Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the day in US politics for Wednesday. We will return, refreshed and ready to tackle Thursday’s developments in a matter of hours. Until then, here are some of the day’s most significant moments:
Speaking from the podium of the White House briefing room, Donald Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, accused federal judges of ruling against the president for partisan reasons.
The Washington Post reports that the Trump administration is working on a plan to create a buffer zone along the southern border in New Mexico that would be occupied by active-duty US troops, empowered to detain migrants who cross into the United States unlawfully.
The White House told reporters that Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order on Thursday directing the secretary of education, Linda McMahon, to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure [of] the Department of Education”.
A federal judge on Wednesday denied a request for a restraining order to block Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” from taking over of the US Institute for Peace, after the institute accused Musk’s team of occupying the building by force.
Republican senator Lisa Murkowski said she was “disturbed” by the way federal workers have been treated but would not be “cowed” by the threat of a well-funded primary challenger backed by Musk’s fortune.
A North Dakota jury found Greenpeace liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to an energy company over protests against a pipeline being constructed in the state. Greenpeace said they will appeal the order for them to pay more than $660m in damages.
Officials at the US Federal Reserve cut their US economic growth forecasts and raised their projections for price growth as they kept interest rates on hold.
Updated
The Washington Post reports that the Trump administration is working on a plan to create a buffer zone along the southern border in New Mexico that would be occupied by active-duty US troops, empowered to detain migrants who cross into the United States unlawfully.
According to the Post’s report:
Those discussions have been underway for weeks, and they center, in part, on a section of border in New Mexico, officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to disclose details of the plan. In effect, the move would turn the buffer zone into an expansive satellite military installation, potentially allowing a greater portion of the Defense Department’s mammoth budget to pay for President Donald Trump’s border crackdown while creating new legal jeopardy for those caught trying to slip into the country from Mexico, these people said.
The effort would enable the most significant use yet of active-duty forces at the border under Trump, though any move to militarize the southern border’s buffer zone is certain to raise questions about whether employing the military in this way runs afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that prohibits active-duty troops from most law enforcement missions. …
By militarizing the buffer zone, the theory goes, any migrant apprehensions made by service members would be tantamount to catching trespassers on a military base: The troops involved would simply hold them until law enforcement arrives.
Calls to militarize the southern border are not new, but so far they have existed more in the realm of political rhetoric than reality.
In 2022, Blake Masters, a Senate candidate enthusiastically backed by Peter Thiel, the same tech billionaire who bankrolled JD Vance’s campaign that year, ran a campaign ad promising to do just that.
In 2018, Trump announced during a White House meeting with then defense secretary Jim Mattis, “we are going to be guarding our border with our military. That’s a big step”.
Although Trump’s announcement sparked a flurry of reports, in the Washington Post and elsewhere, that he was serious about the proposal, it was never enacted at scale.
One big difference between 2018 and 2025, however, is that Trump will not have to convince a sober, former general like Mattis to carry out his plan to divert military resources to domestic law enforcement, since his current defense secretary is a former weekend TV host who is far less likely to object.
Trump reportedly plans to order closing of Department of Education on Thursday
Reuters reports that Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order on Thursday directing the secretary of education, Linda McMahon, to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure [of] the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely”.
A group of Democratic state attorneys general already filed a lawsuit last week seeking to block the Trump administration from dismantling the department and halt the previously announced firing of nearly half of its staff.
Trump has repeatedly called for eliminating the department, but closing it would require an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979.
Republicans have called for the department to be closed for decades, perhaps most famously in 2011 when then Texas governor Rick Perry pledged to eliminate it, along with the commerce department and another agency that slipped his mind, if elected president.
Updated
'This case should alarm everyone' says Greenpeace in new statement on verdict in pipeline protest trial
Greenpeace has released another statement after the Morton county jury found Greenpeace entities in the US (Greenpeace Inc, Greenpeace Fund), and Greenpeace International, liable for more than $660m earlier today.
The legacy environmental group has vowed to fight on against what they condemn as Energy Transfer’s “meritless Strategic Lawsuit Strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapp)”.
A Slapp is a form of civil litigation increasingly deployed by corporations, politicians and wealthy individuals to deliberately wear down, bankrupt and silence critics including journalists, activists and watchdog groups.
