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Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
"What American justice looks like": New federal charges keep Kilmar Abrego Garcia behind bars
It seemed the family of the wrongly deported Maryland man had finally had their pleas answered. After nearly three long months of waiting, the Trump administration was bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States. But the husband and father of three's return came with a caveat: the Department of Justice was now accusing him of trafficking undocumented immigrants around the country. "For three months, these three children and Kilmar's wife have been wondering, 'When will their loved one come home? When will their husband come home? When will their father come home?'" said Ama Frimpong, legal director of the Maryland-headquartered immigrant and workers' rights organization CASA, of which Abrego Garcia is a member. "And after these three months, the government is still delaying reunification of this family. They are continuing to play games with the lives of Jennifer and with the lives of these three children." "This family has suffered enough," she added. Abrego Garcia, 29, faces two federal charges — one count of "conspiracy to transport aliens" and one count of "transport of undocumented aliens." The DOJ filed the grand jury indictment on May 21, but the Trump administration announced Abrego Garcia's return and the unsealed charges against him at a press conference last week. He appeared before a U.S. district judge in a Tennessee courtroom Friday just hours after re-entering the country. Despite the indictment listing six co-conspirators, Abrego Garcia is the only person charged. Attorney General Pam Bondi thanked El Salvador President Nayib Bukele for agreeing to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. to face prosecution during a Friday news conference. "This is what American justice looks like," Bondi said, noting that the El Salvador native will be deported back to his home country after he is convicted and completes his sentence. "The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring," Bondi said. "They found this was his full-time job, not a contractor. He was a smuggler of humans and children and women. He made over 100 trips, the grand jury found, smuggling people throughout our country." The Justice Department began an investigation in April after examining the Tennessee Highway Patrol's 2022 traffic stop of Abrego Garcia, sources told ABC News. Abrego Garcia was pulled over for speeding with eight other passengers and told troopers they were doing construction work in Missouri. Body camera footage shows the troopers discussing the sight as suspicious, but they did not ticket or charge him. The investigation began after Abrego Garcia was wrongly deported to El Salvador. After his mistaken deportation was made public, The New York Times reported that Trump administration officials worked to manufacture an excuse for his removal. The decision to pursue the charges against Abrego Garcia also led a high-ranking federal prosecutor, Ben Schrader, to resign from his job at the Tennessee U.S. Attorney's office, sources told ABC News. Schrader, who served in the Tennessee office in Nashville for 15 years, was concerned that authorities were bringing the case for political reasons, the sources said. Lawyers for Abrego Garcia called the charges against him "preposterous" during a Friday evening press conference and dismissed the notion that he would actually be convicted of the alleged crime. "What happened today is an abuse of power. What happened today is the exact opposite of due process because due process means the opportunity to defend yourself before you're punished, not afterwards," said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney for Abrego Garcia. The administration will "stop at nothing at all — even some of the most preposterous charges imaginable — just to avoid admitting that they made a mistake, which is what everyone knows happened in this case," he added. Chris Newman, legal director for the National Day Labor Organizing Network, of which Abrego Garcia is also a member, said that the administration has shown "amazing disregard for the Constitution, for due process and for basic decency." "To date, this administration has treated Kilmar the way it treats all non-white immigrants: as if they are guilty until proven innocent," he said. "That is a notion that is in hostility to all of our shared constitutional values." Abrego Garcia was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement while on his way home from work and removed to El Salvador in mid-March, a move that violated a 2019 court order that protected him from deportation to his home country over the threat of gang violence. In court documents, a former Justice Department official had admitted that Abrego Garcia's removal to El Salvador was an "administrative error." He was initially held in the notorious, maximum security CECOT prison, but Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said after a visit to the Central American country to meet Abrego Garcia that he had been transferred to a different facility. The Trump administration stalled for weeks in returning Abrego Garcia as federal courts and the Supreme Court had ordered in April. It accused the steel worker of being a member of MS-13, an allegation his family members and attorneys have denied, and argued that he should not be returned to the country as a result. During his time in El Salvador, he had no contact with his attorneys or family. Sandoval-Moshenberg said that he and the rest of Abrego Garcia's legal team learned of his return from ABC News. As such, he said at the time that they had little to no information about Abrego Garcia's health or the specific jail he would be held in. They will, however, continue to pursue the litigation in Maryland over his removal in March, Sandoval-Moshenberg said. Judge Paula Xinis is still holding discovery over whether to hold Trump administration actors in contempt over failure to comply with her order to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return to the U.S. "If anything, what happened today, to my mind, only increases the notion that they were playing games with her, playing games with her court and playing games with her orders," he said, adding that Abrego Garcia's other immigration status matters will continue after the conclusion of his criminal Garcia's legal team filed a brief in his initial removal case arguing that the government flouted Xinis' court orders on Sunday. Jennifer Vasquez Sura, Abrego Garcia's wife, learned of his return and indictment from news reports at the same time the rest of the public did, said Frimpong, who said she spoke with Vasquez Sura earlier Friday. In a moment when she and the rest of his family should be celebrating his return, Vasquez Sura is instead left with "mixed emotions." "Jennifer is, of course, very happy that her husband is back on U.S. soil — at least as far as we know — but, of course, [he's back] under very egregious and horrendous circumstances," Frimpong said. "He should not be currently held in a jail in Tennessee. He should be at home with Jennifer. He should be at home with his children," she added, stressing how important it is that the government allow him to communicate. "At this point in time, the very first thing that Jennifer is looking for is to be able to hear his voice."
