作者： root

良十四世星期一（4月13日）飞往阿尔及利亚访问，并在专机上答记者问。 （路透社）

尽管遭到美国总统特朗普抨击，教宗良十四世表明仍会继续反对战争。

良十四世星期一（4月13日）在教宗专机上告诉路透社：“我会继续大声反对战争，致力于促进和平、推动对话以及各国间的多边关系，寻求解决问题的公正方案。”

特朗普星期天（12日）告诉媒体，他“不太喜欢”教宗良十四世，批评后者“是个非常自由派的人，而且不相信应该制止犯罪”。

他还在社媒发文，抨击教宗在打击犯罪方面“软弱”，外交政策更是“糟糕透顶”。

良十四世回应说：“我不想与他争论。我不认为福音信息应该像某些人所说那样被滥用。”

延伸阅读

不满教宗谴责伊朗冲突 特朗普抨击教宗“打击犯罪软弱无力”

他也表明：“当今世界有太多人在遭受苦难，太多无辜者正在失去生命。我认为必须有人挺身而出，指出还有更好的出路。”

良十四世即将开启对四个非洲国家为期10天的访问行程。

反驳计划向伊朗提供武器传言 中国外交部：反对无根据抹黑

2026年4月13日 16:06 / 联合早报

中国外交部发言人郭嘉昆上月主持例行记者会。 （中国外交部官网）

美国媒体上周引述消息报道称，中国准备在未来几周内向伊朗交付新的空防系统。中国外交部星期一（4月13日）表示反对无根据的抹黑或恶意关联，并坚称北京在军品出口方面一贯采取慎重负责任态度。

美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）上个星期五（10日）引述消息报道，美国情报显示，中国准备在未来几周内向伊朗交付新的空防系统。

据报道，北京准备交付的是肩扛式防空导弹系统（MANPADS）。美国攻打伊朗期间，这种武器对低空飞行的美国军机构成威胁。

情报指出，伊朗可能利用停火窗口期，在关键外国伙伴的帮助下补给武器。两个消息源告诉CNN，有迹象显示，中国正通过第三国转运相关装备，以掩盖真实来源。

针对美国媒体报道指中国准备向伊朗交付武器，美国总统特朗普星期六（11日）回应说：“如果中国这么做，中国将面临大麻烦。”

若中国军援伊朗 特朗普威胁加征50%关税
特朗普：中国若向伊朗运送武器 将面临”大麻烦”

但他并未透露是否与中国领导人习近平进行交谈。特朗普定于5月初访华与习近平会面。

美国总统特朗普星期天接受福克斯新闻采访时加码警告，如果北京在中东战争期间向德黑兰提供军事援助，美国将对中国输美商品加征高达50%的报复性关税。

特朗普说：“如果我们发现他们这么做，他们将面临50%的关税，这是一个惊人的数字——非常惊人的数字。”

中国外交部发言人郭嘉昆星期一在例行记者会上反驳传言，表示北京在军品出口方面一贯采取慎重负责任态度，根据中国出口管制法律法规及承担的国际义务实施严格管控。

郭嘉昆表示：“我们反对无根据的抹黑或恶意关联。”

Pennsylvania town faces fallout from Trump’s environmental rule rollback

April 13, 2026 5:00 AM EDT / KFF Health News

North America’s largest coke plant hugs the west bank of Pennsylvania’s Monongahela River, belching out emissions from turning superheated coal into a carbon-rich fuel.

Researchers say the children at Clairton Elementary School about a mile away pay the price. They discovered the students there and at other elementary schools near major pollution sites in Pennsylvania had higher asthma rates than other children in the state.

Residents and environmental advocates saw reason for hope and relief in the form of a Biden administration rule designed to tamp down on coke oven plant pollution. But even before it took effect, President Trump granted all 11 coke plants in the U.S. — including the one in Clairton — a two-year exemption from the standards.

Mr. Trump and Republicans have sought to align themselves with the Make America Healthy Again movement’s populist ideals, such as improving Americans’ food choices and reducing corporate harm to the environment. But the administration is ratcheting up its attacks on the very environmental protections that MAHA followers hold dear.

Taken together, these anti-environmental initiatives will lead to more pollution-related illnesses and higher health care spending, health researchers say. They could also have political ramifications, eroding MAHA’s support for GOP candidates in the November midterm elections if followers believe the party is more beholden to industry than to the movement’s agenda.

The Clairton Coke Works facility in Clairton, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 9, 2024. Justin Merriman / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Only 1 in 5 American adults, including about a quarter of Republicans, support rolling back environmental regulations, according to a poll by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Some MAHA supporters believe voters will support Republicans because the Trump administration is delivering on other goals important to the movement.

“MAHA has a pretty diverse set of policy goals, ranging from medical freedom to food and the environment,” said David Mansdoerfer, who served in the Department of Health and Human Services leadership during Mr. Trump’s first term. “In totality, the Trump administration has strongly delivered on much of the MAHA agenda.”

