

And then he kept digging himself into a hole.

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