Nearly half of National Weather Service offices have 20% vacancy rates

WASHINGTON (AP) — After Trump administration job cuts, nearly half of National Weather Service forecast offices have 20% vacancy rates — twice that of just a decade ago — as severe weather chugs across the nation’s heartland, according to data obtained by The Associated Press. Detailed vacancy data for all 122 weather field offices show eight offices are missing more than 35% of their staff — including those in Arkansas and Kentucky where tornadoes and torrential rain hit this week — according to statistics crowd-sourced by more than a dozen National Weather Service employees. Experts said vacancy rates of 20% or higher amount to critical understaffing, and 55 of the 122 sites reach that level.

Four space tourists return to Earth after a private flight over the poles

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Four space tourists who orbited the north and south poles returned to Earth on Friday, splashing down in the Pacific to end their privately funded polar tour. Bitcoin investor Chun Wang chartered a SpaceX flight for himself and three others in a Dragon capsule that was outfitted with a domed window that provided 360-degree views of the polar caps and everything in between. Wang declined to say how much he paid for the 3 1/2-day trip. The quartet, who rocketed from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Monday night, returned off the Southern California coast. It was the first human spaceflight to circle the globe above the poles and the first Pacific splashdown for a space crew in 50 years.

Judge: US must return a man mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison

GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to arrange for the return of a Maryland man to the United States after he was mistakenly deported to a notorious El Salvador prison. U.S. immigration officials admitted to erroneously expelling Kilmar Abrego Garcia last month. A 2019 court order barred him from being deported to his native El Salvador, where he faced persecution by local gangs. The White House has argued that he was an MS-13 gang member and shouldn’t be returned. Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have said there is no evidence he was in MS-13. The judge issued the order Friday in response to a request from the attorneys.

Judge moves legal case of international student at Tufts University to Vermont

BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge has moved a case involving at Tufts University doctoral student being held at an immigration facility in Louisiana to Vermont. Thirty-year-old Rumeysa Ozturk, who is from Turkey, was taken into custody as she walked along a street in a Boston suburb on March 25. Justice Department lawyers had argued that Ozturk’s petition was filed in the wrong state, that it should be dismissed and that her case should go before an immigration judge. A judge on Friday moved the case to Vermont, where Ozturk was being held at the time her lawyers filed the petition seeking her release.