Category: U.S.

• Air-taxi service Archer has unveiled NYC routes. Passengers will be able to get to the three New York City airports in as little as five minutes. No flights can begin, however, until the FAA clears the company’s eVTOL craft to take to the skies.

Air taxis still haven’t received take-off clearance, but that’s not stopping them from getting everything in order to begin operations.

Archer, a leader in the field, has unveiled routes for service in New York City, which will shuttle passengers to and from Newark, JFK, and La Guardia in five to 15 minutes. (That’s considerably less time than it takes to reach the terminal via car, taxi or subway.)

Standing in the company’s way, though, is the same hurdle it has always faced: The Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA is still determining how to integrate air taxis with existing flight patterns (most flights are expected to take place between 2,000 and 3,000 feet above ground level) and requirements for pilots.

Archer hoped the FAA would resolve these outstanding issues by the end of last year, but New Year’s came and went without clearance. Industry officials say they believe clearance will come soon.

Archer plans to pick up passengers at various locations in Manhattan: the East 34th Street Heliport, Downtown Skyport, and West 30th Street Heliport. From there, they can fly via eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft to the three surrounding major airports, as well as other regional gateways. Flights would be aboard the company’s human-piloted, four-passenger Midnight devices.

Archer has not said how many flights it plans to operate per day and what hours it will fly.

United Airlines put down a deposit for 200 four-passenger flying taxis from Archer in 2022. Delta, meanwhile, has put money in competitor Joby.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

If you’re wondering whether today is a holiday or not, you’re not alone.

With Spring Break underway (or about to begin) in many school districts and Easter Sunday just a few days away, it might make sense to think Good Friday is an official holiday. It’s not, but that’s not stopping some services from taking the day off.

Most years, if Wall Street is closed, it’s a safe bet that local and state governments and banks will be as well. When it comes to Good Friday, though, there’s a divide. Confused? Here’s what you can expect.

Are banks open on Good Friday?

Honestly? It depends where you live. Good Friday is not a federal holiday, so banks in most states will be open. Twelve states, however, recognize Good Friday as a state holiday, so if you live in Connecticut, Texas, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Tennessee, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, or North Dakota, you might have to rely on the ATM or online banking.

Will there be any mail delivery on Good Friday?

Because Good Friday isn’t a federal holiday, the U.S. Postal Service will operate normally. UPS and FedEx will also conduct business as usual, with drop-off locations offering normal hours.

Is the stock market open on Good Friday?

After the volatility of the past couple of weeks, even day traders are ready for a break. The stock market observes Good Friday as a holiday, so the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq will both be closed.

Are government offices open on Good Friday?

Much like banks, it really comes down to where you live. Since 12 states recognize the day as an official holiday, you won’t be able to access DMV offices, courts or city halls in Connecticut, Texas, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Tennessee, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, and North Dakota.

Which retail and grocery stores are closed on Good Friday?

None, really (though some small businesses might make an exception). No major retailer takes Good Friday off. Many count on the day to be busy as last-minute shoppers grab an Easter outfit or assist the Easter Bunny in his duties.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

• President Donald Trump believes his tariffs will bring back more factory jobs—but absent a robust union movement, those jobs could likely end up paying cut-rate wages and injuring workers at high rates, as factory jobs in the South today often do, says labor historian Eric Blanc. He argues a mass unionization campaign in factories, retail stores, and other workplaces is called for, especially as Trump moves to undo union protections with other policies.

President Donald Trump announced his tariffs with a promise they would bring back the factory jobs that once made America “great,” complete with a Rose Garden ceremony where a retired United Auto Workers (UAW) union member spoke fondly of a plant he was sure would reopen.

But there’s a crucial ingredient missing to make those new jobs great: unions. Without them, Trump’s promise of good jobs could dissipate into a race to the bottom where factories hire desperate workers at cut-rate wages with little or no benefits, Eric Blanc, a labor historian and professor at Rutgers University, wrote this week.

“Being pro-factory is not the same thing as being pro-worker,” Blanc wrote on his Substack. 

“The reason people associate factory jobs with good jobs and have this nostalgic view of the heyday of American manufacturing in the 1950s, when you could have one breadwinner providing for the whole family—that was the product of unionization,” Blanc told Fortune. Before the wave of unionization in the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s, “factories were described as hellholes; they were authoritarian regimes where safety was nonexistent.”