“This case should alarm everyone, no matter their political inclinations,” said Sushma Raman, interim executive director Greenpeace Inc, Greenpeace Fund. “It’s part of a renewed push by corporations to weaponize our courts to silence dissent. We should all be concerned about the future of the first amendment, and lawsuits like this aimed at destroying our rights to peaceful protest and free speech. These rights are critical for any work toward ensuring justice – and that’s why we will continue fighting back together, in solidarity. While big oil bullies can try to stop a single group, they can’t stop a movement.”
“We are witnessing a disastrous return to the reckless behavior that fueled the climate crisis, deepened environmental racism, and put fossil fuel profits over public health and a livable planet. The previous Trump administration spent four years dismantling protections for clean air, water, and Indigenous sovereignty, and now along with its allies wants to finish the job by silencing protest. We will not back down. We will not be silenced,” said Mads Christensen, Greenpeace international executive director.
This lawsuit is one of the largest so-called Slapp cases ever filed. Most US states and several countries have put legal protections in place to protect advocates. But in North Dakota – and 15 other states – no anti-Slapp statutes exist. In the US, two bipartisan efforts to pass federal anti-Slapp legislation have not gone anywhere.
Greenpeace will appeal today’s ruling to the North Dakota supreme court.
In February 2024, Greenpeace International filed a lawsuit in a Dutch court to recover “all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of ET’s back-to-back, meritless lawsuits”. This is the first test of a new European law aimed at curbing malicious lawsuits intended to silence journalists, rights activists and public watchdogs.
“Energy Transfer hasn’t heard the last of us in this fight. We’re just getting started with our anti-Slapp lawsuit against Energy Transfer’s attacks on free speech and peaceful protest,” said Kristin Casper, Greenpeace international general counsel. “We will see Energy Transfer in court this July in the Netherlands.”
Updated
A federal judge on Wednesday denied a request for a restraining order to block Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” from taking over of the US Institute for Peace, after the institute accused Musk’s team of occupying the building by force.
The emergency ruling from US district judge Beryl Howell came after Musk’s team gained access to the headquarters of the independent, non-profit organization funded by Congress, with the help of police officers.
This was perhaps the most aggressive assertion of power by Musk’s aides as they sweep through the federal government with little regard for the actual function of the offices they seek to slash.
Howell was critical of the way Musk’s team had entered the building but said she was not going to order a temporary halt to their takeover. USIP had asked the judge to stop Musk’s team “from completing the unlawful dismantling of the Institute”.
USIP’s lawsuit was “messy”, Howell said, since it was filed on behalf of only five board members and not the entire USIP board, and the ousted president was not a plaintiff.
Still, the judge said she was disturbed by the way Musk’s team had entered USIP with armed police, which she described as “terrorizing”.
“I have to say I am offended on behalf of the American citizens,” Howell said, adding that USIP staff had been treated “abominably”.
Updated
Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski says she is 'disturbed' by firings of federal workers but not afraid of Elon Musk
On a visit to her home state of Alaska on Tuesday, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said she was “disturbed” by the way federal workers have been treated but would not be “cowed” by the threat of a well-funded primary challenger backed by Elon Musk’s fortune.
In remarks to state lawmakers, Murkowski spoke up for Alaska’s 15,000 federal workers, who she said do valuable work.
Speaking to reporters later, Murkowski said that she refused to “compromise” her integrity by remaining silent and suggested that her Republican colleagues in Washington were too afraid of Musk’s power to criticize his chaotic rampage through federal agencies.
“I’m going to take the criticism that comes and it may be that Elon Musk has decided that he’s going to take the next billion dollars that he makes off of Starlink and put it directly against Lisa Murkowski. And, you know what? That may happen. But I’m not giving up … one opportunity to try to stand up for Alaskans,” she said.
“I get criticized for what I say and then everybody else is like, ‘Well, how come nobody else is saying anything?’ Well, figure it out. Because they’re looking at how many things are being thrown at me and its like ‘Maybe I just better duck a cover.’ It’s why you’ve got everybody just zip-lipped, not saying a word. Because they’re afraid they’re going to be taken down, they’re going to be primaried.”
Murkowski, who voted to convict Donald Trump in his Senate trial in 2021, following his impeachment for inciting the January 6 riot, defeated a candidate backed by Trump in 2022 to win reelection. In 2010, after she lost her party primary to a Tea party challenger, she won the general election as a write-in candidate.
Updated
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, gave Senator John Fetterman a silver-plated beeper as a memento of the American lawmaker’s visit to his office in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
Video of the two men exchanging gifts was posted online by Netanyahu’s office.
