By Priscilla Alvarez, Michael Williams, CNN

(CNN) — On a recent April morning, Stephen Miller led a multiagency call with a question: Why were countries not accepting more deportees from the United States?

In the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, the architect of his immigration agenda had overseen a deportation machine that according to the Department of Homeland Security has expelled more than 675,000 undocumented immigrants from the country.

That is short of the administration’s goal of a million deportations a year, though Homeland Security officials argue that hundreds of thousands of others have voluntarily left the country.

So, in an effort to circumvent some countries that declined to accept back their citizens, the administration devised a plan to enter into agreements with other countries to accept deportees regardless of whether they were from those countries, or even spoke the language.

Yet even as around two dozen countries — spanning from Africa and Central Asia to Latin America — continued entering into agreements or memorandums of understanding to accept deportees from the US, that plan has accounted for only a tiny fraction of deportations.

The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, estimated that 15,000 people have been deported to third countries —13,000 of whom were sent to Mexico—between January and December 2025. The agreements for each country vary, with some offering more detail than others, including parameters on who will be accepted.

“The Trump Administration is using all the tools in our toolbox to carry out the largest, lawful deportation operation of criminal illegal aliens in history,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told CNN in a statement. The State Department similarly said in a statement that “implementing the Trump Administration’s immigration policies is a top priority for the Department of State.”

The only country that has accepted a significant number of deported migrants from other countries is Mexico, and that is through an arrangement that began during President Joe Biden’s administration. Some countries entered agreements, but it is not publicly known whether they have accepted any migrants.

Miller appeared frustrated on the call and directed his ire to State Department officials, according to two US officials. Despite striking all these arrangements with far-flung countries to accept migrants from the United States, the removal of immigrants to those countries appeared to have stalled — or to have never actually begun.

His message to the officials was clear: If they couldn’t get countries to move faster and accept more people, he would get involved.

“He’s at his wit’s end about it,” one of the US officials said.

A White House official told CNN there have been no internal complaints about the pace of the program but instead conversations about working with additional countries on third-country removal agreements, arguing that such arrangements have allowed the US to remove immigrants with criminal histories whose origin countries won’t accept them.

A different vision

The intense push behind lining up countries to accept deportees from the US is a critical part of the Trump administration’s aggressive strategy to achieve the president’s campaign promise of mass deportation.

The US has historically faced challenges in deporting certain nationalities back to their ori

By Chris Isidore, CNN

(CNN) — Reopening the Strait of Hormuz is proving to be difficult. But even if the vital waterway fully opens and oil and other necessary cargo sail out, it won’t be enough to return things to normal.

That’s because empty ships will need to sail back into the strait to keep the flow of goods moving. Experts say that shipping lines won’t start entering the Persian Gulf through the strait as long as there’s a strong risk that the ceasefire is only temporary.

Tankers and ship owners — as well as their insurers — won’t allow their ships to re-enter the Gulf unless they’re sure they won’t be caught there for weeks or longer, said Lale Akoner, a global market analyst at eToro.

“A two-week ceasefire and a ceasefire that’s fragile — I don’t think that would give the confidence (to ship operators) that is needed,” she said.

Without new ships entering the Gulf to pick up the next loads of oil, fertilizer and other much-needed cargo, the benefits of hundreds of fully loaded ships sailing out of the strait will prove to be short-lived. The shortages and elevated prices for oil and other goods are likely to continue for months.

To get things back on track, first the ships that have been trapped in the Gulf need to leave. So far that hasn’t happened, according to Matt Smith of trade analytics firm Kpler.

“(Almost) nobody is confident enough to pass through the strait,” he said. The 100-plus oil tankers that typically move through the Strait of Hormuz every day, have been reduced to 10 or fewer, Smith noted.

Even if there is confidence in the ceasefire, the flow of vessels is going to be overwhelmingly outbound ships. Smith said there are about 400 loaded oil tankers in the Gulf waiting to get out, but only about 100 empty tankers eager to get in.

Smith said if the strait were to open today, it would still likely take until July for oil flows to get back to normal.

