Trump updates: US president arrives in Rome ahead of pope’s funeral

If you’d like to read more about US efforts to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, you can read about ongoing talks here.

You can also read our coverage of the arrest of a US judge, whom the Trump administration has accused of obstructing immigration enforcement efforts.

We will be closing the live blog soon. Here’s a review of the day’s main events.

• The FBI announced the arrest of a judge in Wisconsin for allegedly obstructing an immigration enforcement operation, causing alarm as the Trump administration steps up its confrontational approach towards the judiciary.
• A New York Times-Siena poll found flagging approval for Trump’s handling of issues such as immigration, trade, and the economy, with overall disapproval of his job as president at -12 points.
• A survey released by the Federal Reserve found that risks around global trade, general policy uncertainty, and the sustainability of US debt were top concerns among academics, investors and finance professionals.
• President Trump arrived in Rome to attend the funeral of Pope Francis, where he is expected to meet several world leaders to discuss a variety of issues.

Attorney General Pam Bondi is set to rescind Biden-era protections put in place to protect journalists from having their phone records secretly seized by the government during leak investigations.

News outlets reported that the Justice Department will authorise the sending of subpoenas to news organisations as part of leak investigations and could force journalists to testify about their sources.

An internal memo circulated among Justice Department workers and reported by Bloomberg Law on Friday says that leaks to the media “aid our foreign adversaries” and are “illegal and wrong”.

The US has shut down the office tasked with overseeing diplomatic efforts related to climate change, meaning that the world’s largest economy will likely be absent during the COP30 global climate summit in November.

The State Department says that it axed the Office of Global Change, which represented the US during UN climate forums.

“We will not participate in international agreements and initiatives that do not reflect our country’s values,” a State Department spokesperson said.

A New York Times-Siena poll finds that 54 percent of people in the US disapprove of the job Trump is doing, compared with 42 percent who say they approve. The poll found a majority disapproval on Trump’s handling of issues such as the economy, immigration, trade and the Russia-Ukraine war.

The poll found 17 percent of respondents say the president should be able to deport legal immigrants who have protested against US support for Israel, with 63 percent saying the president should not be able to do so.

A recent AP-NORC poll found that 53 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration compared with 46 percent in favour, although this remains a higher rate of approval than in areas such as the economy and trade.

The secretary of state says in a news release that the US hosted representatives from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda convened to sign a declaration of principles agreement laying the groundwork to halt ongoing fighting and work towards peace.

“The Declaration builds on the efforts of the African Union and other regional leaders. It outlines a pathway to peace, stability, and integrated economic development in the eastern DRC region, which is vital to ending the conflict and allowing the region to reach its full potential,” the release states.

“The United States will continue engaging with both nations to uphold the declaration’s principles and support the crucial work towards peace and prosperity.”

A federal judge has temporarily barred the Trump administration from carrying out an executive order that labour groups say would weaken the collective bargaining rights of hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

US District Judge Paul Friedman ruled that a key provision of the March 27 order can’t be enforced, after the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents about 160,000 federal workers, sued to challenge the order.

That order attempted to apply an exemption to collective bargaining rights for employees at agencies related to certain national security functions, such as intelligence and counterintelligence, to a much wider swath of workers.

“The President’s use of the Statute’s narrow national security exemption to undo the bulk of the Statute’s coverage is plainly at odds with Congress’s expressed intent,” union lawyers wrote.

The ruling is not the final word on the dispute. Friedman gave lawyers a deadline of May 2 to submit proposals for how the case ought to proceed.

European Union economy commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis says that while the bloc is eager to arrive at an agreement that could ease costly tariffs, there is “a lot more work ahead” before the US and the EU can reach “more concrete” cooperation.

His comments on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank’s spring meetings this week came after talks with counterparts, including US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has imposed sweeping 10 percent tariffs on friend and foe, including the EU.

X Corp, the social media platform owned by Trump adviser and billionaire Elon Musk, is challenging the constitutionality of a Minnesota ban on using deepfakes to influence elections and harm candidates, saying it violates First Amendment speech protections.

The company’s federal lawsuit filed this week also contends that the 2023 state law is preempted by a 1996 federal statute that shields social media from being held responsible for material posted on their platforms.

“While the law’s reference to banning ‘deep fakes’ might sound benign, in reality it would criminalize innocuous, election-related speech, including humor, and make social-media platforms criminally liable for censoring such speech,” the company said in a statement. “Instead of defending democracy, this law would erode it.”

Minnesota’s law imposes criminal penalties – including jail time – for disseminating a deepfake video, image or audio if a person knows it’s fake, or acts with reckless disregard to its authenticity, either within 90 days before a party nominating convention, or after the start of early voting in a primary or general election.

It says the intent must be to injure a candidate or influence an election result. And it defines deepfakes as material so realistic that a reasonable person would believe it’s real, and generated by artificial intelligence or other technical means.