In 1912 and 1913, more than 20,000 workers died in industrial accidents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—at a time when the American workforce was less than a quarter of its present size. The muckraking novel The Jungle describes meatpacking plants packed with immigrant children, working 10- to 12-hour days for poverty wages.

As proof this can happen today, Blanc points to the American South, where the bulk of manufacturing expansion has taken place since the 1990s. A Bloomberg cover story about the Southern manufacturing renaissance during the first Trump administration documented “burning flesh, crushed limbs, dismembered body parts, and a flailing fall into a vat of acid” at auto factories in the region.

“Accident rates are four times higher than they are anywhere in the country, and one-third of manufacturing workers now rely on government assistance like food stamps,” Blanc said, citing a study from the UC Berkeley Labor Center. Since the mid-2000s, pay for manufacturing workers has fallen behind that of their nonmanufacturing counterparts.

Service jobs can pay well, too

Unionizing holds the promise of improving not just factory work but all work, Blanc said; union members reliably earn more than nonunion counterparts and enjoy greater job security, even in service jobs. Take the highly unionized hotel sector in New York or Las Vegas, where workers are on track to make between $28 and $37 an hour, on average, by the end of current contracts.

Indeed, mass unionizing will be necessary, in Blanc’s view, since the bulk of American jobs are and will remain in the service sector. Even in the best-case scenario, in which a manufacturing resurgence creates another several million jobs, economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman estimated it would only bring the manufacturing share of employment in the U.S. from its current 10% “to maybe 12.5% of employment—not back to the 30% of employment that used to be, once upon a time.” 

“Whether we like it or not, America’s workforce will continue to overwhelmingly work in the service sector,” Blanc said. That’s already the case in America’s industrialized peers like Germany and Japan, which have seen their manufacturing employment rates slide despite strong government support for the sector.

The prospect of a mass unionization movement in a country where less than 10% of workers are unionized is a challenge, to say the least. Blanc concedes it’s gotten worse in the current climate, where Trump, while courting union members on one hand, is dismantling collective bargaining rights with the other. In two bold moves that are currently being litigated, the president has dismissed a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board, Gwynne Wilcox—shrinking the independent labor regulator to a size where it can’t legally do much of its job—and has attempted to cancel the collective bargaining agreements for thousands of federal workers.  

“Trump’s attacks against the federal unions send a signal to other employers that they don’t have to follow labor law,” Blanc said. 

Asked about the contradictions between the stated goals of Trump’s tariff policies and his labor policies, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said: “Chicken Little ‘expert’ predictions didn’t quite pan out during President Trump’s first term, and they’re not going to pan out during his second term when President Trump again restores American Greatness from Main Street to Wall Street.”

Still, even in a frosty political climate, organizing isn’t impossible, Blanc said—and the labor movement has popular sentiment on its side.

“Trump’s policies are so unpopular, from blowing up the economy and going after people’s Social Security, it’s generating a lot of resistance and pushback, and this anti-billionaire energy we’re already seeing is being channeled in unionization efforts,” Blanc said. 

The first union at Amazon-owned Whole Foods was recognized this past January, where workers at a Philadelphia store voted decisively to join a chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers union. Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga voted decisively to unionize with the UAW last year. Unions organized 100,000 more workers during the presidency of Republican George W. Bush than under Democrat Barack Obama, and the rebranding of the GOP as a working-class party means 49% of Republicans now support unions, per Gallup. Overall, 70% of Americans think positively of unions—approval rates last seen in the 1950s.

“Just promising more factory jobs is not going to bring back prosperity,” Blanc said. But in good news for the three-quarters of workers who say they don’t want to work in factories, he adds, “any job could become a good job with collective bargaining.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

• Chinese e-commerce platforms DHgate and Taobao have soared in popularity this week after viral TikTok videos claim to sell luxury brand items from Lululemon and Hermès for a fraction of the price. The trend has grabbed the attention of American social-media users, who are calling out U.S. companies for their high prices. Lululemon says the factories that claim to manufacture their goods were not incorporated within the company’s supply chain.

Downloads of popular Chinese e-commerce platforms soared in the U.S. this week, spurred by viral TikTok videos from alleged Chinese suppliers claiming to expose luxury brands. 

Amid a budding trade war between the U.S. and China, highlighted by President Donald Trump imposing 145% tariffs on imports from Beijing last week, some Americans say they won’t pay higher prices as the U.S. seeks to close the “de minimis” trade loophole. 