The same is true with container ships that are critical for delivering food and other goods the Gulf states depend upon, as well as exports like fertilizer and industrial resins. There are about 100 container ships waiting to exit, but virtually none waiting to enter, said Peter Tirschwell, vice president for maritime and trade at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

That means 30% of the world’s fertilizer that normally comes out of the region is likely stuck there for months until there are new ships to take them out, he said. As with the oil, sending that cargo out by ship is the only way to move it.

“The capacity does not exist to easily reroute those cargoes,” he said.

Without new ships coming through the strait and into the Gulf, experts say production of various goods made there — crude oil, gasoline and other refined fuels and fertilizer — will remain on hold.

Production halted during the past six weeks because there was no place to put those goods, said Smith.

The oil producers around the Gulf “are used to just putting (oil) on a tanker and it immediately going out,” he said. “They’re going to need time to increase production, but also have the tankers in place there to be able to load that crude.”

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By Alaa Elassar, CNN

(CNN) — Lynette Hooker moves through the world like someone who has found her rhythm.

On the water, the 55-year-old mother seems to come alive, her adventurous spirit radiating outward, lighting her from the inside out. She chases horizons by sailboat and slips beneath them with a snorkel, drifting eye-level with manatees and tracing the slow glide of sea turtles. The ocean isn’t just a backdrop.

It is her element, her “happy place,” she called it, before her disappearance.

In video after video, shared on her travel Instagram profile, the light catches her in motion — wind in her hair, sun on her shoulders, laughter carried off before it fully lands. And almost always, just within reach, is her husband of about 25 years, Brian Hooker.

Together, they built a life at sea and documented it in intimate, often joyful posts: sailing in glassy water, cooking meals using a solar oven aboard their boat “Soulmate,” weathering sudden storms with a sense of humor.

He often sits across from her on their yacht, sunburnt and smiling, part of the rhythm she documented cheerfully. Online, their life reads like a love story set adrift: two people choosing each other against an endless horizon.

“Not going anywhere for a while?!” she writes in her most recent post, the caption sitting beneath an image of boats anchored in calm, crystal clear water.

Days after that post, Lynette Hooker would be reported missing in the Bahamas.

Brian Hooker – described affectionately by his wife in her posts as her “hubby” – was taken into custody by the Royal Bahamas Police Force on Wednesday in connection with her disappearance and remains in custody after an extension was granted until Monday evening, his lawyer confirmed to CNN. The US Coast Guard has opened a criminal investigation into Lynette Hooker’s disappearance.

Brian Hooker has not been charged, and his attorney says he “categorically and unequivocally denies any wrongdoing.”

Now a week since she went missing, the life Lynette Hooker so vividly captured, full of motion, light and breath, is left suspended in time, raising a question that lingers on a social media profile gone silent:

How does someone vanish from a life that looked so full — and what happened the night she went missing?

What her husband says happened that night

As Lynette Hooker’s daughter searches for answers, she is also pulling back the curtain on a relationship that, she says, carries shadows the camera never caught — alleging episodes of domestic violence beneath what appeared to be a seamless life at sea.

Brian Hooker was considered a suspect and arrested “for additional questioning based on some probable cause we have,” Royal Bahamas Police Force Assistant Commissioner Advardo Dames told Reuters. Brian Hooker’s attorney, Terrel Butler, said Thursday he had “so far been interviewed as a witness.” She added, “He has been cooperating with the police.”

In a statement Friday, Butler said her client “appears completely heartbroken and deeply distressed,” and the trauma of his wife’s disappearance and his detention as a suspect has left him in an “extremely fragile state.” The attorney als

* WHAT…Wet snow expected. Total snow amounts up to around 6 inches
above 6000 feet. Winds gusting as high as 40 mph.

* WHERE…Northern Ventura County Mountains, Santa Barbara County
Interior Mountains, and Southern Ventura County Mountains.

* WHEN…Until 11 AM PDT Monday.

* IMPACTS…The hazardous conditions could impact the Monday morning
commute.

* ADDITIONAL DETAILS…Snow levels will be around 7000 feet through
Sunday morning, then lowering to 6000 feet Sunday afternoon and
4500 to 5000 feet late Sunday night into Monday morning.
Slow down and use caution while traveling. The latest road
conditions for the state you are calling from can be obtained by
calling 5 1 1.