While MAHA voters have been upset at some of the administration’s actions that promote industry, it’s hard to know how that may play out in the midterms, said Christopher Bosso, a professor of public policy and politics at Northeastern University. Many were disillusioned by a Trump executive order they viewed as promoting glyphosate, which HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called poison.

“The glyphosate thing really ticks off a lot of them; they’re really upset,” Bosso said. “Kennedy said it was poison. If it is a poison, why aren’t we regulating it? That’s where the tension plays out.”

The situation with the Clairton coke plant and the others granted exemptions from regulations underscores the potential public health risks. Six of the 11 factories had “high priority” violations of the Clean Air Act as of last May, according to a KFF Health News analysis. Five coke oven plants logged major violations every quarter for at least three years straight.

“Poisoning continues to some of the most vulnerable residents of Allegheny County,” David Meckel, who had lived in nearby Glassport, Pennsylvania, said at a March 2025 county meeting about the coke plant.

Environmental Protection Agency spokesperson Brigit Hirsch said the president gave companies extra time because the technology needed to meet a new standard isn’t ready yet.

“Forcing plants to comply before the tools exist doesn’t make the air cleaner, it just shuts down facilities and kills jobs with nothing to show for it,” Hirsch said.

But environmental groups disagree that the plants were unable to comply at a reasonable cost, and they say the exemption from the EPA requirements shows the Trump administration is prioritizing the coal industry at the expense of public health.

“The Trump administration’s relentless actions to dismantle lifesaving environmental protections are a gut punch to the administration’s own promise to Make America Healthy Again,” said Cathleen Kelly, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

Hard Times in Clairton

Sprawled across nearly 400 acres, the Clairton plant operates ovens in which coal is heated to as much as 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit to make up to 4.3 million tons annually of the carbon-rich fuel known as coke. The product is used in blast furnaces to produce iron.

It’s a dirty operation. The process leads to hazardous emissions of benzene, a carcinogen that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says can lead to anemia and leukemia, as well as sulfur dioxide, which can trigger severe asthma.

The Clairton operation has had repeated problems with its emissions and operations, including fatal explosions and excess releases of toxic chemicals. The plant has received more than $56 million in fines from the Allegheny County Health Department since 2022, stemming largely from a fire in 2018 that led to high emissions, and violated the Clean Air Act in each of the last 12 quarters, with the last compliance monitoring in July 2025, according to the EPA.

Clairton Coke Works is seen following an explosion at the plant on Aug. 11, 2025. Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images

Nippon Steel Corp. last year acquired U.S. Steel, which now operates as a subsidiary. The company didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. U.S. Steel said it spends $100 million annually on environmental compliance at Clairton.

“Environmental stewardship is a core value at U. S. Steel, and we remain committed to the safety of our communities,” spokesperson Andrew Fulton said.

Clairton was once bustling with movie theaters, a mix of grocery stores, and riverside parks, with a dance pavilion and a performing hot-air balloonist. But the decline of steel hit hard. The town’s population dwindled from more than 19,000 people in the mid-20th century to fewer than 6,000 as of 2024. Dozens of homes stood abandoned until they were razed and replaced with signs saying to keep out. The 1978 movie “The Deer Hunter,” which depicts a hardscrabble industrial town, is partly set there. Today, about 33% of residents live in poverty.

While the plant brings jobs and revenue, residents of the town and the surrounding areas have long complained about health problems they attribute to its emissions.

“My parents are gone. My mom had cancer, my dad,” Carla Beard-Owens, a Clairton resident, said at a 2025 County Council meeting. “I lost a lot of loved ones and seen other ones pass because of this mill.”

Pediatric allergist Dr. Deborah Gentile looked into asthma rates among 1,200 children who attended school near major pollution sites in the area — including students at Clairton Elementary School. They had nearly triple the national rate of asthma, with the highest rate among African American youth, according to the study she led.

“We were shocked,” she said. “It was double or triple what we expected. The people are proud of their industrial background. We need steel, but they’re not running a good enough operation.”

A follow-up study found children with asthma living near the coke plant had an 80% higher chance of missing school when sulfur dioxide pollution was elevated.

A man walks down a street in Clairton, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 2, 2018. Photo by Michael Henninger/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Allegheny County, which includes Clairton and Pittsburgh, is home to a number of industrial plants, and researchers have linked its air pollution to increased deaths, chronic heart disease, and adverse birth outcomes. It was ranked in the top 1% of counties in the nation for cancer risk from stationary industrial air pollutants in a 2018 EPA report.

Clairton has an age-adjusted cancer death rate of 170 per 100,000 people, higher than the broader county’s rate of 150 deaths per 100,000 people, based on a KFF Health News analysis of state and federal data.