As it relates to trade, de minimis allows shipments valued under $800 to enter the U.S. without paying any taxes. It’s one of the key reasons companies like Shein and Temu have been so successful in recent years.

“What do American companies think we’re gonna do? We’re gonna pay their prices rather than Chinese prices, when I can get a thousand times more product for the same price as we get here?” one TikTok user said in a post that accumulated nearly 22 million views. 

Amid the tension, Chinese discount retailer DHgate is gaining popularity among American consumers. The platform ranks as the second-most popular app on Apple’s U.S. App Store. In addition to DHgate, another Chinese e-commerce platform called Taobao ranks seventh. 

The fresh demand for Chinese e-commerce platforms comes after Chinese social media accounts went viral on TikTok for claiming to undercut the high prices from several luxury brands. 

While the app’s future in the U.S. remains uncertain—the deadline for TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company to divest ownership is June 15— “China ‘Exposes’ Luxury Brands” was trending on the app Wednesday. Videos with millions of views claimed that Chinese suppliers sell similar or identical pieces at cheaper prices than popular brands.

A video posted to TikTok by @LunaSourcingChina alleged Lululemon leggings could be purchased from two factories in Yiwu, China, for $5 to $6, claiming the activewear brand sources its clothing directly from them. 

“And what’s even better, the material and the craftsmanship are basically the same because they all come from the same production line,” the video says.

Lululemon rejected these claims.

“Lululemon does not work with the manufacturers identified in the online videos and we urge consumers to be aware of potentially counterfeit products and misinformation,” a Lululemon spokesperson told Fortune.

The two factories that claimed to supply Lululemon’s leggings were not listed in the company’s April 2025 Supplier List. 

Another Chinese TikToker named Wang Sen claimed he is the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for most luxury handbag brands like Hermès. OEMs manufacture products that another company sells. 

“Why don’t you just contact us and buy from us? You won’t believe the prices we (will) give you,” he said in a video.

Hermès did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Burglars tunneled through a concrete wall to gain access to a Los Angeles jewelry store, making off with at least $10 million worth of watches, pendants, gold chains and other merchandise, police said.

The heist happened around 9:30 p.m. Sunday at Love Jewels on Broadway in the heart of downtown’s jewelry district, according to Officer David Cuellar with the LA Police Department.

Investigators were reviewing security camera footage that shows the suspects entering the store from a large hole they drilled from the property next door, he said.

“They tunneled through multiple levels of concrete into the target location,” Cuellar said Tuesday.

An unknown number of suspects fled through the same hole and drove off in a late model Chevy truck, he said. The heist wasn’t discovered until store employees arrived for work Monday morning.

Initial estimates are that $10 million worth of merchandise was stolen, Cuellar said, adding that the number could change. The owner told The Associated Press the loss was around $20 million, and that they did not have insurance. No alarms went off and the feed to their in-store security cameras were cut.

At the store on Tuesday, workers covered up the hole in the wall with a metal plate, repaired other damage and cleaned up overturned display cases and discarded boxes. Two large safes were broken into, containing all the merchandise they had in the store.

Customers and friends stopped by to offer sympathy, with some even asking to purchase items.

Love Jewels’ website advertises items like a 14 karat yellow gold rope chain for $1,200, heart-shaped gold earrings for $200 and a gold cross pendant for $550. Videos on the store’s social media shows glass cases filled with rings, watches and necklaces.

Detectives examined the scene for fingerprints and DNA, police said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The Trump administration has taken its next steps toward imposing more tariffs on key imports, launching investigations into imports of computer chips, chip making equipment and pharmaceuticals.

The Department of Commerce posted notices about the probes late Monday on the Federal Register, seeking public comment within three weeks. It had not formally announced them earlier.

Although President Donald Trump paused most of his biggest tariff hikes last week for 90 days, apart from those for imports from China, he has said he still plans tariffs on pharmaceutical drugs, lumber, copper and computer chips.

The Commerce Department said it is investigating how imports of computer chips, equipment to make them and products that contain them — which include many daily necessities such as cars, refrigerators, smart phones and other items — affect national security. Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 permits the president to order tariffs for the sake of national security.

The probe includes assessing the potential for U.S. domestic production of computer chips to meet U.S. demand and the role of foreign manufacturing and assembly, testing and packaging in meeting those needs.

Among other aspects of the entire computer chip supply chain, the government intends to also study the risks of having computer chip production concentrated in other places and the impact on U.S. competitiveness from foreign government subsidies, “foreign unfair trade practices and state-sponsored overcapacity.”

