America in Brief

Starliner astronauts return to earth; U.S. government labels Tesla vandals domestic terrorists; and judge blocks deportation of pro-Palestinian student.

NASA astronaut Suni Williams is helped out of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft onboard the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN after she, NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, landed in the water off the coast of Tallahassee, Fla., on March 18, 2025. Keegan Barber/NASA via Getty Images

Starliner Astronauts Return to Earth

Two veteran NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been stuck on the International Space Station for nine months, returned to Earth on March 18.

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft mission, initially meant to last eight days, went wrong last year following its June 5 launch and was deemed unsafe for the crew to return to, leaving them stranded in space for 296 days.

They were rescued by Elon Musk’s Space X craft, which brought them to Earth.

Political controversy ensued earlier this year when President Donald Trump and Musk claimed that former President Joe Biden abandoned the astronauts and that Musk could have brought them back last year, but wasn’t given permission. NASA refutes this claim and says it was owing to hardware checks.

A member of the Seattle Fire Department inspects a burned Tesla Cybertruck at a Tesla lot in Seattle, on March 10, 2025. Lindsey Wasson, File/AP Photo

US Labels Attack on Tesla Dealerships Domestic Terrorism

The U.S. government has warned that a recent escalation of attacks on Tesla dealerships is now a federal crime carrying a penalty of 20 years.

“If you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi warned in a statement on March 21.

Retaliatory attacks against Tesla CEO Elon Musk have begun in recent months.

Musk leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is responsible for cutting government waste and has sparked controversy, causing mass layoffs and work disruption.

The campus of Georgetown University in Washington on May 7, 2020. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Judge Blocks Deportation of Pro-Palestinian Student

A federal judge has blocked a deportation order against an Indian student at Washington’s Georgetown University who has been accused by the Department of Homeland Security of having ties to the Hamas terrorist group.

Badar Khan Suri has been accused of “spreading Hamas propaganda and anti-Semitism on social media.”

Suri, who is a foreign exchange student and married to an American Citizen, has been detained in Alexandria, Louisiana.

The U.S. government has officially labelled Hamas a terrorist organisation and is actively cracking down on anti-Semitism.

Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was responsible for organising student protests last year against Israel’s response to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks, has also been detained and is awaiting deportation.