The administration of US President Donald Trump says it is going to pay $1,000 to undocumented immigrants in the United States who return to their home countries voluntarily as it pushes forward with its plans for mass deportations.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a news release on Monday that it’s also paying for travel assistance and people who use an app called CBP Home to tell the government they plan to return home will be “deprioritized” for detention and removal by immigration enforcement.
“If you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest. DHS is now offering illegal aliens financial travel assistance and a stipend to return to their home country through the CBP Home App,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
The stipend and airfare for people who voluntarily depart would cost less than an actual deportation, the agency said. The average cost of arresting, detaining and deporting someone without legal status is currently about $17,000, according to the DHS.
Trump took office in January pledging to deport millions of people but so far has trailed deportations under his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden. Biden’s administration faced high levels of undocumented immigration and quickly returned many people caught crossing the border.
The Trump administration has deported 152,000 people since it took office on January 20, according to the DHS, lower than the 195,000 deported from February to April last year under Biden.
Trump’s administration has tried to encourage migrants and asylum seekers to leave voluntarily by threatening steep fines, trying to strip away legal status, and deporting people to prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and El Salvador.
Trump previewed the stipend plan in April, saying the US would consider allowing migrants and asylum seekers to return.
“If they’re good, if we want them back in, we’re going to work with them to get them back in as quickly as we can,” he said.
Three police officers have been killed and at least four others injured after gunmen opened fire on traffic police in southern Russia’s Republic of Dagestan, according to regional authorities.
The attack took place on Monday in the capital, Makhachkala, when police attempted to stop a car, Dagestan leader Sergei Melikov said.
The shooting began at about 14: 20 local time (11: 20 GMT), the Interior Ministry confirmed.
Two assailants were shot dead at the scene. Local officials identified the men, both born in 2000, but did not say how many others were involved. State media reported that additional attackers fled in a vehicle, prompting a wider manhunt.
Footage circulating on Telegram, verified by the Reuters news agency, showed bodies lying on the road beside a police car. Gunshots could be heard in the background as onlookers gathered at the scene.
At least two other attackers, alongside injured officers and civilians – including a 17-year-old girl – were taken to hospital. One later died, state media reported. Officials have launched a criminal investigation.
Dagestan, a majority-Muslim region bordering the Caspian Sea, has witnessed a number of deadly attacks in recent years.
In March, Russian security forces said they killed four alleged ISIL (ISIS) fighters who were planning to attack a local Interior Ministry office.
The latest violence in Dagestan follows a separate security operation last week, when Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed to have killed a man suspected of planning bombings on the Moscow metro and a Jewish religious site in the capital region.
In June 2024, at least 20 people were killed after armed men attacked a synagogue, churches and police in the Dagestan region.
That attack came three months after at least 133 people were killed in a March 2024 attack on a concert in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall.
While the Afghanistan-based ISIL affiliate in Khorasan Province (ISKP)  , claimed responsibility for the worst attack to hit Russia in years, Moscow at the time claimed without evidence that Ukraine had a played role.
The 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, has called for the release of popular rights activist and social media influencer, Martins Vincent Otse, also known as Verydarkman (VDM).
Otse was reportedly arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on May 2, following some petitions it received against him.
He was said to be in the custody of the EFCC as of the time of filing the report.
His legal representative, Deji Adeyanju, who confirmed Otse’s arrest on X, said a team of policemen “arrested VDM at GTB” along with his friend, C Park.
However, Atiku, in a post on X, said the arrest and continued detention of the social media influencer and “outspoken critic” by the EFCC was “another blatant abuse of power by the Tinubu administration, which has made political repression a hallmark of its rule”.
VDM and some of the protesters
The former vice president said it was more alarming that Otse remained in custody without any formal charges in a “flagrant violation of his constitutional rights”.
This, he said, was a “chilling reminder of the growing authoritarianism under this government”.
Atiku said, “This latest episode is part of a disturbing pattern: the Tinubu regime’s relentless assault on the fundamental freedoms of Nigerians, particularly those who dare to speak truth to power or align with the political opposition.
“We must not allow state-sponsored repression to become the defining character of our democracy.
“While security agencies are quick to target dissenters and critics, often in complete disregard of due process, political loyalists with credible allegations of corruption walk free, trading sycophancy for immunity.”
The PDP chieftain also described the government’s systematic crackdown on opposition voices as disgraceful and an affront to democratic norms that must be fiercely condemned and resisted.