After Trump said electronics would not be included in what his administration calls “reciprocal” tariffs of up to 50% on some nations, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick explained in an interview on ABC News that pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and autos will be handled with “sector specific” tariffs.

“And those are not available for negotiation,” Lutnick said. “They are just going to be part of making sure we reshore the core national security items that need to be made in this country. We need to make medicine in this country,” he said. “We need to make semiconductors.”

The investigation into pharmaceutical imports includes ingredients used to make such drugs and touches on many of the same aspects of relying on imports to make them.

Asked about his plans for more tariffs on pharmaceuticals, Trump said Monday, “Yeah, we’re going to be doing that.”

He said it would be in the “not too distant future.”

“We’re doing it because we want to make our own drugs,” he said.

More than 70% of the materials, or active pharmaceutical ingredients, used to make medicines made in the United States are produced in other countries, with India, the European Union and China leading suppliers. The U.S. produces about a fifth of all pharmaceuticals made worldwide, but consumes about 45%, far more than any other country.

The U.S. also is a major producer of semiconductors, but only in some areas. It relies heavily on imports from Taiwan and South Korea for certain kinds of advanced chips. In particular, Taiwan dominates advanced logic chip production at 92% of all fabrication capacity according to the International Trade Administration, with South Korea making 8%.

Products like laptops, smartphones and the components needed to make them accounted for nearly $174 billion in U.S. imports from China last year. The administration’s plans suggest that such electronics will still be taxed by previous (non-“reciprocal”) tariffs — and potentially under additional, sector-specific levies.

Although major computer chip makers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. are investing heavily in U.S. manufacturing facilities, partly due to incentives put in place during former President Joe Biden’s time in office, the costly process of changing entire supply chains would take years.

Separately, the Commerce Department said Monday that it was withdrawing from a 2019 agreement that had suspended an antidumping investigation into imports of fresh tomatoes from Mexico, effective in 90 days. It said the current arrangement failed to protect U.S. growers from “unfairly priced” imports of tomatoes. Most tomatoes from Mexico will be subject to a 20.91% tariff, it said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

• Coffee chain Starbucks will provide two branded black shirts to all its workers for free, in hopes of making their iconic green aprons stand out. They’re also going to make the chairs comfier to persuade customers to stay longer. Starbucks’ stock price has declined, however, on fears that it will be negatively affected by tariffs on imported coffee beans.

Starbucks is continuing its push to refresh its brand by introducing a streamlined dress code across its North American stores.

The coffee chain will require baristas to wear solid black tops, it announced Monday, and it will provide two branded black shirts to workers for free. Baristas will also be required to don khaki, black, or blue denim pants. The new dress code will go into effect on May 12.

The more neutral clothing palette will help emphasize the chain’s iconic green apron, Starbucks said in the announcement, a fixture of the company’s brand since 1987.

Since CEO Brian Niccol began his tenure last September, the coffee giant has made several changes to its menu and store culture in order to get “back to Starbucks,” a vow Niccol made in his first letter to the company. Those changes have included handwriting names on customers’ cups, using comfier chairs to encourage patrons to enjoy their lattes in stores (rather than taking them out), and cutting back on custom menu items that have jammed online ordering.

Starbucks has endured a challenging year. Its share price has tumbled nearly 9% year-to-date and more than 14.5% over the past two weeks as Wall Street reacted to President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs. The U.S., in common with most other countries, imports most of its coffee—which might mean higher prices for morning joe.

Early positive signs

Despite broader economic uncertainty complicating Starbucks’ comeback, Niccol’s changes appear to have been swiftly implemented, giving analysts optimism that his reforms will have the intended effects.

Bernstein equity analyst Danilo Gargiulo visited locations of the chain in Los Angeles and San Diego shortly after it reintroduced ceramic mugs and restricted its bathrooms to paying customers only. He told Fortune in January that the changes were swift in the albeit limited stores he visited and that customers appeared more relaxed and willing to stick around longer.

Not everyone is on board with the adjustments. Some baristas are less-than-enthusiastic about custom doodles and notes on Starbucks cups, claiming it slows down the flow of fulfilling orders. Others said they worried customers mistook their notes as flirting.

Starbucks did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

The new, consumer-friendly ethos may yet pay off. Niccol vowed to freeze prices through fiscal 2025, a strategy Gargiulo believes will run counter to that of other coffee brands who need to pass down costs to consumers as a result of tariff-induced coffee bean price hikes.

