The Week Magazine April 4, 2025

For decades, RFE/RL has been a beacon to those fighting oppression. Radio Free Europe first broadcast in shortwave to European nations suffering under communism, while Radio Liberty covered the Soviet Union; later the scope was broadened to other unfree lands, such as Iran and Afghanistan. These U.S.-funded stations don’t spout pro-American propaganda. They provide a forum for brave dissidents to report in their local languages on what is happening in their home countries. One of those dissidents was Vaclav Havel, whose banned anti-communist writings were read over the air in Czech, inspiring his countrymen while he was imprisoned in the 1970s and ’80s. “Truth and love” was Havel’s motto. Under authoritarian rulers who lie, you must tell the truth—and don’t let them persuade you to hate your fellow citizens.…

What happened President Trump this week shrugged off a staggering national security breach in which top administration officials shared secret war plans against Yemen’s Houthi militia on a messaging app—and accidentally looped in a journalist. Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, received an invitation to a group chat on Signal, an encrypted but otherwise unsecured commercial app for cellphones, from someone calling himself “Mike Waltz.” Initially skeptical that the user was really Trump’s national security adviser, Goldberg silently observed a days-long debate on the chat. Users identified as Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other top officials discussed how and when to strike the Houthis to ensure the militants could not sabotage Red Sea shipping. Hegseth shared operational plans for military strikes that were specific enough,…

There’s been no move to investigate from either the FBI or the Department of Justice. But Senate Armed Services Committee chair Roger Wicker has promised action, said Kaia Hubbard in CBSNews.com. The Mississippi Republican asked for an expedited investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general, saying the material shared on Signal “appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature” that it should be classified. Still, Wicker defended Hegseth as a man who “made a mistake” and expressed relief that “no real damage was done.” While the Trump administration still insists “no classified information was shared,” said Alex Gangitano in The Hill, it has again called on Elon Musk to be its troubleshooter. The Tesla billionaire and DOGE co-founder will be asked to lead an investigation into how Goldberg…

What happened The Trump administration ramped up its hard-line immigration strategy this week, scrapping a Biden-era program that let a half-million Latin Americans and Haitians enter the U.S. legally and moving to use federal tax data to identify and deport suspected undocumented migrants. Under the CHNV program, applicants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela were allowed to fly to the U.S. and quickly secure work permits, so long as they passed security screenings and had a financial sponsor. The 532,000 migrants who have used the program since 2022 now have 30 days to self-deport. Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, said the program’s termination was “a return to America First.” CBS News reported that the administration has also quietly paused processing green-card applications from immigrants with refugee or asylum…

■ Trevor A. Chadwick, the mayor of Star, Idaho, and his wife were celebrating their anniversary in the mountains when they discovered a car frozen in a creek. It had run out of gas the previous day, and its owner survived on chips, huddled in the vehicle. Chadwick and his wife gave him 5 gallons of gas, fed him, and after four hours managed to pry the car loose with a jack and tow cables. “I always stop and help when I see someone in distress,” Chadwick wrote on Facebook. “This is the Idaho way.” ■ Dachshunds are no strangers in medieval Regensburg in Bavaria, Germany—the town’s Dackelmuseum celebrates the pooches with more than 4,500 pieces of memorabilia. But in March the pups earned another honor: the Guinness World…

The harrowing question of what happens if a president defies a federal court order “has hung over the United States since President Trump’s second term began,” said Ian Millhiser in Vox, and “now that long-awaited crisis may be upon us.” On March 15, federal Judge James Boasberg issued an injunction halting the deportation of two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador. Told the planes were already “in the air,” Boasberg verbally ordered the administration to return the deportees to U.S. soil. But “the planes kept flying,” said Adam Liptak in The New York Times. Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed the government hadn’t defied a judicial order, saying the administration followed Boasberg’s written order, which didn’t mention the planes. That was all too legalistic for Trump, who…