“Elon Musk funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into the 2024 presidential election and tried to buy a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat,” said the law’s author, Democratic state Senator Erin Maye Quade.

“Of course, he is upset that Minnesota law prevents him from spreading deepfakes that meant to harm candidates and influence elections. Minnesota’s law is clear and precise, while this lawsuit is petty, misguided and a waste of the Attorney General Office’s time and resources,” her statement said.

The news agency Reuters has reported that Trump’s pick to oversee the administration of the federal space agency NASA was previously accused of writing $2m worth of bad cheques to casinos.

Jared Isaacman, a billionaire pilot and astronaut, was arrested on fraud charges and faced lawsuits in two states in 2010, the report states, citing government records and court filings.

US Customs and Border Protection shared a news release titled “Nevada Fugitive Captured at Canadian Border,” in February 2010, stating that Isaacman had been arrested on a warrant for alleged fraud at the Washington state line before being taken to a county jail for extradition to Nevada. Jail records show he was released the next day.

Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin has called the Trump administration’s arrest of Judge Dugan a “drastic move” that threatens the independence of the judiciary.

“Make no mistake, we do not have kings in this country and we are a Democracy governed by laws that everyone must abide by,” Baldwin said in a statement following the arrest.

“By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders, and arresting a sitting judge, this President is putting those basic Democratic values that Wisconsinites hold dear on the line,” she added.

The Ukrainian president has rejected suggestions Ukraine give up Crimea to Russia, as Trump’s envoy met Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow, where the Kremlin said they discussed the “possibility” of direct ceasefire talks.

The three-hour meeting went ahead just after a Russian general was killed in a Moscow car bomb attack that Russia blamed on Ukraine. Ukraine is in turn outraged by a Russian strike on Kyiv that left 12 dead.

With Ukraine fearful Trump could force it to cede Crimea, a strategic Black Sea peninsula seized by Russia in 2014, Zelenskyy insisted the territory is “the property of the Ukrainian people”.

“Our position is unchanged,” he told reporters in Kyiv. “The constitution of Ukraine says that all the temporarily occupied territories … belong to Ukraine.”

Zelenskyy cited the Kyiv strike as one of the reasons he might miss Pope Francis’s funeral Saturday, where he could potentially have met Trump for the first time since their explosive White House confrontation in February.

Asked about growing friction between India and Pakistan, Trump said that the two South Asian nations have always had a troubled relationship. India has accused Pakistan of complicity in an attack by an armed group in the contested province of Kashmir that killed 26 tourists earlier this week.

“They’ll get it figured out one way or the other,” Trump said as he travelled aboard his plane. “There’s great tension between Pakistan and India, but there always has been.”

Trump on Friday said Ukraine has not yet signed a deal on rare earth minerals and he hopes it will be signed immediately.

“Ukraine, headed by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has not signed the final papers on the very important Rare Earths Deal with the United States. It is at least three weeks late. Hopefully, it will be signed IMMEDIATELY. Work on the overall Peace Deal between Russia and Ukraine is going smoothly,” he said in a Truth Social post.

The US president says he told his Israeli counterpart that they must “be good to Gaza”, even as Israeli forces continue to pound the Strip and cut off access to vital humanitarian supplies for millions of people.

When asked whether he brought up the need to open up points of entry for aid deliveries, Trump said that there was a “very big need for medicine, food and medicine, and we’re taking care of it”, adding that Netanyahu “felt well” about this request.

Trump, like his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, has consistently refused to use US leverage, such as arms sales, to pressure Israel into humanitarian concessions on Gaza or to demand accountability for alleged abuses by Israeli forces.

You can follow our live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza here.

China’s central bank governor has criticised the US for threatening global financial stability with its “recent abuse” of tariffs, in the wake of recent moves seen by both sides as efforts to de-escalate their trade war.

“The recent abuse of tariffs by the United States has severely violated the legitimate rights and interests of other countries, seriously undermined the rules-based multilateral governance system, dealt a heavy blow to the global economic order, and hurt the long-term stability and growth of the global economy,” People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng said in a statement at the conclusion of the International Monetary Fund’s steering committee meeting.

“It has also triggered sharp fluctuations in global financial markets,” which has threatened global financial stability and posed challenges to emerging and developing nations, he said.

Pan added that there was an urgent need for countries to strengthen policy coordination and promote trade liberalisation.

The Trump administration’s decision in February to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 300,000 Venezuelans in the United States has cast a pall of uncertainty over the lives, even after a federal judge blocked that effort a month later.

“[Trump has] admitted Venezuela is not safe, and I understand he doesn’t want criminals,” a 34-year-old Venezuelan American named Luis told Al Jazeera. “But why does he want to get rid of honest, hardworking people? What does he want to send us back to?”

You can read our story on the challenges faced by Venezuelans living in legal limbo after the revocation of TPS here.