El Salvador refused to return a U.S. deportee

At a White House meeting with President Trump, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said yesterday that he would not return a man who was wrongly deported from the U.S. and sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

“Of course I’m not going to do it,” Bukele said when reporters asked if he was willing to help return the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. The deportation case is at the heart of a legal battle that has gone to the Supreme Court. Here’s what else to know.

Bukele said that returning Abrego Garcia would be like smuggling “a terrorist into the United States.” As the Salvadoran president spoke in the Oval Office, Trump smiled in approval.

Background: The Trump administration has said that the deportation was an “administrative error,” and has been ordered by the Supreme Court to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return. But Trump has defied the order.

Quotable: “This meeting is one of the starkest examples of a foreign leader fawning over and placating Trump during a visit to the Oval Office,” said Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House reporter for The Times.

More on the trade war

Zuckerberg took the stand in landmark Meta antitrust trial

Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, took the witness stand yesterday on the first day of a landmark antitrust trial that could dismantle his company.

The U.S. government has accused Meta of illegally creating a monopoly by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp when they were tiny start-ups. The trial poses the most consequential threat yet to Zuckerberg’s business empire.

In a packed courthouse in Washington, federal lawyers presented Zuckerberg with emails and internal communications about his acquisition strategy. In response to a 2012 email, in which he discussed keeping Instagram going without adding more features, Zuckerberg said he viewed that as “relatively early thinking.” He added that, in practice, “we ended up investing a ton” after acquiring the platform.

What’s next: Zuckerberg is expected to resume testimony today. During the eight-week trial, the government and Meta are expected to tell competing versions of Meta’s 20-year growth story. If the judge rules against Meta, Zuckerberg may be forced to sell Instagram and WhatsApp, potentially altering a long pattern in Silicon Valley of Big Tech companies snapping up younger rivals.

China’s leader courted Vietnam amid the trade war

President Xi Jinping of China arrived in Vietnam yesterday at the start of a tour of Southeast Asia. The Chinese leader will try to rally other nations to Beijing’s side, as U.S. tariffs threaten economic growth.

In an essay published just before his arrival, Xi called on other countries to join China in defending stability, free trade and “an open and cooperative international environment.”

While the Chinese leader will be welcomed during his tour, Vietnam and its neighbors are also trying to appease Trump to get tariffs lowered, which may make them resistant to making bold pro-China pronouncements.

MORE TOP NEWS

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket launched the singer Katy Perry and five other women, including his fiancée, yesterday. Blue Origin pitched the space tourism flight as a way to encourage more women to pursue careers in science.

Amanda Hess, one of our critics at large, writes that the effort may have fallen short. “If the flight proves anything, it is that women are now free to enjoy capitalism’s most decadent spoils alongside the world’s wealthiest men,” she wrote.

Remembering Mario Vargas Llosa

The Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, who died on Sunday at 89, was the last surviving member of the Boom movement of socially conscious Latin American writers that included Gabriel García Márquez and Carlos Fuentes, among others.

He was the world’s savviest and most accomplished political novelist, our book critic Dwight Garner writes. Vargas Llosa’s political novels are morally complex and meticulously observed, but life’s absurdity sneaks into them. Read Dwight’s appreciation here.

A federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the Trump administration on Monday from ending a signature Biden-era program that allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants from four troubled countries to enter the country and work legally.

The administration moved in late March to shut down the program by April 24, which offered migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti temporary legal status in the United States. Judge Indira Talwani, of the Federal District Court in Boston, said the program’s termination put thousands of immigrants at imminent risk of deportation hearings once their legal status expires in less than two weeks.

Judge Talwani blocked the wholesale shutdown of the program. Otherwise, she wrote in her ruling, the migrants would “be forced to choose between two injurious options: continue following the law and leave the country on their own, or await removal proceedings.”

Immigrant advocates hailed the decision as a win for those worried about the imminent stripping of their status.