The American Lung Association in 2025 gave the county an F rating for its particle pollution levels. PennEnvironment, an environmental group that was party to a settlement with U.S. Steel involving the Clairton plant, says the coke operation caused 1.1 million pounds of toxic releases in 2021, which amounted to 60% of all such releases in the county that year.

From 2020 through 2025, the Clairton plant racked up more in fines from Clean Air Act penalties than any other coke oven facility nationwide, costing U.S. Steel over $10 million, according to EPA facility reports.

“We are deeply concerned with exemptions, which allow air toxics to affect public health,” Allegheny County Health Department spokesperson Ronnie Das said in a statement.

The Clairton plant provides 1,200 manufacturing jobs and hundreds of millions in tax revenue to the area. The jobs help generate nearly $3 billion in annual economic output, according to estimates from the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association.

Some community members and advocacy groups hoped air quality would improve after the coke plant was sold. Nippon Steel has pledged to upgrade facilities in the Monongahela River Valley.

Politics, waivers, and environmental concerns

Under the Biden-era rule, coke plants were supposed to start meeting new limits on leaks from the lids and doors of ovens that heat coal. They would also have had to monitor for benzene at their property lines and take steps to lower emissions of the carcinogen if they exceeded certain levels. Compliance deadlines were set for July 2025.

The Trump administration, which has sought to revive the coal industry, intervened. Last year, it invited hundreds of industrial plants, including coke plants such as Clairton’s, to seek presidential waivers from nine separate rules issued in 2024 by the EPA.

Then Mr. Trump in November went further, granting all coke plants a two-year compliance break.

The reprieve was necessary, the EPA spokesperson Hirsch said, because the requirements would have meant extra costs for the industry when standards already in effect work “extremely well” at reducing pollution.

Bulldozers move coal near the Clairton Coke Works facility on Sept. 9, 2024. Justin Merriman / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Hirsch also said the agency under Mr. Trump is protecting the environment, pointing to action the administration has taken to reduce long-lasting chemicals called PFAS, prevent lead poisoning, strengthen chemical safety, and protect Americans’ food and water supply.

“We are building a future where the next generation of Americans is the healthiest in our nation’s history, and they inherit the cleanest air, land and water in the world,” Hirsch said.

However, the administration has taken several steps that environmental advocates say weaken health protections.

The president issued an executive order to promote glyphosate, a herbicide the World Health Organization has linked to cancer, which touched off a furor among MAHA enthusiasts who said they felt betrayed. The EPA has decided to stop considering the health-related economic benefits of reducing pollution when making policy decisions, instead focusing on the cost to industry of complying with rules. The agency also rescinded the legal and scientific basis that had long established greenhouse gases as dangerous to public health.

The actions have rankled some MAHA enthusiasts who counted on the administration to tackle chronic disease, especially among children. A petition to Mr. Trump on Change.org with more than 15,000 signatures called for the removal of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, citing deregulatory actions it said supported corporations over MAHA goals.

Some MAHA enthusiasts have sounded off on social media.

“No one should believe that MAHA is being upheld at the EPA at this point,” Kelly Ryerson, a leader of American Regeneration, which focuses on a conservation approach to farming, said Feb. 8 on X.

Alex Clark, host of a health and wellness podcast, also aired her concerns on X, saying “there is something really freaking spooky going on at the EPA and I refuse to let the American people be gaslit into thinking they’re upholding the MAHA agenda.”

“A significant number of people who supported Trump are worried these rollbacks are going to hurt their health,” said Max Burns, a Democratic strategist and the founder of the communications firm Third Degree Strategies. “The MAHA voters, especially women, are very sensitive to this. Republicans have put themselves in a bind.”

MAHA supporters shouldn’t be surprised by a Trump administration that doesn’t prioritize environmental protections over industry, because the president has always championed fossil fuels, said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan election forecasting newsletter published by the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

“If they believe that, they were probably delusional,” he said. “Trump is a genius, especially when out of office, for allowing people to project what they want onto him, because he is so scattershot himself in his public statements.”

Clairton Coke Works on Dec. 17, 2024. Photo by Quinn Glabicki/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The coke plant exemptions have disappointed some community members, environmental groups, and regulators concerned about public health and emissions.

Nearly 300,000 people live within three miles of the 11 active coke plants across the U.S., according to EPA data compiled by the Environmental Defense Fund.

Weakening environmental rules has helped boost Mr. Trump with the $91 billion U.S. coal industry. In February, mining industry executives and lobbyists gathered at the White House, greeting Mr. Trump with applause.

Coal miners, including some in white hard hats bedecked with American flags, presented him with a bronze-colored trophy emblazoned “The Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal.”

At the event, Mr. Trump praised their work. “We love clean, beautiful coal,” he said.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.