Netanyahu’s gift was a reference to Israel’s attack on Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon last September, in which the Mossad sent an encrypted message to thousands of booby-trapped pagers which suddenly exploded.
The exploding pagers, and walkie-talkies, killed dozens of people, including several children, and wounded thousands as the devices were detonated as Hezbollah operatives went about their daily lives, surrounded by civilians and family members.
Fetterman, who has disappointed former supporters by taking Israel’s side throughout its mass slaughter in Gaza, laughed and thanked Netanyahu. “When that story broke, I was like, ‘Oh, I love it. I love it’”, Fetterman said. “Thank you for this”.
Fetterman presented Netanyahu with a framed image of a memorial in Philadelphia to his brother Yoni, who was killed in 1976 while leading the Israeli commando raid in Entebbe, Uganda, to free Jewish passengers on a plane hijacked by Palestinian and German militants.
The Netanyahu brothers had spent part of their youth in the Philadelphia suburbs, where their father taught medieval Jewish history and Hebrew literature.
The US senator’s friendly social call took place shortly after the Israeli prime minister broke a ceasefire by ordering renewed bombing of Gaza, killing another 400 Palestinians, including children, and fired the head of the Shin Bet intelligence agency, prompting massive street protests.
Updated
‘This is the end of a chapter, but not the end of our fight,’ said Greenpeace USA interim executive director Sushma Raman.
“Energy Transfer knows we don’t have $660m. They want our silence, not our money.”
Updated
Greenpeace to appeal verdict ordering them to pay $660m to energy firm for pipeline protests
Greenpeace has confirmed to our colleague Nina Lakhani that they will appeal a verdict in North Dakota on Wednesday ordering them to pay an energy firm more than $660m.
Updated
Steven Donziger is perhaps the best-known member of the trial monitoring committee that has been in court throughout the Energy Transfer v Greenpeace case.
Donziger is an environmental lawyer who won a multibillion-dollar judgment in Ecuador against Chevron over contamination in the Lago Agrio region, but ended up under house arrest for years, after the oil giant countersued him, initially seeking up to $60bn in damages. (While the demand for monetary damages was dropped before trial, the company won its suit, and Donziger was later found guilty of contempt of court, disbarred and jailed for six months. Despite support from 34 lawmakers, a campaign for Joe Biden to pardon Donziger before he left office this year ultimately failed).
Here, in a video released this week before the verdict, is how Donziger explains what is at stake in this legal effort to silence dissent he compares to the government’s arrest of Mahmoud Khalil:
This post was amended on 21 March 2025 to provide more information about Steven Donziger.
Updated
Here is some useful background on the lawsuit against Greenpeace, from an article published last month by our colleagues Nina Lakhani and Rachel Leingang.
Energy Transfer Partners, a Dallas-based oil and gas company worth almost $70bn, had accused Greenpeace of defamation and orchestrating criminal behavior by protesters at the Dakota Access pipeline (Dapl).
The anti-pipeline protests in 2016 and 2017 were organised by Standing Rock and other Sioux tribes and supported by more than 300 sovereign tribal nations, inspiring an international solidarity movement after Energy Transfer’s private security unleashed attack dogs and pepper spray against nonviolent protesters.
Tens of thousands of people from across the country and world participated in the Dapl protests, and Greenpeace was among scores of non-profit groups that supported the Standing Rock tribe’s opposition to the pipeline.
But Energy Transfer alleges in court filings that thousands of protestors were “incited” to come to North Dakota thanks to a “misinformation campaign” by Greenpeace.
The lawsuit has been widely denounced as a classic strategic lawsuit against public participation (Slapp) – a form of civil litigation increasingly deployed by corporations, politicians and wealthy individuals to deliberately wear down and silence critics including journalists, activists and watchdog groups.
For more, read the whole article, here:
Independent trial monitors condemn verdict in Greenpeace trial
A team of 12 independent prominent civil rights attorneys and advocates who monitored the Greenpeace trial amid concerns about judicial bias and violations of due process released the following statement deploring the verdict:
It is our collective assessment that the jury verdict against Greenpeace in North Dakota reflects a deeply flawed trial with multiple due process violations that denied Greenpeace the ability to present anything close to a full defense. Attorneys on our team monitored every minute of the proceedings and found multiple violations of due process that denied Greenpeace its right to a fair trial. The problems included a jury that was patently biased in favor of Energy Transfer, with many members working in the fossil fuel industry; a judge who lacked the requisite experience and legal knowledge to rule properly on the complex First Amendment and other evidentiary issues at the center of the case; and incendiary and prejudicial statements by lawyers for Energy Transfer that tried to criminalize Greenpeace and by extension the entire climate movement by attacking constitutionally-protected advocacy.