The post Winter Weather Advisory issued April 12 at 12:40AM PDT until April 13 at 11:00AM PDT by NWS Los Angeles/Oxnard CA appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

Por Brad Lendon, CNN

Todo estaba en calma por encima de las nubes sobre el mar Arábigo, y el pequeño avión de hélice de Sam Rutherford volaba en crucero a unos 193 km/h. One Direction sonaba en el altavoz de la cabina.

Hasta que una voz estadounidense se escuchó por la radio.

“Se está aproximando a un buque de guerra de la coalición en aguas internacionales. Le solicitamos que establezca comunicación, se identifique”.

Volando al sur de Irán, Rutherford y la copiloto Shannon Wong habían atraído la atención de las fuerzas armadas de Estados Unidos, que acababa de entrar en guerra en Medio Oriente.

“Así que nos acaba de sobrevolar un F-16”, dice un Rutherford sorprendentemente sereno en un video que captura el momento y que publicó en Instagram. (Como luego aclaró en su publicación, en realidad era un F/A-18 Hornet).

Un día antes, cuando Estados Unidos e Israel lanzaron su guerra con Irán, Rutherford —ex piloto de helicóptero de las fuerzas armadas británicas— había estado en una situación similar, volando sobre los Emiratos Árabes Unidos.

En ese momento, en la radio del Piper PA-28, podía escuchar las llamadas de aviones comerciales cercanos buscando lugares donde aterrizar rápidamente, mientras el golfo Pérsico se convertía en una zona de guerra activa.

Muchos se desviaron hacia su destino, la capital omaní, Mascate, un aeropuerto normalmente tranquilo, le dijo a CNN.

Tras aterrizar, se encontró ante una decisión: esperar en Mascate para ver cómo se desarrollaba la nueva guerra; o continuar el trabajo por el que le estaban pagando, entregando este diminuto avión que recogió en la fábrica de Vero Beach, Florida, a su comprador, una escuela de vuelo en India.

A primera hora de la mañana siguiente, el espacio aéreo de Omán estaba abierto y la ruta a través del océano Índico hacia su destino, Ahmedabad, seguía siendo viable, dijo.

Leyendo los vientos de guerra, decidió “salir pitando de allí” y comenzar su viaje de 1.450 kilómetros hacia India.

Unas tres horas después de que salieran, Irán atacaría Omán, cerrando su espacio aéreo. Pero la decisión de Rutherford de partir fue lo que lo llevó a su encuentro con los cazas estadounidenses, cuyos pilotos aún esperaban su respuesta.

Ahora estaba poniendo en alerta al USS Abraham Lincoln, un portaaviones de la clase Nimitz, de propulsión nuclear. Con una tripulación de 5.000 personas, puede transportar 75 aeronaves, incluida ese F/A-18 que volaba cerca.

Y había un pequeño problema.

“No podían oírnos”, dijo Rutherford. Mientras intentaban establecer comunicaciones por radio con el caza, no llegaba ninguna respuesta.

Eso hizo que fueran unos minutos de nervios. Al fin y al cabo, este Piper no es lo que uno suele ver en esta ruta aérea: lento y volando a 3.000 metros de altura, mientras que los aviones comerciales en la ruta van bastante por encima de los 9.000 metros.

Pero Rutherford dijo que, en cuanto se estableció la comunicación, las cosas se calmaron por un momento.

Porque entonces el piloto estadounidense tuvo otra petición: alterar su rumbo hacia el norte o hacia el sur en 15 grados.

“Era absolutamente evidente que estábamos volando directamente hacia el portaaviones”, dijo Rutherford. “No le importaba si a la izquierda o a la derecha, pero por favor elige una de las dos opciones”.

Ninguna de las dos era ideal. Hacia el sur estaba el océano Índico abierto. Hacia el norte estaba Irán o Pakistán, y no tenía autorización para ninguno de los dos países.

Lo que siguió fue como “regatear por una alfombra en Marrakech”, recordó. El piloto del caza de la Marina cedió un poco. Rutherford explicó con calma sus limitaciones.

Si aceptaba las exigencias del piloto del caza y se dirigía al sur, “entonces me quedaría sin combustible en algún punto sobre el océano Índico con mi pequeño avión monomotor