希伯来大学的民调显示，目前只有34%的以色列人希望内坦亚胡（图）继续担任总理，较冲突初期的40%支持率有所下降。 （路透社档案照片）

耶路撒冷希伯来大学的一项民意调查显示，近三分之二的以色列人反对伊朗停火，但公众在以色列是否应该遵守两周停火协议的问题上存在分歧。

路透社星期一（4月13日）报道，这份民调由希伯来大学智库阿加姆实验室（Agam Lab）进行。民调作者说，这是美伊停火后，首次针对以色列人展开的全国调查。

被问及以色列应如何应对伊朗时，39%的受访者认为以色列应继续发动袭击；41%的受访者认为，以色列应遵守停火协议；19%的人表示不确定。

民调于4月9日至10日展开，对1312名以色列人进行抽样调查，误差范围为3.2个百分点。

伊朗停火前景不明，以色列正为中东地区一场旷日持久的冲突做准备。以色列官员认为，以色列在伊朗、黎巴嫩、加沙及更远地区的敌人无法被彻底消灭。

延伸阅读

黎巴嫩称努力制止冲突 以色列指战争远未结束 以总理：消灭真主党是以黎和谈先决条件

美伊停火并未结束以色列与伊朗地区盟友黎巴嫩真主党之间的战争。上述民调显示，超过61%的以色列人认为，停火范围不应包括与真主党的交战。

这项民调还显示，自伊朗战争爆发以来，以色列总理内坦亚胡的支持率有所下降，目前只有34%的以色列人希望他继续担任总理，较冲突初期的40%有所下降。大多数民意调查显示，内坦亚胡会在10月的大选中败选。

US intel officials scramble to keep surveillance law running amid Iran war tensions

2026-04-13T09:00:55.717Z / CNN

By Annie Grayer, Evan Perez, Sean Lyngaas

3 hr ago
PUBLISHED Apr 13, 2026, 5:00 AM ET

The US Capitol on March 26, 2026.

Nathan Howard/Reuters/File

With just days until a powerful surveillance law lapses, US national security officials are scrambling to prepare for potential blind spots in intelligence collection amid the US’ delicate ceasefire with Iran, current and former officials told CNN.

Some communications carriers that manage data for the surveillance program have privately warned the Trump administration they will cease collecting data on April 20, when the law is set to expire, if it is not renewed, according to US officials and private-sector officials familiar with the discussions. The companies fear they will face liability issues if they collect the data when the law is expired.

“We are going to go blind for a while and that’s incredibly concerning amid a war,” one former senior national security official said.

Now, White House adviser Stephen Miller and CIA Director John Ratcliffe are leading the Trump administration’s eleventh-hour push to convince skeptical Republican lawmakers to support a clean reauthorization of the law for 18 months. Even though the House is scheduled to vote on the bill this week, it is unclear whether GOP leadership can deliver the votes.

And CIA officials have also reached out to former national security officials in Democratic administrations to seek their endorsement, as a way to appeal to hesitant Democrats, according to the former officials.

The CIA is also touting the law for helping thwart a terrorist attack on a Taylor Swift concert in 2024 and providing intelligence used in a raid by the Mexican military this year that killed drug kingpin “El Mencho.”

The law, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), allows authorized US officials to gather phone calls and text messages of foreign targets, but can also scoop up the data of Americans in the process.

Senior national security officials have for years said Section 702 is critical to thwarting terror attacks, stemming the flow of fentanyl into the US and stopping ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure. Civil liberties groups on the left and the right, meanwhile, argue the surveillance authority risks infringing on Americans’ privacy.

Last month, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court renewed approval for Section 702 for another year in an expected classified ruling that was first reported by The New York Times. But if the statute itself lapses, carriers are balking at participating without explicit legal assurances from the government, according to the sources familiar with the discussions.

But the Trump administration has a complicated history with Section 702. The president and his supporters have previously conflated the law with other legal methods used to investigate Russian interference in US elections and allegations that people associated with the Trump campaign in 2016 were connected to those Russian efforts.

A classified hearing on Section 702 earlier this year erupted in bipartisan frustration because the FBI and other national security officials refused to say whether the Trump administration wanted Congress to renew the law, as CNN previously reported.

Pro-702 Republicans are hoping President Donald Trump will push lawmakers to support the bill, while Democrats hoping to reform the law are using Trump as an argument that the surveillance authority needs more checks.

Miller and Ratcliffe last month held a classified briefing at the White House on the importance of Section 702 with members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus in attendance, a source familiar with the meeting told CNN.

The debate over the program’s reauthorization has exposed deep divisions among Republicans who have competing views on the government’s surveillance authority.

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan and House Intelligence Chair Rick Crawford have been meeting with all factions of Republicans trying to make the case for the bill’s reauthorization and to emphasize what is at stake for national security if the program doesn’t get renewed by Congress.

“They have been pounding the pavement,” a GOP source familiar with the negotiations told CNN.

Republican lawmakers at odds with the legislation are opposed for different reasons.

GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, for example, has said she will not support the FISA reauthorization without attaching Trump’s federal elections overhaul bill, the SAVE America Act, even though it faces steep odds in the Senate. And Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs has insisted that the bill include reforms like warrants before querying Americans’ communications.