Youths Protest
Scores of youths on Monday took to the streets of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, to protest the arrest of the activist.
READ ALSO: UPDATED: Youths Protest In Abuja, Demand VDM’s Release
The protesters, who marched from the headquarters of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to the premises of a commercial bank where he was reportedly arrested, held placards with inscriptions such as “Release Very Dark Man,” and “Seyi Tinubu, Are You Involved?,” among others.
Jury selection began Monday in New York in the blockbuster federal sex trafficking trial of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who stands accused of years of harrowing abuse.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty on all counts, insisting that any sex acts were consensual — but prosecutors say for years he coerced victims into drug-fueled sex parties using threats and violence.
At a recent hearing, his attorney Marc Agnifilo offered a preview of his team’s defense by describing the artist’s free-wheeling “swinger” lifestyle.
The prosecution said it had offered Combs a plea deal — the specifics were not disclosed — but that he had rejected it.
The high-profile trial attracted a long line of media and other court watchers early Monday hoping to get inside for jury selection, which is expected to wrap up in about a week.
READ ALSO: Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Pleads Not Guilty To New Charges
Opening statements are tentatively scheduled for May 12, and the proceedings will last an estimated eight to 10 weeks.
Combs faces one charge of racketeering conspiracy, the federal statute known by its acronym RICO that was once primarily used to target the mafia but in recent years has been wielded in cases of sexual abuse, including against the fallen R&B star R. Kelly.
It allows government attorneys to project a long view of criminal activity rather than prosecuting isolated sex crimes.
If convicted, the one-time rap producer and global superstar, who is often credited for his role in ushering hip-hop into the mainstream, could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Over the decades, Combs — who has gone by various stage names including Puff Daddy and P. Diddy — amassed enormous wealth for his work in music but also his ventures in the liquor industry.
(FILES) US producer-musician Sean “Diddy” Combs gestures in the press room during the MTV Video Music Awards at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on September 12, 2023. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP)
He was arrested by federal agents in New York in September 2024 and denied bail multiple times.
Combs is being held at Brooklyn’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Center, a facility plagued by complaints of vermin and decay as well as violence.
High-profile inmates there have included Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell and Sam Bankman-Fried, the cryptocurrency entrepreneur convicted of fraud.
Combs has appeared in pre-trial hearings looking remarkably aged, his once jet-black, styled coif now overgrown and gray.
The jury selection start date is notably the first Monday in May — which annually marks New York’s Met Gala, a glittering celebrity charity bash where Combs was once a red carpet mainstay.
Just two years ago, he posed for the cameras at that event uptown — but on Monday, he will be downtown as the panel of citizens tasked with determining his fate face a barrage of questions from lawyers on both sides.
‘Freak-offs’
Core to the case is Combs’s relationship with his former girlfriend, the singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, who is expected to be a key trial witness.
A disturbing surveillance video from 2016, which was aired by CNN last year, shows Combs physically assaulting Ventura at a hotel.
Sean Diddy Combs . (Facebook/Diddy)
Prosecutors say the encounter occurred following one of the “freak-offs” they argue were a feature of his pattern of abuse.
The so-called “freak-offs” were coercive, drug-fueled sexual marathons including sex workers that were sometimes filmed, according to the indictment.
READ ALSO: Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Faces More Charges Ahead Of Criminal Trial
It is unclear how much of the CNN video will be shown to jurors as evidence in court — the footage’s quality has been a sticking point between the opposing legal teams — but Judge Arun Subramanian has ruled that at least some of it will be admissible.
The floodgates opened after Ventura filed a civil suit alleging Combs subjected her to more than a decade of coercion by physical force and drugs as well as a 2018 rape.
That 2023 suit was quickly settled out of court, but a string of similarly lurid sexual assault claims against the Grammy winner from both women and men followed.
‘Perfect storm’
Industry watchers are monitoring Combs’s case as a potential inflection point in the music world which, beyond the case of Kelly, has largely evaded the #MeToo reckoning that has rocked Hollywood.
Caroline Heldman — co-founder of the Sound Off Coalition, which is focused on sexual violence in music — said Combs’s case is a flashpoint of a broader pattern of industry tolerance and cover-up of abuse.
“In the music industry, I think it’s the perfect storm of what celebrity does to people and what power does to people. It gives them an empathy deficit where the rules don’t apply to them,” she said.
When it comes to Combs’s case, she told AFP she’s “optimistic that justice will be served.”
“I hope that this inspires other survivors to come forward.”