Our fear that this was an illegitimate corporate-funded SLAPP harassment case was confirmed by our observations. We will be issuing a full report documenting these violations and larger flaws in the case in the coming weeks. While the trial court verdict is in, the case is far from over. Greenpeace has a right to appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court and ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court. Our committee will continue its work monitoring this critically important case that raises troubling concerns for all advocates in the country.
The monitors who released the statement include: Marty Garbus, a trial attorney who has represented Nelson Mandela, Daniel Ellsberg, Cesar Chavez, and Vaclav Havel; Natali Segovia, director of Water Protector Legal Collective; Steven Donziger, an environmental and human rights advocate (and Guardian US columnist); Jeanne Mirer, president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers; Scott Wilson Badenoch, Jr., a fellow of the American Bar Foundation; Wade McMullen, a distinguished fellow of the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center.
Updated
Greenpeace says defamation verdict risks 'destroying right to peaceful protest'
As our colleagues Rachel Leingang and Nina Lakhani report, a jury in North Dakota has decided that the environmental group Greenpeace must pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the pipeline company Energy Transfer and is liable over defamation and other claims over protests in the state nearly a decade ago.
Greenpeace, which had denied the claims, said in a statement after the verdict that lawsuits like this were aimed at “destroying the right to peaceful protest”; constitutional rights experts had expressed fears that case could have a wider chilling effect on free speech.
Here is the complete statement on the verdict from Deepa Padmanabha, senior legal advisor, Greenpeace USA, sent to the Guardian:
What we saw over these three weeks was Energy Transfer’s blatant disregard for the voices of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. And while they also tried to distort the truth about Greenpeace’s role in the protests, we instead reaffirmed our unwavering commitment to non-violence in every action we take. After almost eight years, we were proud to share our story with the people of Mandan and beyond. To be clear, Greenpeace’s story is not the story of Standing Rock; that is not ours to tell, despite the allegations in the lawsuit. Our story is how an organization like Greenpeace USA can support critical fights to protect communities most impacted by the climate crisis, as well as continued attacks on Indigenous sovereignty. We should all be concerned about the future of the First Amendment, and lawsuits like this aimed at destroying our rights to peaceful protest and free speech. Greenpeace will continue to do its part to fight for the protection of these fundamental rights for everyone.
Kristin Casper, the general counsel for Greenpeace International said:
The fight against Big Oil isn’t over today, and we know that the truth and the law are on our side. Greenpeace International will continue to campaign for a green and peaceful future. Energy Transfer hasn’t heard the last of us in this fight. We’re just getting started with our anti-SLAPP lawsuit against Energy Transfer’s attacks on free speech and peaceful protest. We will see Energy Transfer in court this July in the Netherlands. We will not back down, we will not be silenced.
Read Rachel and Nina’s detailed report on the verdict, and its implications here:
Updated
Jury orders Greenpeace to pay hundreds of millions over Dakota pipeline protest
A North Dakota jury has found Greenpeace liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to an energy company over protests against a pipeline being constructed in the state.
The verdict stems from a lawsuit filed by Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, which sought $300m in damages from Greenpeace for defamation and orchestrating criminal behavior by protesters at the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 and 2017. Greenpeace has warned paying such a large judgment could bankrupt their US operation.
Here’s more on the verdict:
Last week, the Trump administration asked the supreme court to quickly overturn lower court rulings that blocked its attempt to curtail birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants.
The Associated Press reports that the request may also offer the conservative-dominated bench the opportunity to cut down on the practice of a single judge halting a policy nationwide. But, for whatever reason, the justices do not seem interested in ruling quickly on the issue.
Here’s more, from the AP:
The Supreme Court seems to be in no hurry to address an issue that has irritated Republican and Democratic administrations alike: the ability of a single judge to block a nationwide policy.
Federal judges responding to a flurry of lawsuits have stopped or slowed one Trump administration action after another, from efforts to restrict birthright citizenship to freezes on domestic and international spending.
While several justices have expressed concern about the use of so-called nationwide, or universal, injunctions, the high court has sidestepped multiple requests to do something about them.