“This ruling is a victory not just for our clients and those like them, but anyone who cherishes the freedom to welcome,” said Karen Tumlin, the director of the Justice Action Center, an immigrant advocacy group. “Our clients — and our class members — have done everything the government asked of them, and we’re gratified to see that the court will not allow the government to fail to uphold its side of the bargain.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The judge’s decision came as the Trump administration has moved to end legal protections for migrants from many countries, including by shutting down a program granting legal status to Afghan and Cameroonian migrants. A separate effort to revoke Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans in the United States was also blocked by a federal judge.

The Biden-era program allowed more migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti to fly into the United States and stay temporarily with access to work permits if they had a financial sponsor and passed security checks. They were allowed to stay for up to two years.

More than 500,000 migrants entered the country under the program. Biden officials said it was part of an effort to deter migrants from those countries from crossing into the country illegally, and encourage a legal pathway instead.

Trump officials, announcing the move to end the program last month, said the program added to immigration problems in the United States by granting some protections to “a substantial population of aliens in the interior of the United States without a clear path to a durable status.”

The latest warning came 10 days before the deadliest air crash in South Korea.

A dozen officials gathered inside a room at Muan International Airport for a meeting of a bird strike prevention committee, where they discussed the number of aircraft being hit by birds, with data showing a jump in incidents over the past couple of years.

One official, from one of the country’s aviation training institutes, expressed concern that planes coming in to land often encountered flocks of birds by the coastline, according to a record of the meeting obtained by a lawmaker. To what extent is it possible to keep the birds away? the official asked.

The answer wasn’t reassuring. There weren’t enough people and cars deployed at the airport to keep birds away, and sounds from loudspeakers used to broadcast noises to scare birds off weren’t strong enough to reach far enough beyond the airport, said an official from the company that managed the airport’s facilities. He noted that they “were trying their best.”

Then, on Dec. 29, the pilot of Jeju Air Flight 2216 declared “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” and told air traffic controllers there had been a bird strike as the plane was making its descent. After making a sharp turn, the jet landed on its belly, slid down the runway and rammed into a concrete barrier, exploding into a fireball that killed 179 of the 181 people on board.

Investigators have not identified the reasons for the crash and what role, if any, a bird strike might have played. But the country’s transport ministry said bird feathers and blood were found in both of the jet’s engines. The remains were identified as being from the Baikal teal, a migratory duck common to South Korea in winter that often flies in flocks of up to tens or even hundreds of thousands.

The Dec. 19 meeting was not the first warning airport operators had received about birds. The dangers had been flagged for decades, dating back to even before the Muan airport opened in 2007, according to a New York Times examination of thousands of pages of government documents, interviews with dozens of people, and a visit to the wetlands surrounding the airport in the country’s southwest. Environmental assessments in 1998 and 2008 also noted there were many species of birds living close to the airport.

Most starkly, in 2020, when the airport began renovations that would include the extension of its runway, South Korea’s Environmental Impact Assessment service said there was “a high risk of bird strikes during takeoff and landing.” It advised that measures were needed to reduce the risk.

The Korea Airports Corporation said in response to questions from The Times that to prevent bird strikes it had used vehicles and noise makers to disperse flocks of birds and had conducted environmental surveys to monitor the airport’s surrounding habitats. The company said more loudspeakers were installed on airport premises after the meeting on Dec. 19.

But like most smaller airports in South Korea, Muan still lacked thermal imaging cameras and bird detection radar used to alert air traffic controllers and pilots to the presence of birds, according to the government.

Airports everywhere are advised to have such measures in place, according to guidelines from the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency that sets global standards for the aviation industry.

“The regulations are there, but people have been breaking them without any repercussions,” says Dr. Nial Moores, the national director of Birds Korea, a bird conservation group. “They were warned about the risk of a bird strike,” he added. “How come nothing has changed?”

In addition to failing to follow international guidelines, the airport’s operators also breached domestic safety regulations.