BBC Sport journalist at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield
Zhao Xintong is just one frame away from becoming the first player from China to win the World Championship after extending his lead to 17-8 over Mark Williams in the final.
The 28-year-old, who is aiming to become the first amateur to triumph at the Crucible, led 11-6 overnight and was able to take three of the first four frames available on Monday to go 14-7 ahead at the mid-session interval.
And when he compiled a break of 52 to win the next, Zhao looked on course to win his second successive match with a session to spare and would record the biggest winning margin in a world final since Stephen Hendry defeated Jimmy White 18-5 in 1993.
Three-time winner Williams averted that possibility, briefly rallying to ensure the contest would at least extend to Monday evening with a break of 66 to get back to 15-8.
However, the Welshman, 50, who is the oldest ever finalist in Sheffield, was unable to make any further inroads.
His Chinese opponent, who was just three years-old when Williams won his first world crown in 2000, capitalised on a missed red to the left middle with a 66 break and cleared up again after Williams failed to drop in a red to the right corner to move on to the brink of a historic victory.
Zhao, who won the UK Championship in 2021 but then served a 20-month ban for his involvement in a match-fixing scandal which rocked the sport, is hoping to join Terry Griffiths and Shaun Murphy as the only qualifiers to capture snooker’s biggest prize since the tournament’s 1977 move to Sheffield.
He would also earn the £500, 000 top prize and climb to 11th in the world rankings when he returns to the main professional tour next season.
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It’s been a tumultuous few years for the Royal Family – illness, death, and rifts have all taken centre stage in discussions about them for a long time. The biggest of all has been the animosity between Prince Harry and the rest of his family – so we want to know, do you think Harry and the Royal Family will ever heal their rift?
Do you think Harry and the Royal Family will ever heal their rift?(Image: Getty Images)
Since announcing that they would ‘step back from Royal duties’ in 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have made it very clear that a rift between them and the rest of the Royal Family – known as The Firm – has been ever-growing and ever-present.
After making this announcement, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex left the UK and have been making various attempts to create their own brand separate from the rest of the Royals.
Through various interviews, podcast, charitable projects, and most recently Meghan Markle’s lifestyle brand and Netflix show, Harry and Meghan have tried over and over again to make a name for themselves apart from the Royal family, while at times being criticised for still holding onto their royal titles despite stepping back.
Meghan has launched her own lifestyle brand, As Ever(Image: Netflix)
The most recent part of the Harry-Firm rift saga involves Prince Harry’s ongoing court case about the security he expects while in the UK.
This court case involved Prince Harry attempting to reverse the decision to have security downgraded since he stepped back from being an ‘active’ royal. Harry has on many occasions expressed his safety concerns about his family, and has made it clear that this is the reason why he does not travel to the UK with his wife and two children on the occasions he does travel here.
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Last week, the Prince was yet again not granted his request for armed police protection, which is given to his father King Charles and wife Queen Camilla, as well as to Prince William and Kate, Princess of Wales.
Not long after the Court of Appeal gave their judgment that Prince Harry would not be granted taxpayer-funded, armed police protection when visiting the UK, he gave a 30-minute interview with the BBC which reportedly angered many members of his family.
During this interview, Prince Harry described the judgment as ‘devastating’, and said that his father King Charles ‘refuses to speak with him’. He also added that he ‘doesn’t know how much longer’ the King has [to live].
He explained: “Of course, some members of my family will never forgive me for writing a book. Of course, they will never forgive me for lots of things. But you know, I would love reconciliation with my family. I’ve always, there’s no point in continuing to fight anymore.”
The Prince added that ‘it would be nice to reconcile’, because ‘life is precious’.
Meghan Markle showed her support for her husband by posting a family photo just a few hours after Prince Harry’s interview last Friday on her Instagram account. The black and white picture shows Prince Harry and his two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, in the garden of their California home.
After the bombshell interview, Buckingham Palace responded, saying they had ‘repeatedly and meticulously’ examined issues with Prince Harry’s security arrangements.
They said: “All of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion.”
Palace sources say ‘nothing will distract’ King Charles from VE Day celebrations, amid Prince Harry’s bombshell interview(Image: POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
During the BBC interview, Prince Harry told the BBC that he hadn’t asked his father, King Charles, to intervene in the decision, saying he had instead asked him to “step out”.
As for other reactions to the interview, Royal sources have said that as well as the King, Prince William has ‘no incentive’ to speak to Harry, citing ‘a major trust issue’.
