❗️UPDATE: U.S. State Department denies reports of prisoner swap with Iran

🚨 The US Border Patrol has detained a number of gang members who attempted to enter the country via a southern border checkpoint in Texas as part of the migrant flows.

Laredo Sector Chief Patrol Agent Matthew Hudak tweeted earlier this week about nabbing “5 gang members in 7 days”, including those from the international gang MS-13 and the 18th Street criminal group.

🤔 In McCarthy’s footsteps?

Ahead of Saturday's worldwide International Workers' Day celebrations, Biden called on citizens to mark 1 May as… Loyalty Day.

"This Loyalty Day, I call upon the people of the United States to join in this national observance, display the United States flag and pledge allegiance to the Republic for which it stands", the statement reads.

Anti-communist Loyalty Day was first established in 1921 as “Americanisation Day” during the first “Red Scare” over Bolshevism. It was re-founded by Congress in 1955, near the end of the post-Second World War period of anti-communism and blacklisting led by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

🖌 Donald Trump’s success during the 2016 presidential election has inspired more celebrities to run for political office in the United States, said John Brabender, a Republican strategist.

"In a strange and odd way, Trump sort of broke some barriers and shattered some glass ceilings ... and showed there are alternate paths", Brabender told The Hill

Imagine swimming calmly in a river and suddenly you come across a mammoth bone, which could be about 100,000 years old, what would your reaction be?

Derek Demeter and Henry Sadler found a four-foot, 50-pound bone in the Peace River near Acadia, calling it an "amazing" discovery

🤷 Some people do not care about issues related to Space, as so many of their own problems on Earth have gone unresolved. How can they think about Space when there are critical issues whose boundaries will become wider if they are not fixed? Some take this view, but apparently not Kamala Harris, who has recently brought attention to her appointment to the National Space Council on Twitter.

Meanwhile 39 days have passed without a news conference since being tapped to deal with the border crisis

How quickly the hosts of US daytime show The View can change their minds. What is behind their dramatic shift in opinion about Caitlyn Jenner? Four years ago, the hosts of The View hyped Caitlyn Jenner's possible presidential run. Now, the liberal presenters see Jenner as a threat to the powerful Democratic governor of California. Сo-host Joy Behar last Friday denounced the reality TV star as an inexperienced Trump puppet: “Reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner just announced her plans to run for governor. Does she have any qualifications for this job?”

A vessel capsized off the coast of the US city of San Diego, leaving two people dead and over 20 injured, who were taken to local hospitals for treatment, the city's fire and rescue service reported on Sunday

🍽 The Small Business Administration has begun accepting applications for a $29 billion grant program aimed at boosting the restaurant industry.

The Restaurant Revitalization Fund is the first federal pandemic aid program developed exclusively for restaurants, bars and other food-service businesses authorized by Congress

Senator Susan Collins, who won re-election in Maine last year despite a strong Democratic bid to oust her, said she was dismayed that Romney had been booed by fellow Republicans in his home state of Utah, and defended Cheney, who like Romney has been attacked from within the party for criticizing former President Donald Trump.

"We need to have room for a variety of views," Collins told CNN's "State of the Union" program. "We are not a party that is led by just one person."

🗳 Former US President Donald Trump has expressed optimism that the Arizona ballot audit will find numerous irregularities and apparently lost "votes", according to a speech purportedly caught on video at Mar-a-Lago on 28 April.

"Let’s see what they find. I wouldn’t be surprised if they found thousands and thousands and thousands of votes […] After that we’ll watch Pennsylvania, and you watch Georgia, then you’re going to watch Michigan and Wisconsin, and you’re watching New Hampshire", Trump said

🌐 Over the past months, many lawmakers and media personalities in the US have called for a legislative review to limit what they call "Big Tech sovereignty," implying that social media have unlimited powers to determine what violates their guidelines and what does not.

Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri is warning that Big Tech firms are attempting to "transform America," claiming in a new book that mega-corporations are the "gravest threat" to liberty in decades

Latvian-Russian journalists call on UN secretary general to voice his position on persecution of journalists in Latvia

Check out some news you may have missed:

▪️ Iran has rejected reports about a prisoner swap deal with the US.

▪️ US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has claimed that the troop pullout from Afghanistan “doesn’t mean we’re leaving”.

▪️ Blinken has confirmed the intentions of the Biden administration to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in the “months ahead”.

▪️ Hillary Clinton has warned that Biden's plan to withdraw from Afghanistan may spark global terror.

▪️ Moscow says it is ready to have a substantive dialogue with Washington on strategic stability issues.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned of serious repercussions from President Joe Biden's push for US forces full exit from Afghanistan.

In an interview with CNN on Sunday, the ex-Democratic presidential hopeful described Biden's move as "a very difficult decision" and "a wicked problem".

She argued that the US should brace itself for "two huge consequences at some point in the not-too-distant future", including the possible collapse of the Afghan government and "a takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, probably with a resumption of civil war in certain parts of the country".

LIVE | Blinken and Raab hold Q&A session as Day 1 of G7 ministerial meeting wraps up: https://youtu.be/cLW7kDrHZeA

🤔 The US and the Taliban (a terrorist organisation banned in Russia) are reportedly negotiating a new deadline for the troop pullout from Afghanistan instead of the 9/11 anniversary.

According to the local media outlet Tolo News, the Taliban did not agree with Washington's decision to complete the withdrawal by 11 September, and proposed an alternative.

The group reportedly suggested that the US pull its troops out by July, a date between 11 September and 1 May – the original deadline for the withdrawal.

🛶 Three migrants died and 27 were injured after a cabin cruiser suspected of attempting to smuggle 30 migrants into the US capsized on 2 May near San Diego, California.

Authorities are confident that the boat is part of larger efforts to bring migrants from Central American countries into the US illegally.

According to local lifeguard Rick Romero, after capsizing, the boat was apparently quickly wrecked by the waves along a rocky patch of the Point Loma Coast and was already destroyed by the time the rescuers had arrived.

‼️#BREAKING | Bill and Melinda Gates announce their decision to 'end marriage'

“After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage... We no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives,” they said in a joint statement.

🇷🇺 There is an opportunity for better relations with Moscow, as long as Russia "changes its behaviour," according to UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the briefing that Washington is not seeking to escalate the situation, and seeks more stable and predictable relations with Russia, while welcoming the recent UK announcement regarding the extension of the global Magnitsky Act sanctions targeting Russia.

"President Biden has been very clear for a long time including before he was President that if Russia chooses to act recklessly or aggressively, we’ll respond. But we are not looking to escalate. We would prefer to have a more stable, more predictable relationship, and if Russia moves in that direction, so will we."

Small attacks in Afghanistan have not had a significant impact on the drawdown of American troops in the country, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday.

Kirby's comments came when he was asked if there is concern over an increase of Taliban attacks in Afghanistan amid the May 1 beginning of the complete withdrawal of US and NATO ground forces.

The US military has neither the need nor the appetite to set up a deconfliction communication channel with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), despite recent tensions with its vessels in the Persian Gulf, according to the Pentagon spokesman.