“Even though we might be seeing a contraction in the near term, from worse than expected demand overall,” Gargiulo told Fortune earlier this month, “they could be emerging stronger.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Like many in the tech industry, Jeremy Lyons used to think of himself as a relatively apolitical guy.

The only time he had participated in a demonstration before now was in the opening days of Donald Trump’s first presidential term, when he joined fellow Google workers walking out of the company’s Silicon Valley campus to protest immigration restrictions. Google’s co-founder and its chief executive officer joined them.

Last weekend was Lyons’ second, also against Trump, but it had a very different feel.

The man directing thousands of marchers with a bullhorn in downtown San Jose on April 5 was another tech worker who would not give his full name for fear of being identified by Trump backers. Marchers were urged not to harass drivers of Tesla vehicles, which have gone from a symbol of Silicon Valley’s environmental futurism to a pro-Trump icon. And no tech executives were anywhere to be seen, only months after several had joined Trump at his January inauguration.

To Lyons, 54, the change says as much about what’s happened to Silicon Valley over the past quarter-century as it does about the atmosphere of fear surrounding many Trump critics nowadays.

“One of the things I’ve seen over that time is a shift from a nerdy utopia to a money first, move fast and break things,” Lyons said.

Political gap seen between tech leaders and their workforce

The tech industry’s political allegiances remain divided. But as some in the upper echelons of Silicon Valley began shifting to the right politically, many of the tech industry’s everyday workers have remained liberal — but also increasingly nervous and disillusioned. Their mood is in stark contrast to the prominent tech leaders who have embraced a conservative populist ideology.

“I think you’re seeing a real gap between the leadership elite here in Silicon Valley and their workforce,” said Ann Skeet, senior director of leadership ethics at an ethics institute at Santa Clara University and a longtime observer of the industry.

“The shift hasn’t been for a lot of people,” said Lenny Siegel, a former mayor of Mountain View and longtime liberal activist in the valley. “It’s a handful of people who’ve gotten the attention.”

The biggest example of that is Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and CEO of the world’s best-known electric car company who has taken on a prominent role slashing federal agencies in Trump’s administration. Musk has been joined by several tech billionaires, including investor David Sacks, who helped fundraise for Trump’s campaign and became the White House’s artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar, and venture capitalist Marc Andreesen. Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also attended Trump’s inauguration in Washington.

Zuckerberg began praising Trump after the then-candidate, angered over money Zuckerberg steered toward local election offices in some states in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, threatened last summer to imprison him. Zuckerberg also donated $1 million to the president’s inauguration fund and co-hosted an inauguration reception for billionaire Republican donors.

Trump has filled a number of his administration’s posts with billionaires and his support from wealthy tech leaders led Democratic President Joe Biden to warn that the United States risked becoming an oligarchy ruled by elites. During Trump’s first term, the valley and its leaders were a bulwark of resistance to the Republican, especially over immigration, given that the industry draws its workforce from around the globe.

It’s against that backdrop that thousands of people attended the recent rally at a downtown San Jose park to protest the actions of Trump and Musk.

Even as tech industry has changed, Silicon Valley has leaned Democratic

Santa Clara County, which comprises most of Silicon Valley, swung 8 percentage points toward Trump in November election against Democrat Kamala Harris, matching the shift across California. Even with that swing, the county voted 68% to 28% for the then-vice president and remains a Democratic stronghold.

“We’re still in the belly of the beast,” said Dave Johnson, the new executive director of the Santa Clara GOP, who said the party has gained some new members in the county but few from the tech industry. “If the lake was frozen, there’s a little glimmer on top. I would not say there are cracks in the ice.”

The valley has long leaned Democratic, but with an unusual political mix: a general dislike of getting too involved in Washington’s business coupled with an at-times contradictory mix of libertarian individualism, Bay Area activism and belief in the ability of science to solve the world’s problems.

That has persisted even as the tech industry has changed.

The tech boom was fueled by scrappy startups that catered to their workers’ dreams of changing the world for the better. Google’s motto was “don’t be evil,” a phrase it removed from its code of conduct by 2018, when it and other companies such as Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, had grown into multinational behemoths. The companies have had layoffs in recent years, a shock to an industry that not long ago seemed poised for unlimited growth.

Entrepreneurs once dreamed of building startups that would change the world, said Jan English-Lueck, a San Jose State University professor who has been studying Silicon Valley culture for more than 20 years.

