Good morning. We're covering El Salvador's support for Trump's deportations and Meta's landmark antitrust trial. Plus, we remember Mario Vargas Llosa.
El Salvador refused to return a U.S. deporteeAt 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 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.
Zuckerberg took the stand in landmark Meta antitrust trialMark 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, Zuckerberg responded by describing the social media market as much larger than how the government was defining it. Meta, he said, is involved in "the general idea of entertainment and learning about the world and discovering what's going on." What's next: 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. This could alter a long pattern in Silicon Valley of Big Tech companies snapping up younger rivals.
China's leader courted VietnamPresident 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.
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Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket yesterday launched the singer Katy Perry and five other women into space. 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 LlosaThe 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. His political novels are morally complex and meticulously observed, but life's absurdity sneaks into them. Read Dwight's appreciation here.
Bake: No fancy equipment or advanced skills are required to make this flourless chocolate cake. Listen: African music lost one of its titans with the death of Amadou Bagayoko. Musicians who knew him shared their favorite songs. Restore: Here is how asparagus benefits your health. Watch: "The Amateur" is among the eight new movies our critics are talking about. Play: Spelling Bee, the Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku. Find all our games here. That's it for today. See you tomorrow. — Emmett We welcome your feedback. Send us your suggestions at briefing@nytimes.com.
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