The latest plea comes in the form of an emergency appeal the Justice Department filed with the court last week, seeking to narrow orders issued by judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington that prohibit the nationwide enforcement of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump to restrict birthright citizenship.
The justices usually order the other side in an emergency appeal to respond in a few days or a week. But in this case, they have set a deadline of April 4, without offering any explanation.
The Trump administration’s cancellation of an affordable repayment plan for student loans has prompted a lawsuit from the American Federal of Teachers, the Guardian’s Michael Sainato reports:
A top teachers union has sued the US Department of Education after it stopped processing applications for affordable repayment plans of student loans last month and disabled the online application for the programs.
The American Federation of Teachers, or AFT – one the country’s largest unions, representing 1.8 million workers – filed a lawsuit alleging the sweeping action violates federal law.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington DC, seeks a court order to restore access to these programs.
Another court order last month shut out borrowers of student loans from participating in four income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, which tie income to student loan payments, designed to keep payments affordable and avoid defaults on loans.
“By effectively freezing the nation’s student loan system, the new administration seems intent on making life harder for working people, including for millions of borrowers who have taken on student debt so they can go to college,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT. “The former president tried to fix the system for 45 million Americans, but the new president is breaking it again.”
The Democratic Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, is standing by his vote to fund the government, even as the calls for him to step aside grow.
“I believe so strongly I did the right thing for all the flack I’m getting,” Schumer said in an interview on Morning Joe.
He said he understood Democrats’ desire to stand up to Trump, but warned that forcing a shutdown was not the way to do it. “Let’s stand up to him smart. Let’s not give him the keys to the kingdom.”
One major activist group, Indivisible, has already called on Schumer to resign as leader and constituents are raising the issue at town halls. According to Axios, at least two House Democrats responded yes when asked at a town hall whether Senate Democrats need new leadership.
Schumer this weekend cancelled several stops on a tour for his forthcoming book, citing security concerns after progressive groups announced plans to protest the New York Democrat’s decision to lend his vote to a Republican funding bill.
Schumer has argued that he does not support the bill, but feared a government shutdown at the exact moment Donald Trump and Elon Musk are trying to downsize the federal workforce would have been a far worse outcome.
“If we shut down the government and they started doing all these bad things, in a month, those folks would be saying, hey, save Medicaid, save our rural hospitals, save this, save that, and we’ll say we can’t, there’s a government shutdown. And then they would come to us and say, so why’d you let it happen?” Schumer argued on Morning Joe. “I prevented that from happening, and I think my caucus, no matter which way they voted, understands that.
The House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, has declined to say publicly whether he continues to support Schumer. On Tuesday the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi offered a sharp critique of Schumer’s strategy: “I myself don’t give away anything for nothing. I think that’s what happened the other day,” she said, according to Politico. Unlike Jeffries, Pelosi said she still has confidence in Schumer’s leadership.
Updated
Citing uncertainty, Federal Reserve cuts US economic growth forecast
Officials at the US Federal Reserve cut their US economic growth forecasts and raised their projections for price growth as they kept interest rates on hold.
“Uncertainty around the economic outlook has increased,” the central bank said in a statement, as Donald Trump’s bid to overhaul the global economy with sweeping tariffs sparks concern over inflation and growth.
Policymakers at the Fed expect inflation to increase by an average rate of 2.7% this year, according to projections released on Wednesday, up from a previous estimate of 2.5%.
They expect US gross domestic product (GDP) – a broad measure of economic health – to rise by 1.7% this year, down from an estimate of 2.1% in December. Officials also revised down their projections for GDP growth in 2026 and 2027, to 1.8%.
Uncertainty is “unusually elevated”, the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, cautioned, as the Trump administration attempts to engineer radical economic change. Some of the increase in the Fed’s inflation expectations was “clearly” due to tariffs, he said.
Updated
White House says Trump briefed Zelenskyy on conversation with Putin, ceasefire terms
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt provided a readout of Donald Trump’s call today with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying the US president briefed his Ukrainian counterpart on his conversation yesterday with Vladimir Putin.
Trump and Zelenskyy agreed on “a partial ceasefire against energy” targets, while the Ukrainian president “asked for additional air defence systems to protect his civilians, particularly Patriot missile systems”. According to Leavitt, Trump “agreed to work with him to find what was available, particularly in Europe.”
For more on this, follow our European live blogger Jakub Krupa:
Leavitt also outlined why Donald Trump moved to fire two Democratic appointees to the Federal Trade Commission.
