International
Biden’s inner circle, key in the political future of the Democrats
In the midst of the political crisis unleashed by the poor performance of President Joe Biden in last week’s presidential debate, Washington’s attention is focused on the president’s inner circle, which can push the president to withdraw or an uncertain recovery towards electoral victory.
A handful of advisers and relatives are the people who have the most access to the president and to whom the 81-year-old president truly listens, according to US media.
The president’s wife, one of his sisters and his son are the members of the Biden family on whom the Democrat relies the most. The first lady, according to sources consulted by EFE, has reinforced her role as an “anchor” of the president, encouring him to continue his re-election campaign despite criticism for his performance in the debate.
Despite the voices of the Democratic Party and the media asking her to retire, Jill is “fully convinced” that her husband can beat Trump and, in fact, if she couldn’t, she would be the first to tell her, sources close to the campaign told EFE.
According to Jill herself at a fundraising event the day after the debate, Biden approached him after concluding the meeting with Trump to confess that “he didn’t feel well,” to which she replied she replied “we are not going to allow 90 minutes to define the four years in which you have been president.”
The president’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, is the one who has led most of his campaigns since he began his political career in 1970 until he decided to run for president in 2020.
On a personal level, she supported Biden when his wife and daughter died in a car accident in 1972, helping him raise his children.
According to the Political portal, Valerie has also defended her brother’s permanence in the presidential race, but has expressed concern about the impact it could have on her brother’s health and his legacy.
For his part, his son Hunter, a controversial figure over the trials against him for illegal possession of weapons and his fight for drug addiction, has redoubled his presence in the president’s life since the presidential debate.
Biden’s son has been present even at White House meetings, and along with Jill, he fervently supports his father’s decision to stay in the presidential race.
The president’s main political adviser and one of his closest allies. He was part of his team in Biden’s campaign for the Senate in 1972 and, since then, he has become a key piece in the Democratic environment.
Kaufman, 85, replaced Biden in his Senate post with the state of Delaware when the president assumed the position of vice president in 2008.
Biden’s sister, Valerie, describes it in her autobiographical book as the president’s “compass”: “Joe has said for a long time that Ted Kaufman is the wisest man he knows.”
He was chief of staff of the White House until February 2023 and currently works as legal director of the technology company Airbnb.
He has known Biden since the Democrat was in the Senate and was part of his first presidential campaign in 1987. He has an extensive career as an advisor to figures of the “blue” party, he worked as a counselor for Al Gore in 2000 and also for Hilary Clinton’s campaign in 2015.
She was one of the people, along with the current presidential counselor Anita Dunn and political strategist Mike Donilon, who helped prepare Biden for the debate.
He is a lawyer and one of Biden’s closest political advisors and strategists. He has worked for the president since 1982, when he was in the Senate, going through the position of number 2 in the Obama administration and during the 2020 presidential campaign.
He is one of the people in charge of the president’s public speeches and deveived the political message of the first race against Trump, focused on the defense of democracy.
According to The New York Times, almost “all” the important decisions of the White House go through Donilon’s filter and together with Dunn and Kaufam, he prepared the president for days in his residence in Camp David for the debate.
International
Thousands rally nationwide against Trump’s threat to U.S. democracy
Thousands of protesters gathered on Saturday (April 19, 2025) in major cities like New York and Washington, as well as in small communities across the United States, in a second wave of demonstrations against President Donald Trump. The crowds denounced what they view as growing threats to the country’s democratic ideals.
In New York City, demonstrators of all ages rallied in front of the Public Library near Trump Tower, holding signs accusing the president of undermining democratic institutions and judicial independence.
Many protesters also criticized Trump’s hardline immigration policies, including mass deportations and raids targeting undocumented migrants.
“Democracy is in grave danger,” said Kathy Valyi, 73, the daughter of Holocaust survivors. She told AFP that the stories her parents shared about Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1930s Germany “are happening here now.”
In Washington, demonstrators voiced concern over what they see as Trump’s disregard for long-standing constitutional norms, such as the right to due process.
International
ACLU seeks emergency court order to stop venezuelan deportations under Wartime Law
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Friday asked two federal judges to block the U.S. government under President Donald Trump from deporting any Venezuelan nationals detained in North Texas under a rarely used 18th-century wartime law, arguing that immigration officials appear to be moving forward with deportations despite Supreme Court-imposed limitations.
The ACLU has already filed lawsuits to stop the deportation of two Venezuelan men held at the Bluebonnet Detention Center, challenging the application of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The organization is now seeking a broader court order that would prevent the deportation of any immigrant in the region under that law.
In an emergency filing early Friday, the ACLU warned that immigration authorities were accusing other Venezuelan detainees of being members of the Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal gang. These accusations, the ACLU argues, are being used to justify deportations under the wartime statute.
The Alien Enemies Act has only been invoked three times in U.S. history — most notably during World War II to detain Japanese-American civilians in internment camps. The Trump administration has claimed the law allows them to swiftly remove individuals identified as gang members, regardless of their immigration status.
The ACLU, together with Democracy Forward, filed legal actions aiming to suspend all deportations carried out under the law. Although the U.S. Supreme Court recently allowed deportations to resume, it unanimously ruled that they could only proceed if detainees are given a chance to present their cases in court and are granted “a reasonable amount of time” to challenge their pending removal.
International
Dominican ‘False Hero’ Arrested for Faking Role in Nightclub Collapse That Killed 231
A man identified as Rafael Rosario Mota falsely claimed to have rescued 12 people from the collapse of the Jet Set nightclub in Santo Domingo—a tragedy that left 231 people dead—but he was never at the scene.
Intelligence agents in the Dominican Republic arrested the 32-year-old man for pretending to be a hero who saved lives during the catastrophic incident, authorities announced.
Rosario Mota had been charging for media interviews in which he falsely claimed to have pulled survivors from the rubble after the nightclub’s roof collapsed in the early hours of April 8, during a concert by merengue singer Rubby Pérez, who was among those killed.
“He was never at the scene of the tragedy,” the police stated. The arrest took place just after he finished another interview on a digital platform, where he repeated his fabricated story in exchange for money as part of a “media tour” filled with manipulated information and invented testimonies.
“False hero!” read a message shared on the police force’s Instagram account alongside a short video of the suspect, in which he apologized: “I did it because I was paid. I ask forgiveness from the public and the authorities.”
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