The federal court ruling last month could further inflame debate around Section 702. The judge found that the Trump administration’s proposal for using certain “technical capabilities” in support of the surveillance program “could present deficiencies,” according to an unclassified talking points memo about the ruling prepared by the administration, which CNN obtained.

The memo did not elaborate on those deficiencies, but proponents of Section 702 have seized on it.

Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, a privacy hawk who sits on the intelligence committee, on Friday called on the court ruling to be declassified.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, who previously supported Section 702 reauthorization, recently wrote to his colleagues on why he is opposed to a clean reauthorization this time.

“The safeguards put in place in 2024 have been badly eroded by the Trump Administration,” Raskin argued in a March letter to fellow Democratic lawmakers obtained by CNN.

Supporters of the 18-month reauthorization, however, say letting the program lapse beyond April 20 and relying on the intelligence court’s reauthorization not only creates security concerns, it creates the risk that lawmakers will no longer feel the pressure to act.

“The program going dark post-April 20 is a huge problem,” the GOP source familiar with the negotiations told CNN.

希伯来大学的民调显示，目前只有34%的以色列人希望内坦亚胡（图）继续担任总理，较冲突初期的40%支持率有所下降。 （路透社档案照片）

耶路撒冷希伯来大学的一项民意调查显示，近三分之二的以色列人反对伊朗停火，但公众在以色列是否应该遵守两周停火协议的问题上存在分歧。

路透社星期一（4月13日）报道，这份民调由希伯来大学智库阿加姆实验室（Agam Lab）进行。民调作者说，这是美伊停火后，首次针对以色列人展开的全国调查。

被问及以色列应如何应对伊朗时，39%的受访者认为以色列应继续发动袭击；41%的受访者认为，以色列应遵守停火协议；19%的人表示不确定。

民调于4月9日至10日展开，对1312名以色列人进行抽样调查，误差范围为3.2个百分点。

伊朗停火前景不明，以色列正为中东地区一场旷日持久的冲突做准备。以色列官员认为，以色列在伊朗、黎巴嫩、加沙及更远地区的敌人无法被彻底消灭。

美伊停火并未结束以色列与伊朗地区盟友黎巴嫩真主党之间的战争。上述民调显示，超过61%的以色列人认为，停火范围不应包括与真主党的交战。

这项民调还显示，自伊朗战争爆发以来，以色列总理内坦亚胡的支持率有所下降，目前只有34%的以色列人希望他继续担任总理，较冲突初期的40%有所下降。大多数民意调查显示，内坦亚胡会在10月的大选中败选。

Under attack by their own congressman

April 13, 2026 at 5:00 a.m. EDT / The Washington Post

Muslims in Rep. Chip Roy’s Texas district react to their Republican congressman’s campaign against Islam with concern — and eye-rolls.

“No more Muslims,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) wrote in a recent online post. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

By Anna Liss-Roy

AUSTIN — The wife sipping from a “Don’t mess with Texas” mug, the husband hugging their daughter and the two younger kids watching cartoons upstairs in a house with a minivan in the driveway are represented in Washington by a man who says he wants no more of people like them.

Will Musk ever be forced to explain what he did inside DOGE?

2026-04-13T10:00:55.725Z / CNN

Elon Musk was ubiquitous in Washington last spring, wielding unprecedented power helping the Trump administration reshape and, in some cases, dismantle federal agencies across the government.

But now, his legal adversaries can’t find him to answer questions under oath about the role he played at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency in the first months of President Donald Trump’s administration.

In one case, Texas constables and others attempting to serve a plaintiffs’ deposition request went to his various properties 14 times, only to be turned away or told Musk wasn’t there.

Government lawyers have argued that the world’s richest man should be shielded from demands to answer questions — even though he is no longer a government employee.

The discovery process — a pretrial procedure in which both sides exchange evidence and identify witnesses — has been paused for more than a year in a lawsuit challenging DOGE’s dismantling of federal agencies, after the Justice Department successfully appealed an order requiring Musk to answer written questions about his role.

Changes brought about by DOGE transformed public institutions that touch on vast swaths of daily life, and though it said it found broad government savings, it has also cost taxpayer dollars and tens of thousands of jobs.

But efforts to compel Musk to answer questions in the lawsuits challenging the legality of DOGE’s actions have been met with repeated frustration. Meanwhile, the Justice Department, for a second time, has asked the Supreme Court to intervene in a dispute over discovery in a case that will determine whether DOGE is covered by federal open records law.

All these cases have raised a fundamental question: Will Musk ever be forced to explain his exercise of such sweeping power inside the federal government?

One of the most dramatic examples of how difficult it has been to get Musk to sit for questions grew out of a legal challenge to DOGE’s dismantling of the US Agency for International Development.