“The time was right to let these people go, and the president absolutely has the authority to do it,” Leavitt said.
It is widely suspected that the Trump administration hopes the firings will prompt a supreme court case that results in the conservative majority overturn a longstanding precedent and allowing presidents to make such terminations. Asked about that, Leavitt said:
We have to fight it all the way to the supreme court. We certainly will.
Karoline Leavitt also offered the administration’s side of the story when it came to the takeover of the US Institute for Peace.
Agents of the department of government efficiency (Doge) entered its building on Monday, prompting a lawsuit from the institute saying the takeover was illegal. Here’s Leavitt’s recounting of the incident:
We were made aware of this story by individuals at Doge, at Elon Musk’s team, and also at the State Department, who were unable to access this building. And it became very clear that there was a concerted effort amongst the rogue bureaucrats at the United States Institute of Peace to actually physically barricade themselves essentially inside of the building to prevent political appointees of this administration who work at the direction of the president of the United States to get into the building.
…
Staff contacted [Washington DC police] in an attempt to prevent Doge personnel from entering. They barricaded the doors. They also disabled telephone lines, internet connections and other IT infrastructure within the building. They distributed flyers internally, encouraging each other to basically prevent these individuals from accessing the building.
I use this to say this is what Doge and this administration is facing. It’s a resistance from bureaucrats who don’t want to see change in this city. President Trump was elected on an overwhelming mandate to seek change and implement change, and this is unacceptable behavior.
The press secretary was further pressed on if the Trump administration would authorize more flights to El Salvador.
The three planes that may have departed the United States in violation of a court order arrived in El Salvador, where the suspected Venezuelan gang members on board are being held in the country’s troubled prison system.
“We don’t have any flights planned specifically, but we will continue with the mass deportations,” Karoline Leavitt replied.
A reporter pointed out to Karoline Leavitt that James Boasberg was a George W Bush appointee. She countered by saying that most of the injunctions brought against the Trump administration so far have come from Democratic-appointed judges.
“This is a clear concerted effort by leftists who don’t like this president and are trying to impose or slow down his agenda,” she said.
Leavitt also reiterated that Trump thinks Boasberg should be impeached, politically impossible though that may be, and said she expects the supreme court to weigh in on the case:
It’s incumbent upon the supreme court to rein in these activist judges.
Trump's press secretary attacks federal judge by name, calls him 'Democrat activist'
Karoline Leavitt then singled out James Boasberg, the federal judge who is weighing the legality of Donald Trump’s deportation of suspected Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act.
Boasberg attempted over the weekend to prevent planes carrying the migrants from leaving, and has since demanded from the government details of the aircrafts’ exact itineraries to determine if they complied with his order.
“The judge in this case is essentially trying to say that the [resident doesn’t have the executive authority to deport foreign terrorists from our American soil. That is an egregious abuse of the bench. This judge cannot, does not have that authority,” Leavitt said.
“And it’s very, very clear that this is an activist judge who is trying to usurp the president’s authority under the Alien Enemies Act. The president has this power, and that’s why this deportation campaign has continued, and this judge, judge Boasberg is a Democrat activist.”
Republican George W Bush appointed Boasberg as a judge in the District of Columbia’s superior court, then Democrat Barack Obama elevated him the federal court.
This post has been corrected to note that Bush appointed Boasberg to the District of Columbia’s superior court, and that Obama appointed him to the federal court.
Updated
White House accuses federal judges of 'acting erroneously' amid battle over deportation flights
Speaking from the podium of the White House briefing room, Donald Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, accused federal judges of ruling against the president for partisan reasons.
“I would like to point out that the judges in this country are acting erroneously. We have judges who are acting as partisan activists from the bench. They are trying to dictate policy for the president of the United States. They are trying to clearly slow walk this administration’s agenda, and it’s unacceptable,” Leavitt said.
The press secretary was responding to a question about the federal judge who had ruled against Trump’s attempt to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act, but did not name him specifically.
She continued:
It’s incredibly apparent that there is a concerted effort by the far left to judge shop, to pick judges who are clearly acting as partisan activists from the bench in an attempt to derail this president’s agenda. We will not allow that happen, and not only are they usurping the will of the [resident and the chief executive of our country, but they are undermining the will of the American public, tens of millions of Americans who duly elected this president to implement the policies that are coming out of this White House.
