Desi Weekly News Digest 

NATIONAL

Pope Leo XIV: First American Pontiff Sparks Cultural Buzz:  Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Prevost in Chicago, has become the first American to lead the Catholic Church. His Creole heritage and upbringing in the U.S. have ignited cultural pride and discussions about his potential influence on global Catholicism and American society. NPR

Federal Judge Blocks Trump Administration's Sweeping Government Overhaul: A federal judge in California has temporarily halted the Trump administration's extensive plan to downsize the federal workforce. The ruling affects over a dozen agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs and AmeriCorps, and comes amid growing legal challenges to the administration's restructuring efforts. AP

CORRUPTION ALERT

Get Starlink, Lose Tariffs!: The Trump administration is pushing nations facing steep tariffs to adopt Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system, reports Washington Post. THE INDEPENDENT

No-bid Contract Awarded after Hasty Layoffs: After firing much of its staff, the Office of Personal Management, under Elon Musk’s effective control since late January, has handed out a no bid contract to cloud-AI-based HR company Workday to help handle the mountain of terminations, retirements and layoffs built up over the first three months of the Trump administration. MSN

DESI NEWS

India and Pakistan Sign Ceasefire Agreement: After 4 days of tense cross-border activity, the two nuclear-armed countries signed a ceasefire with a view to begin talks on May 12. Although US President Donald Trump was the first to announce the ceasefire and claimed credit for it, India and Pakistan have offered contradictory accounts about the extent of US involvement in the agreement. CNN

HEALTH

EPA Rule To Contain Air Pollutants Overturned in the Senate: The Senate on Thursday approved an effort to overturn an Environmental Protection Agency rule tied to the Clean Air Act and designed to limit seven of the most hazardous air pollutants that are emitted by heavy industry. CBS

JUST THE HEADLINES

Another F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet from the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier has been lost in the Red Sea, the second jet lost from the carrier in just over a week. CNN

The area where Elon Musk's SpaceX company operates on the southern tip of Texas is to officially become a city called Starbase. BBC

Students from India are fearful of their visas being revoked. WP

The government under President Donald Trump is bending the arc of US history in a new direction, away from the civil rights focus of the past 60 plus years. CNN

Radar outages at Newark NJ airport have caused delays and worry over the last 2 weeks. ABC

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