“Now,” she said, “if you’re part of a startup, you’re hoping you’ll be absorbed in a way that’s profitable.”

Discontent among some in the tech industry about where it’s headed

Even before some prominent tech leaders shifted toward Trump, there was mounting discontent among some in the industry over its direction. IdaRose Sylvester runs a business promoting a Silicon Valley-style approach to entrepreneurs in other countries.

“I feel sick to my stomach now,” she said.

Sylvester was already disenchanted with the growing inequality in the valley and the environmental cost of all the energy needed to power crypto, AI and data centers. She took part in protests against Trump in 2017, but felt that energy fade once he lost the 2020 election to Biden.

“I saw a lot of people get out of politics once Biden won. There was a feeling it was all OK,” Sylvester said. “It was not all OK.”

It is worse now, she said. She helped organize one of several demonstrations across the valley last weekend during a national day of protests against the new administration.

At first glance, the one in downtown San Jose could have been a typical anti-Trump protest anywhere. A large crowd of largely middle-age and older people carried signs against the president and Musk while chanting against oligarchs.

But it was clearly a Silicon Valley crowd, one still reeling not only from Trump’s challenges to the country’s system of checks and balances but also from the actions of the valley’s top executives.

“The money is all shifting to the wealthiest, and that terrifies me,” said Dianne Wood, who works at a startup. “Unfortunately, you’ve got the Zuckerbergs and Elon Musks of the world who are taking that over.”

“Just coming here, everyone’s saying turn off the facial recognition on your phone,” Wood added. “We’re all scared.”

Kamal Ali, who works in AI, said he felt betrayed by that shift.

“The trust is broken. A lot of employees are very upset by what’s going on,” he said. “It’s going to be different forever.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The Trump administration is doubling down on its decision not to tell a federal court whether it has any plans to repatriate a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported last month and remains confined in a notorious prison in El Salvador, despite a Supreme Court ruling and lower court order that the man should be returned to the United States. The U.S. district court judge handling the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia now is weighing whether to grant a request from the man’s legal team to compel the government to explain why it should not be held in contempt. Any move toward a contempt finding would represent an extraordinary turn in the Trump administration’s assertion of presidential authority, both generally and specifically over immigration policy.

The government’s latest daily status update, filed Sunday as required by Judge Paula Xinis, states essentially that the Trump administration has nothing to add beyond its Saturday statement that, for the first time, confirmed that Abrego Garcia, 29, was alive and remained in an El Salvador prison under the control of that country’s government. That means for the second consecutive day, the administration has not addressed Xinis’ demands that the administration detail what steps it was taking to return Abrego Garcia to the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last Thursday that the Trump administration must bring him back. Xinis followed that with an order Friday requiring the administration to disclose Abrego Garcia’s “current physical location and custodial status” and “what steps, if any, Defendants have taken (and) will take, and when, to facilitate” his return.

The Trump administration has asserted that Abrego Garcia, who lived in the U.S. for about 14 years before being deported, is a member of the MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia has disputed that claim, and he has never been charged with any crime related to such activity. The Trump administration has called his deportation a mistake but also has argued, essentially, that its conclusion about Abrego Garcia’s affiliation makes him ineligible for protection from the courts.

Abrego Garcia’s location was first confirmed to the court by Michael G. Kozak, who identified himself in the Saturday filing as a “Senior Bureau Official” in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. Sunday’s status update was signed by Evan C. Katz, who was identified in the filing as assistant director of Enforcement and Removal Operations for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency within the Department of Homeland Security.

Separately, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have asked Xinis to issue an order compelling the government to explain to the court why it should not be held in contempt for failing to comply fully with previous orders. As of early Sunday evening, Xinis had not filed such an order.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers also have asked Xinis to order the government, among other things, to produce documents and contracts that detail the U.S. agreement with El Salvador to house people deported from the U.S. or, in absence of such records, to require that government officials testify in court about the arrangement.

Xinis expressed frustration Friday during a hearing in her Maryland courtroom when a U.S. government attorney struggled to provide any information about Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts.

“Where is he and under whose authority?” the judge asked during the hearing. “I’m not asking for state secrets. All I know is that he’s not here. The government was prohibited from sending him to El Salvador, and now I’m asking a very simple question: Where is he?”

The judge repeatedly asked a government attorney about what has been done to return Abrego Garcia, asking pointedly: “Have they done anything?”

