Trump lawyers are ‘playing dumb’ on order to bring Abrego Garcia home, Maryland AG says

BALTIMORE — Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said attorneys under President Donald Trump are “playing dumb” regarding the U.S. Supreme Court ruling to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

“The pressure needs to continue to be on the administration to, in fact, facilitate — as is the meaning of ‘facilitate’ in the Webster’s Dictionary — to get Mr. Abrego Garcia home,” Brown, who would not go into detail about the specifics of the case, said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun.

Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father of two who was given legal standing to live and work in the United States, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on March 12. Days later, he was confirmed held at CECOT, or the Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum security prison in El Salvador.

The Trump administration has since said he was deported because of an “administrative error.” Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered officials to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return. He is still being held in detention in El Salvador, though he was moved to a different prison than CECOT.

—The Baltimore Sun

After years of negotiations, Illinois lawmakers consider measures to phase out plastic bags, foam food containers

CHICAGO — After more than a decade of negotiations and failed efforts to reduce the use of plastics, Illinois lawmakers are considering legislation that would prohibit large retailers from offering single-use plastic bags and ban the use of most polystyrene containers in the state over the next four to five years.

Advocates, citing the threat of rising plastic waste to human and environmental health, say the timing for the bills is ripe given rising health concerns about microplastics and the passage of similar legislation in states like New Jersey and California. Retailers also support the measures, calling the requirements balanced and flexible, according to a statement from the Illinois Retail Merchants Association.

But at the same time, President Donald Trump’s administration is moving in an opposite direction, with Trump declaring America is going “back to plastic” by reversing federal restrictions on plastic drinking straws and dismantling departments that regulate plastic pollution.

In addition, some labor unions, including the Illinois Pipe Trades Association and AFL-CIO, oppose the move to do away with foam food containers. Manufacturers have expressed concerns the measures could lead to thousands of layoffs if the facilities that make the banned products are forced to shut down as their in-state customer base disappears.

—Chicago Tribune

Monster quake could sink swath of California, dramatically heightening flood risk, study says

LOS ANGELES — A long-feared monster earthquake off California, Oregon and Washington could cause some coastal areas to sink by more than 6 feet, dramatically heightening the risk of flooding and radically reshaping the region with little to no warning.

Those are the findings of a new study that examined the repercussions of a massive earthquake on the Cascadia subduction zone, which stretches from Northern California up to Canada's Vancouver Island.

The study, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that in an earthquake scenario with the highest level of subsidence, or land sink, the area at risk of flooding would expand by 116 square miles, a swath that's 2½ times the size of San Francisco.

Such a scenario would more than double "the flooding exposure of residents, structures and roads," and officials would need to contend with a future of "compromised roadways and bridges," as well as lifelines and infrastructure that are either more frequently flooded or permanently inundated, the study's authors wrote.

—Los Angeles Times

Ukrainian journalist was tortured in Russia, body returned with organs missing

Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna was tortured during the time she spent in Russian detention, and several of her organs, including her brain, were removed before her body was returned, according to a joint media investigation.

Roshchyna was captured in August 2023 while reporting from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region in eastern Ukraine. The last journalist willing to risk crossing the frontline, Roshchyna, at the time, was working to expose Russia’s brutal detention system, including the illegal captivity and torture of Ukrainians, according to the joint media report published by the nonprofit media organization Forbidden Stories and 12 news outlets.

For more than a year, the journalist was held without charge or legal representation, and Russia’s Defense Ministry only confirmed her arrest in a letter to her parents in April 2024.

In October, Ukraine’s Prisoners of War Coordination Headquarters announced Roshchyna’s death, citing a message from Russia’s Defense Ministry to her father. It said she died on Sept. 19. at the age of 27.

—New York Daily News