In the civil suit,current and former USAID staffers and contractors allege Musk was behind the decision to shutter the agency, violating the Appointments Clause of the US Constitution, which under Supreme Court precedent requires officials who wield “significant authority” to be confirmed by the Senate. The case is in the discovery phase, as the plaintiffs seek information from the government that would show who issued the key decisions that dismantled the agency.

Court documents describe, in striking detail, the extraordinary effort to serve Musk with a subpoena to compel him to sit for a deposition startig at the end of last year.

Constables in Texas and private plaintiffs’ process servers tried to present Musk papers at his home in West Lake Hills, Texas, described in court filings as his primary residence. They made four additional attempts at Musk’s property in Brownsville, Texas, near his SpaceX headquarters.

The efforts spanned about three months, beginning in mid‑November 2025, and the servers said in court papers they were met with repeated resistance.

Servers have been denied entry into gated properties. At times, individuals speaking through a call box said they could not “provide any assistance or information.” On other visits, staff told servers that Musk was not home and that no one was authorized to accept paperwork on his behalf, according to court documents.

On one occasion, a man responded over the call box saying, “There is no one here by that name.” Other visits went unanswered entirely, the documents said.

Plaintiffs say they attempted to reach Musk through his attorney, also without success.

“Elon Musk publicly bragged about destroying USAID, but he and the administration have retreated into secrecy now that their unconstitutional actions are being brought to light,” Andrew Warren, deputy legal director of Democracy Defenders Fund, which is representing the plaintiffs, told CNN.

“You can’t celebrate dismantling a government agency one day and hide the receipts the next.”

A lawyer for Musk did not return a request for comment.

While Musk avoided service of the subpoena, the Trump administration was in court asking for a judge to block the deposition.

In the case brought by the USAID plaintiffs, the DOJ has said Musk should not have to be deposed by pointing to case law that protects senior government officials from being distracted from their duties by depositions.

The argument leans on a precedent set in a Supreme Court case involving then-Vice President Dick Cheney. It was also used by the Justice Department in another case brought by Democratic attorneys general last year as a sprawling challenge to Musk’s alleged role in overhauling various federal agencies.

In that case, the Justice Department secured a March 2025 appeals court order that paused plans for Musk to answer questions in writing and provide internal documents related to DOGE’s work.

But after Musk left the government, the administration also argued that his departure meant that the lawsuit’s central Appointments Clause claim should be dismissed as moot because he is no longer a public employee.

In these cases, the trial courts that are overseeing the day-to-day of the lawsuits have said that Musk should have to answer questions, only for higher courts to pause those plans.

In February,US District Judge Theodore Chuang, who is presiding over the USAID lawsuit, rejected the administration’s position that deposing Musk would “intrude on White House activities and the president’s performance of constitutional duties” because plaintiffs were focused on the actions Musk took while he was at DOGE, not his advice to the president.

But a federal appeals court reversed Chuang’s order that would have allowed Musk and other officials to be deposed. The appeals court said the plaintiffs had not done enough to seek the relevant information from other sources before demanding that Musk sit for questions.

Among the pieces of information the plaintiffs are chasing is who directed the Government Services Administration to shut down the USAID headquarters last year.

Chuang expressed some confusion about the appeals court’s order, remarking at hearing last month that “it’s unclear” what else the plaintiffs must do to show the appeals court that only Musk and the other top officials have the information they are seeking.

“I don’t think the Court of Appeals really knew because they don’t know the facts on the ground, but they need a showing of there’s really no one else who can provide this information,” Chuang said.

Musk himself has resisted or delayed sworn questioning in cases concerning his businesses, including in disputes involving federal regulators over his acquisition of Twitter, now known as X.

Musk’s move to bail last minute on a deposition in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s investigation of his Twitter takeover even prompted a 2024 request by the agency for court sanctions. (The request was denied because Musk ultimately did sit for the deposition.)

DOGE has said that its work saved billions of dollars for the government, keeping a list on its website of the efficiencies it has found through cuts, contract renegotiations and other methods — though the accuracy of these has been heavily disputed.

According to the latest figures from the Office of Personnel Management, over 400,000 federal workers have left since Trump took office, and much of the early exodus was driven by DOGE and its decisions in the early days of the administration.

With agencies hollowed out, grants canceled, staff cut and offices shuttered, the consequences are beginning to surface in tangible ways, and experts warn they could last for years.

In their lawsuit, USAID employees argued that “the impact of this unauthorized dismantling of USAID has had disastrous consequences for the American and global public, effectively paralyzing operations that delivered life‐saving aid.”

Razia Sultana, a lawyer and human rights advocate, has witnessed the impact on the ground in Bangladesh. The US had been the largest aid provider for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh fleeing ethnic violence in Myanmar since 2017. A void in medical services has left cases like one she described to CNN in which “there was no doctor available and no emergency care” for a pregnant woman who developed complications and suffered for days from fever and pain, leading to the loss of her baby.