Drew Ensign, a deputy assistant attorney general, told Xinis that he had no personal knowledge about any actions or plans to return Abrego Garcia. But he told the judge the government was “actively considering what could be done” and said that Abrego Garcia’s case involved three Cabinet agencies and significant coordination.

Kozak’s statement a day later stated: “It is my understanding based on official reporting from our Embassy in San Salvador that Abrego Garcia is currently being held in the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador. He is alive and secure in that facility. He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.”

The Justice Department has not responded to an Associated Press request for comment.

During his time in the U.S., Abrego Garcia worked construction, got married and was raising three children with disabilities, according to court records.

A U.S. immigration judge initially shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador because he likely faced persecution there by local gangs that terrorized his family. The Trump administration deported him there last month anyway, before describing the mistake as “an administrative error” but standing by its claims that he was in MS-13.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

A private plane that crashed in upstate New York over the weekend was carrying six members of a close-knit family of physicians and distinguished student-athletes on a trip to the Catskills for a birthday celebration and the Passover holiday.

The twin-engine Mitsubishi MU-2B went down shortly after noon Saturday in a muddy field in Copake, New York, near the Massachusetts line, killing everyone on board, according to authorities and a family member who spoke to The Associated Press.

Shortly before the crash, the pilot had radioed air traffic control at Columbia County Airport to say he had missed the initial approach and requested a new approach plan, officials with the National Transportation Safety Board said at a Sunday briefing. While preparing the new coordinates, air traffic controllers attempted to relay a low altitude alert three times, with no response from the pilot and no distress call, officials said.

Investigators obtained video of the final seconds of the flight, which “appears to show that the aircraft was intact and crashed at a high rate of descent into the ground,” NTSB official Todd Inman told reporters.

Among the victims were Karenna Groff, a former MIT soccer player named the 2022 NCAA woman of the year; her father, a neuroscientist, Dr. Michael Groff; her mother, Dr. Joy Saini, a urogynecologist; her brother, Jared Groff, a 2022 graduate of Swarthmore College who worked as a paralegal; Alexia Couyutas Duarte, Jared Groff’s partner who also graduated Swarthmore and planned to attend Harvard Law School this fall; and Karenna Groff’s boyfriend, James Santoro, another recent MIT graduate, according to a family statement Sunday.

“They were a wonderful family,” James’ father, John Santoro, told AP. “The world lost a lot of very good people who were going to do a lot of good for the world if they had the opportunity. We’re all personally devastated.”

Santoro said his son first met Karenna Groff as a freshman studying at MIT. Groff, who grew up in Weston, Massachusetts, was an All-American soccer player studying biomedical engineering. Santoro, a math major from New Jersey, played lacrosse for the school.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Karenna Groff co-founded openPPE, helping to create a new design of masks for essential workers. In 2023, she received the prestigious NCAA woman of the year award for the previous year for her on- and off-field accomplishments.

“Really, this recognition is a testament to my MIT women’s soccer family and all of the guidance, support, and friendship they have provided for me over the years,” she said in an interview at the time.

After graduating, Santoro and Groff moved to Manhattan, where Groff enrolled in medical school at New York University and Santoro worked as an investment associate for Silver Point, a hedge fund based in Greenwich, Connecticut.

India-born Saini was an accomplished pelvic surgeon and the founder of Boston Pelvic Health and Wellness, according to the family statement. She trained in medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, where she met Michael Groff, who became a distinguished neurosurgeon and experienced pilot, the statement said.

On Saturday morning, they all headed to Westchester County Airport in White Plains, a suburb of New York City, where they boarded Michael Groff’s private plane, according to John Santoro.

They were set to land at Columbia County Airport but crashed roughly 10 miles (16 kilometers) to the south. The plane was “compressed, buckled and embedded in the terrain” of a muddy agricultural field, Inman said.

The pilot was flying under instrument flight rules, rather than visual flight rules, but it was too soon to determine if reduced visibility from weather conditions were a factor, he said.

The plane had been sold a year ago and had an upgraded cockpit with newer technology that was certified to Federal Aviation Administration standards, according to the NTSB.

Investigators expect to be at the crash site for about a week and a full accident report could take between 12 and 24 months to complete, Inman said.

Funeral arrangements were underway, Santoro said.

“The 25 years we had with James were the best years of our lives,” he added, “and the joy and love he brought us will be enough to last a lifetime.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com