Updated
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer has condemned Donald Trump’s firing of two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC):
“A bipartisan FTC is vital to enforcing anti-trust laws and consumer protections. By illegally firing two senate-confirmed Democratic commissioners, Trump has given a green light to businesses across the country to gouge consumers and skyrocket prices for American families,” Schumer said.
“Make no mistake about it: this decision will directly lead to higher prices for Americans. While President Trump and Senate Republicans continue to put their thumbs on the scale for billionaires and corporations, Democrats are committed to fighting for American families.”
Since taking office, Trump has terminated Democratic appointees to independent agencies across the federal government, prompting accusations that he is overstepping his bounds. Some judges have agreed.
Updated
The day so far
The Trump administration continues to face skepticism from federal courts, particularly when it comes to their attempts to push the boundaries of immigration enforcement. A federal judge ordered Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s case moved from Louisiana, where he is being detained and where judges may be more conservative, to New Jersey. Separately, justice department lawyers sparred with federal judge James Boasberg over his demand for details of three migrant deportation flights that may have taken place in violation of his order. The government criticized the judge’s request and ask that he drop his noon deadline for them to answer his questions. Boasberg partially agreed, giving the Trump administration until 12pm tomorrow to either answer his questions, or outline national security related reasons why they are not able to.
Here’s what else is going on today:
Donald Trump spoke with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and said they were “very much on track” towards a ceasefire agreement.
The US Institute of Peace has sued after agents from the “department of government efficiency” took over its building, with the help of police.
The University of Pennsylvania lost $175m in federal funding at the order of the Trump administration, which accused them of allowing transgender athletes to play.
Updated
The deportations of suspected Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act came as Donald Trump implements hardline policies to arrest undocumented immigrants and swiftly deport them.
That push includes reauthorizing the detention of entire families, something he allowed during his first administration, but which Joe Biden stopped. The practice essentially means children will be locked up alongside their parents, and today, 21 Democratic senators asked the Trump administration to curb the practice:
We strongly object to the failed and inhumane practice of detaining migrant families. We are deeply disturbed by reports that your Administration has revived this cruel policy, which has proven to be ineffective, costly, and devastating for children and families.
There is a widespread consensus in the United States that family detention poses serious risks to the physical and mental well-being of children. Medical and child welfare experts— including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association—have consistently condemned this practice, warning that even short-term detention fails to meet basic child welfare standards and exposes children to lasting trauma. Even the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) own medical consultants have concluded that family detention presents a “high risk of harm to children and families.” The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Advisory Committee on Family Residential Centers also determined that family detention should be discontinued.
Here’s more on what family detention means, in practice:
Judge grudgingly gives Trump administration another day to answer questions on deportation flights
A federal judge has granted the Trump administration’s request to delay responding to his demand for details of three deportation flights that may have been allowed to proceed to their destinations in violation of his order.
Judge James Boasberg said the government had another 24 hours – until noon eastern time tomorrow – to either provide details of the flights’ itineraries and who they were carrying or to invoke a doctrine that would allow the government to shield the information on national security grounds.
In his order, Boasberg, who on Saturday night said that any of the three planes carrying migrants should not proceed to their destinations as he weighed a challenge to their deportation under the Alien Enemies Act, signaled he was not happy with the government’s arguments.
“Although their grounds for such request at first blush are not persuasive, the Court will extend the deadline for one more day,” Boasberg wrote.
“The Court seeks this information, not as a ‘micromanaged and unnecessary judicial fishing expedition’” as the Trump administration had argued, “but to determine if the Government deliberately flouted its Orders issued on March 15, 2025, and, if so, what the consequences should be.”
He also signaled he was skeptical that the government will prevail if it invokes the state secrets doctrine to keep the information confidential on national security grounds:
The Government’s Motion is the first time it has suggested that disclosing the information requested by the Court could amount to the release of state secrets. To date, in fact, the Government has made no claim that the information at issue is even classified. Classification is generally considered to be less protective than the state-secrets privilege … It thus appears to be an uncommon occurrence for the disclosure of unclassified information to threaten state secrets.
Boasberg also criticized the Trump administration’s argument that sharing the details he requested “would result in an immediate flood of media inquiries and demands for the information.”:
Defendants make that claim despite their own extensive promotion of the particulars of the flights. For example, the Secretary of State has revealed many operational details of the flights, including the number of people involved in the flights, many of their identities, the facility to which they were brought, their manner of treatment, and the time window during which these events occurred …
The Court is therefore unsure at this time how compliance with its Minute Order would jeopardize state secrets.