Other lawsuits have been spawned by knock-on effects of the DOGE cuts.

At the Environmental Protection Agency, staffing levels have fallen by roughly 30%, according to union figures. Environmental advocates say the cuts have left some communities with fewer tools to monitor pollution or hold industrial actors accountable.

For example, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina — a region that has long struggled with soot pollution and elevated respiratory illness — an EPA grant to install air quality monitors was terminated amid DOGE cuts. The organization that was to receive the grant is a part of a lawsuit filed against the EPA over cancellation of climate and environmental justice grants.

“These communities have no idea what’s in their air,” Andrew Whelan, director of community strategy for the group, told CNN. “If you don’t have information about what it is that you’re breathing, you can’t know what actions to take to protect your family’s health.”

An EPA spokesperson told CNN the agency does not comment on pending litigation. But an official categorized the grants like the one withheld in Mecklenberg County as “wasteful DEI programs and ‘environmental justice’ priorities,” that should not be a part EPA’s core mission.

At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which saw some 34% of its staff leave since Trump took office, fair housing advocacy groups told CNN deep staffing cuts have coincided with delays and confusion in housing discrimination investigations, leaving renters and voucher holders with fewer avenues for redress.

Martie Lafferty, executive director of the Tennessee Fair Housing Council, said fair housing cases her group has referred to HUD have gone unanswered, sometimes even being closed without notifying the filers due to lack of staffing at HUD.

“You get no confirmation your complaint has been received, there’s no staff to follow up with, and you never hear back,” Lafferty said.

A spokesperson for HUD said the Trump administration “inherited a deeply flawed and inefficient” system and that under “the leadership of President Trump and Secretary [Scott] Turner, enforcement is now focused on helping real people suffering from intentional unlawful discrimination in housing.”

Lafferty’s organization was part of a class-action lawsuit to compel HUD to release congressionally appropriated grant funding for fair housing programs. Though her group and some others eventually received the funds, not all of the grants have been released.

What remains unresolved is whether the person who was the face of the effort to dismantle and downsize these agencies will ever be required to answer, under oath, for how it was carried out and what it has left behind.

The Justice Department has historically fought aggressively in court to keep prominent government officials out of the deposition chair. But its arguments about protections that should be granted to Musk are especially convoluted, given how ill-defined his role was in the first place — and that he no longer holds it.

The precedent originally applied to Cheney to shield officials from depositions has since been stretched to officials leading other executive branch agencies, including former officials — and now, in the DOGE lawsuits, a temporary government employee who did not have a clearly described role.

“It suggests an almost lifetime immunity and suggests a level of immunity for lower officials that is typically afforded to the president and vice president,” said Anne Weismann, a former DOJ attorney who has since represented government watchdog groups, including in lawsuits involving DOGE.

The Justice Department did not return a request for comment.

The cases continue. Plaintiffs in the USAID case are deposing additional officials who could have knowledge about who made the key decisions that shuttered the agency

The case brought by state attorneys generals is now being carried forward by private organizations who say DOGE cuts have impacted their work, after the state officials dropped their lawsuit. The case was narrowed by a US district judge, but she is keeping alive its Appointments Clause claim.

The plaintiffs will have to submit a new plan for discovery, District Judge Tanya Chutkan said.

Brent Ferguson, a lawyer for Campaign Legal Center, which is representing the plaintiffs in the case, said: “We are prepared to move forward quickly to get the information we need to obtain relief for our clients,” adding: “We expect that process will uncover more details about how Musk and DOGE unlawfully dismantled federal programs vital to millions of Americans.”

CNN’s Annette Choi contributed to this report.

States, insurers await needed details to implement new US Medicaid work rules

April 13, 2026 10:06 AM UTC / Reuters

By Amina Niasse

April 13, 2026 10:06 AM UTC Updated 1 hour ago

Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Mehmet Oz speaks next to U.S. Vice President JD Vance about combating fraud, at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, in Washington D.C., U.S, February 25, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

• Federal funding does not match state costs, policy experts say
• States to launch requirements without fully automated systems
• Insurers await rules to help manage enrollee compliance and communication

NEW YORK, April 13 (Reuters) – The Trump administration’s new law that Americans must work or volunteer to qualify for Medicaid healthcare benefits, set to take effect next year, has left states waiting for details on how to comply and with ​limited funding promised, according to six industry experts.

The $200 million set aside for states to implement the work requirements in President Donald Trump’s 2025 tax cuts and spending bill is ‌expected to fall short of many states’ needs, the industry experts said.

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In addition, detailed guidance to states and insurers who manage Medicaid benefits about who is exempt and what volunteer work qualifies, is not expected until June.

Unlike Medicare for those ages 65 and older, which is fully funded by the federal government, costs of Medicaid for low-income Americans are shared between the states and the U.S. government.

With the law going into effect on January 1, some states may ​seek extensions and partially launch their systems, industry and policy experts said.