On the day of the crash in Muan, only one person was on duty to watch out for birds, instead of a minimum of two that government rules require, according to lawmakers at a parliamentary committee hearing into the disaster.

That bird patroller was at the end of a 15-hour night shift, the period when the vast majority of bird strikes take place, according to a presentation by Moon Geum-joo, a lawmaker, at the committee hearing. Joo Jong-wan, the head of the transport ministry’s aviation policy, conceded that the airport’s patrol was understaffed and said all airports would meet the minimum staffing in the future.

The Korea Airports Corporation said it had adhered to government standards and was hiring more staff to prevent bird collisions. The transport ministry declined to comment.

In addition, at least one person required to attend the meeting of the bird strike prevention committee had missed the one on Dec. 19, an official from the Korea Airports Corporation acknowledged at the parliamentary hearing. The state-owned company operates almost all of South Korea’s airports, including the one in Muan.

“It’s a shame that they have known about their shortcomings for years, but nothing has actually been done to improve,” said Kwon Hyang-Yup, an opposition lawmaker who obtained the bird safety committee report.

While airplane strikes with wildlife are not uncommon, most don’t cause planes to crash. Out of nearly 20,000 wildlife strikes in the United States in 2023, around 4 percent caused damage to the plane.

Since the crash, South Korea’s government has pledged 247 billion won (around $170 million) over three years to improve bird-strike prevention measures at all the country’s airports. Planned measures include installing bird detection devices and implementing a national radar model to alert people in control towers, patrollers on the ground and pilots to the presence of birds.

Some experts ask whether the Muan airport should have been built at all because of the abundance of birds in the wetlands surrounding it. The airport has at least twice reported the highest number of bird strikes out of the country’s 15 airports over the past five years, with six cases in 2024, up from two the previous year.

Its rate of bird strikes was 10 times that of Incheon International Airport, the nation’s largest, according to data released by Ms. Kwon, the lawmaker. Incheon, which also lies close to bird habitats, has identified almost 100 species of birds in its vicinity. It has four thermal imaging cameras, two devices that emit bird-repelling noises, and 48 workers assigned to bird control, according to an airport representative.

Ju Yung-Ki, a researcher and conservationist who has visited the Muan area repeatedly in recent years, was working in his office on Dec. 29 when he learned about the plane crash.

“I had always thought there was a risk of a bird strike there,” said Mr. Ju, the director of the Ecoculture Institute. Mr. Ju had flown in and out of the Muan airport several times, despite his concerns.

After hearing news of the crash, he traveled around 70 miles from his home in Jeonju, northeast of Muan, to a lake near the airport and arrived around 4:30 p.m. He could see the charred tail of the plane and the wreckage at the end of the runway. “It was horrific,” he said, adding that he shed tears thinking about the people who had died.

As that afternoon progressed, he also located flocks of up to 300,000 Baikal teals around 18 miles from the airport. They fly at least that distance to search for food, and he observed with binoculars and a telescope that the airport was in their daily flight path.

The Baikal teal isn’t particularly big, at around 16 inches long with an eight-inch wingspan. But the ducks move in large, agile flocks that can reach as many as a million in number, said Dr. Moores of Birds Korea. They breed in Siberia and arrive on the southwestern coast of South Korea in October and stay through early March.

Muan, almost 200 miles south of Seoul, lies among the marshy grasslands and reservoirs across the southwestern peninsula, where the duck and other species of birds roost in pockets of calm water. Local business owners said that flocks of birds were most often seen at a country club near the airport; around four miles away.

An enforcement regulation attached to South Korea’s Airport Facilities Act in 2017 stipulates that an airport cannot be built within eight kilometers, or about five miles, of a bird sanctuary or game reserve. But, according to the nation’s environment ministry, there is only one such sanctuary in Muan, and that lies about 12 miles from the airport.