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sinclair, Inc. (SBGI): Among Stocks Insiders Bought in April After Trump's Tariff Rollout
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where Sinclair, Inc. (NASDAQ:SBGI) stands against other stocks that insiders bought in April after Trump's tariff rollout. President Donald Trump called April 2 a 'Liberation Day' after signing an executive order that imposed a minimum 10% tariff on all U.S. imports, with some exceptions. As a result, 57 countries will face higher tariffs ranging from 11% to 50%. While general tariffs took effect on April 5, the elevated rates are set to begin on April 9. These so-called 'reciprocal tariffs' triggered retaliation from trade partners and contributed to a decline in the stock market.' On Sunday, Trump said, 'I don't want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,' as reported by CNBC. The blue-chip companies closed the Monday market session 0.91% lower, while the broader market index closed 0.23% lower after briefly entering bear market territory during the session. The Nasdaq Composite closed 0.10% higher. Amid these tariff wars and overwhelming market uncertainty, insider trading often comes to focus. Why? When executives buy stock, it can suggest confidence in the company's future. On the other hand, insider sales don't have to be a negative sign for the company, because they can reflect personal decisions or investment diversification. This means that insider trading should be considered alongside the company's financial health and market conditions. Today, we're focusing on stocks that insiders have been buying in April. Using Insider Monkey's insider trading screener, we identified companies where at least one insider acquired shares from April 2 to April 7. From this list, we ranked the top 20 stocks with the highest value of insider purchases. Our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds, focusing on insider trading and stock picks from hedge fund investor newsletters and conferences. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (). Aerial view of broadcast segment of the media company at work. Sinclair is a media company that provides content through local television stations and digital platforms across the U.S. It operates two segments: Local Media, which includes broadcast stations, networks, and original programming, and Tennis, which offers the Tennis Channel and streaming services related to tennis and pickleball. The Hunt Valley, Maryland-headquartered company also provides digital solutions and technical sales for broadcast systems. This month, one insider purchased around $3.72 million worth of Sinclair shares at an average price of $14.03 per share. Year-to-date, the stock is down 12.79% trading at $14.08 per share. Over the past 12 months, Sinclair shares gained 12.87%. In a recent development, Sinclair has become the first broadcast company authorized by the FAA to fly drones over people and moving vehicles for newsgathering without needing a waiver. This milestone in drone journalism allows Sinclair to operate specially modified drones under FAA rules. Based on five analysts' estimates Sinclair stock is a 'Buy' with a price target of $19.3 per share, reports StockAnalysis. The average price target suggests a potential upside of 37.17% from the latest price. Sinclair is also one of the 12 best broadcasting stocks to buy right now. Overall, SBGI ranks 8th on our list of stocks that insiders bought in April after Trump's tariff rollout. While we acknowledge the potential of SBGI, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than SBGI but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this . READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
Technical.ly
27-02-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
National AI safety group and CHIPS for America at risk with latest Trump administration firings
The Trump administration's slash-and-burn approach to the federal workforce is intersecting with its interests in artificial intelligence, according to reports on a new round of firings. Several media outlets are reporting that hundreds of employees of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will lose their jobs. Axios, citing anonymous sources 'familiar with the matter,' reported that the Gaithersburg, Maryland-headquartered agency plans to fire or lay off almost 500 people who were hired in the past couple of years and so were still under what's called 'probationary' status. The layoffs reportedly include many of the staffers behind the US AI Safety Institute (AISI), which NIST created about a year ago to further the AI safety and security goals in then-President Joe Biden's AI executive order. The termination headcount also reportedly includes much of the staff working on the agency's CHIPS for America initiative, an offshoot from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act that used a $50 billion allocation to promote and incentivize domestic semiconductor development. The 497 employees Axios reported NIST will cut include two-thirds of CHIPS staffers working on research and development, and more than half (57%) of workers focused on incentives for semiconductor infrastructure. Anonymous sources told Bloomberg News some employees already received verbal notices about the cuts. The outlet also reported that some of these sources said decisions have yet to be made. Before he won the election, President Trump criticized the CHIPS and Science Act on Joe Rogan's popular podcast. 'The chips deal is so bad,' he said, mischaracterizing how tariffs work to suggest the US should not back domestic production of semiconductors but instead encourage foreign manufacturing. After his inauguration, he put out his own AI-focused executive order and announced the Stargate initiative to develop AI infrastructure alongside private industry partners OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank. NIST's mission is to promote economic competitiveness and security through research, scientific standards development related advisory work. Per this mandate, the lab established a multisector consortium within AISI to help develop and execute guidance on responsible artificial intelligence use. The AI safety group had been continuing its work despite Trump's executive order, according to CTO Andrew Gamino-Cheong of consortium member Trustible, who said that at the time, Trump's AI policies actually weren't that much different than his predecessor's. 'There's some continuity there, but this is a lot of window dressing in order to try and send a message,' Gamino-Cheong told in January. Now things may have changed, with the potential elimination of federal personnel focused specifically on the safe and ethical use of artificial intelligence. NIST is a part of the federal Department of Commerce, whose recently confirmed secretary Howard Lutnick is facing Democratic politicians' demands for clarity on the alleged layoffs. NIST spokespeople and others associated with the consortium did not immediately return a request for confirmation on the alleged cuts.