Matt Salo, CEO of health consultancy Salo Health Strategies, likened the rollout of the system to “a soft opening of a ​restaurant.”

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“You’re not going to see people get kicked off immediately,” said Salo, a former executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors.

About 68 ⁠million people are enrolled in Medicaid plans, and nearly half are at risk of losing coverage, according to health policy firm KFF.

The plans are managed by insurers such as UnitedHealth Group (UNH.N), CVS Health’s (CVS.N) Aetna, ​Elevance (ELV.N), Centene (CNC.N) and Molina (MOH.N).

The launch may be messy for insurers, but the impact of the new policy on companies should even out over time, two investors and one analyst said.

A spokesperson for the ​U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the government has been distributing funds and is working with states on implementation.

“CMS has provided significant support to states,” they said, and “will continue to provide additional guidance through the interim final rule and ongoing engagement with states.”

Half of the funding is divided evenly across the 50 states – about $2 million per state – while the other half is dependent on how many state residents are subject to the work requirements, the ​spokesperson said.

IOWA, UTAH AND GEORGIA ARE PREPPING

A spokesperson for Iowa’s Department of Health and Human Services said the state has begun working on implementation and expects its technology costs to exceed the ​federal funding received. It is one of half a dozen states that have filed implementation plans with the government.

In Utah, which has also filed its plan, a state health department spokesperson said it expects the funding to ‌be adequate ⁠but that it is still waiting on specific guidance from the government.

Georgia, which has had its own work requirements since 2023, is assessing whether the $5 million in funding it has received is enough as it waits for the final rule’s details on community engagement requirements, a spokesperson for Georgia’s Department of Community Health said.

Georgia’s state requirement applied to people receiving additional benefits through the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion.

FLYING BLIND WITHOUT FINAL RULES

The government’s final rule is expected to define documentation and verification requirements, provide specifics on who qualifies for exemptions and outline reporting mechanisms, the six industry experts said.

The law generally ​says enrollees must regularly document and verify they ​are working or volunteering 20 hours a ⁠week. Exempt enrollees include people with disabilities, pregnant women and children.

States can independently carry out verifications by connecting to external groups like employment data brokers or other state agencies tracking employment status, but compiling volunteer hours may be challenging.

There is little clarity on what role volunteer organizations play in verifying volunteer ​hours and little information on how states will automate that reporting in their systems, said Ali Gardner, policy expert at the Center for ​Budget and Policy Priorities, calling ⁠the situation “really concerning and problematic.”

INSURERS TO HELP KEEP PEOPLE ENROLLED

Insurers, who want to keep costs and enrollment steady, are likely to play a major role in managing communication with enrollees as they tend to have advanced infrastructure and are already in direct contact with members, industry and policy experts said.

Aetna is connecting some Medicaid members with job opportunities and waiting for state and federal government guidance, a spokesperson said. Aetna operates ⁠Medicaid plans in ​15 states.

“Most states with which we work are still in the planning phase of these new requirements, and we ​are in close communication with them about how we can support their implementation,” the spokesperson said.

Gardner said without the details from the federal government, insurers have not been able to launch effective engagement programs.

And work that should be done by electronic ​systems would need to be done manually, which could increase errors and cause people to be disenrolled, Gardner said.

“There’s not enough time built in.”

Reporting by Amina Niasse; editing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot

中东航线受限 更多旅客在英国希思罗机场中转

2026年4月13日 19:54 / 联合早报

中东航线受限 更多旅客在英国希思罗机场中转

希思罗机场首席执行官说，虽然机场的远程航线网络3月吸收了部分需求，但鉴于中东冲突持续，未来几个月形势仍不明朗。 （路透社档案照片）

受伊朗战争影响，波斯湾国家被迫关闭领空，促使英国希思罗机场3月中转旅客量增长10%。

法新社报道，希思罗机场星期一（4月13日）发布声明说，包括中转旅客在内，这座机场3月总客流量较去年同期增长6.9%，达到699万人次。

希思罗机场是欧洲最繁忙的航空枢纽，机场首席执行官沃尔德比说，虽然机场的远程航线网络在3月吸收了部分需求，但在冲突持续的情况下，未来几个月的形势仍不明朗。

波斯湾的几家主要航空公司，例如阿联酋航空、阿提哈德航空和卡塔尔航空的商业模式，建立在为全球长途航班提供中转服务基础上。

美国和以色列2月28日对伊朗发动大规模军事打击后，伊朗向以色列及波斯湾地区的美国盟友发射导弹和无人机，击中机场和其他关键基础设施，扰乱地区空中交通。

美伊上周达成短暂停火后，伊拉克和巴林已全面重开领空，但阿联酋和卡塔尔依然维持多项限制措施。

希思罗机场星期一说，虽然美伊尚未达成全面停火，但“对包括燃油在内的全球供应链产生的连锁反应，暂时没有影响机场运营”。