Conservationists say the reality is different. They say the term sanctuary — classified as a collective habitat and breeding ground for endangered wildlife — ignores many of the region’s populous bird habitats. A map by the Korean Office of Civil Aviation identifies four areas surrounding the Muan airport where birds feed and roost.

Some of those spots are as close as a little over a mile from the airport. On one morning in February, hundreds of birds flew overhead at around this distance. Larger birds flew in a “V” formation, while smaller ones wove in and out in an aerial dance.

“It’s not a matter of whether the Muan International Airport is near a sanctuary or not,” Mr. Ju said. “The fact is that there are a lot of birds that live there.”

The decision on whether an area is a sanctuary lies with the mayor or governor, according to South Korea’s Wildlife Protection and Management Act. There are around 400 of these protected areas nationwide, according to the Ministry of Environment.

Experts say that no matter how many preventive efforts are undertaken, bird strikes cannot be totally eliminated. “The obvious thing is not to build an airport where there are a lot of birds,” said Keith Mackey, an American aviation expert and safety consultant based in Ocala, Fla.

Other methods that could be deployed to deter birds include using brightly colored paint on the runway and drones to disperse nearby flocks, Mr. Mackey said.

Muan’s airport has been closed since the Dec. 29 crash and will not resume commercial flights until April 18 at the earliest. The airport recently resumed medical and training flights.

South Korea has ambitious plans to build 10 airports over the next few decades in response to booming regional demand for increased overseas travel. Several will also be along the western coastline. One is of particular concern to conservationists: in Saemangeum, about 65 miles north of Muan.

The proposed airport, which is scheduled to open in 2029, lies within four miles of the Seocheon Tidal Flat, a UNESCO Heritage Site that is home to dozens of nationally protected wildlife species including birds, according to Kim Nahee, an activist who is protesting against the construction of the new airport.

Officials in North Jeolla Province, where Saemangeum is, said “there was no infrastructure that would disturb the flight path of birds,” citing an analysis it had received from government environmental agency’s analysis.

“They shouldn’t have built the Muan International Airport where they did,” Ms. Kim said. “This can’t happen again.”

Vice President JD Vance dropped the College Football Playoff national championship trophy during an event on the White House South Lawn on Monday, an ill-timed fumble that he laughed about later after it had spread across social media.

As the ceremony honoring the champion Ohio State Buckeyes came to an end, Mr. Vance — a former senator from Ohio who graduated from Ohio State — tried to lift the trophy, which was on a table onstage.

TreVeyon Henderson, a Buckeyes running back, stepped in to help, grabbing the top of the trophy as Mr. Vance lifted the base. As the men hoisted it off the table, the trophy split in two and Mr. Vance dropped the base, which fell to the ground. Mr. Henderson and another player managed to hold onto the top of the trophy.

According to the College Football Playoff website, the trophy consists of separate components — a 12-inch bronze base, and a 26-and-a-half-inch trophy made from 24-karat gold, bronze and stainless steel.

Together, the pieces weigh 50 pounds, the Ohio State Athletic Department said on social media in January, three days after the Buckeyes defeated Notre Dame to win the title.

After the base fell, some in the crowd gasped, while others laughed or clapped. Mr. Vance joked about the incident on social media.

“I didn’t want anyone after Ohio State to get the trophy so I decided to break it,” Mr. Vance said.

It was hardly the first championship trophy calamity.

In 2006, after the tennis star Maria Sharapova won the U.S. Open, the top of the trophy popped off when she hoisted it above her head. (The announcer Dick Enberg called it her first unforced error of the night.)

In 2011, as the soccer club Real Madrid celebrated its Copa del Rey victory over Barcelona, a player dropped the trophy from the upper level of an open double-decker bus, which ran over the cup and smashed it into pieces.

And two years ago, at a ceremony after the Hungarian Grand Prix, the British racing driver Lando Norris slammed a bottle of sparkling wine on a table onstage, sending the trophy of the race winner, Max Verstappen, tumbling to the ground.