Trump says 'very much on track' after call with Zelenskyy
Donald Trump said his call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy has wrapped up, and the two sides are “very much on track” on reaching a deal to halt fighting in Ukraine.
The US president added that secretary of state Marco Rubio and national security adviser Michael Waltz will provide further details later. Trump’s call came after he spoke with Russia’s Vladimir Putin yesterday, which resulted in the two leaders saying they had agreed to a ceasefire on attacking energy and infrastructure targets in Ukraine.
We have a separate live blog following the negotiations and European news at large, and you can follow it here:
The US Institute of Peace and several of its board members have sued the Trump administration after agents of Elon Musk’s department of government efficiency (Doge) gained access to the building with the help of police earlier this week, the Associated Press reports.
The lawsuit contends the takeover is illegal, and outlines the extent to which staff at the Washington DC non-profit attempted to prevent Doge operatives from getting into its building. Here’s more, from the AP:
The lawsuit accuses the White House of illegal firings by email and said the remaining board members – Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Defense University President Peter Garvin – also ousted the institute’s president, George Moose.
In his place, the three appointed Kenneth Jackson, an administrator with the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the lawsuit.
DOGE staff tried multiple times to access the building Monday before successfully getting in, partly with police assistance.
The institute’s staff had first called the police around 3 p.m. Monday to report trespassing, according to the lawsuit. But the Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement that the institute’s acting president — seemingly a reference to Jackson — told them around 4 p.m. that he was being refused access to the building and there were “unauthorized individuals” inside.
“Eventually, all the unauthorized individuals inside of the building complied with the acting USIP President’s request and left the building without further incident,” police said.
The lawsuit says the institute’s lawyer told DOGE representatives multiple times that the executive branch has no authority over the nonprofit.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit.
Donald Trump’s rhetoric against judges he disagrees with is tipping the country towards a constitutional crisis, a prominent conservative legal scholar said. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:
Donald Trump has “declared war on the rule of law in America” and is pitching the country into a constitutional crisis, a prominent former conservative federal judge said.
“The president of the United States has essentially declared war on the rule of law in America,” J Michael Luttig told MSNBC. “In the past few weeks … the president himself has led a full-frontal assault on the constitution, the rule of law, the federal judiciary, the American justice system and the nation’s legal profession.
“When the president of the United States wages a war on the rule of law and the federal judiciary alley, America is in a constitutional crisis. The constitutional role of the president is to faithfully execute the laws. Needless to say, the president is doing anything but that at the moment. Most constitutional scholars have long agreed that a constitutional crisis exists at least when the president defies a court order. That’s essentially what the president is doing today and what it appears he intends to do in the future.”
Trump administration asks judge to withdraw noon deadline for details of deportation flights
The justice department has asked a federal judge to cancel his noon deadline for it to provide details of three deportation flights carrying suspected Venezuelan gang members that may have departed the United States on Saturday in violation of a court order.
In a motion to Judge James Boasberg, the government criticized his demands for details and said releasing the information would jeopardize national security and diplomacy.
“In a series of orders this Court has requested the Government to provide it details about the movements of aircraft outside of the United States and interactions with foreign nations which have no bearing on any legal issue at stake in the case,” the motion reads.
The judge has signaled he is concerned that they defied his order on Saturday for the planes not to depart, or to turn around if they were in the air, as he considered a challenge to the government’s attempt to deport those onboard under the rarely-used Alien Enemies Act.
Here’s what the justice department said about that:
The Court’s pending questions relate to a comment by the Court to a Government attorney suggesting, incorrectly, that the attorney had the ability to divert aircraft operating at the President’s direction on an extraterritorial mission to remove members of a designated foreign terrorist organization from the United States in connection with one or more sensitive diplomatic agreements requiring months of negotiation. The comment betrayed a complete misunderstanding of the serious national security, safety, regulatory, and logistical problems presented by a fiat from the Court directed at pilots operating outside the United States and was made without regard to whether any such aircraft could feasibly be diverted or even had enough fuel to safely do so. Further, the Court did not pause the hearing to give the attorney an opportunity to act on the remark, nor did it memorialize the remark in the subsequent minute order.
There is no serious dispute that the Government complied with the minute order, and the pending questions are grave encroachments on core aspects of absolute and unreviewable Executive Branch authority relating to national security, foreign relations, and foreign policy. Even addressing the questions in an ex parte submission would result in an immediate flood of media inquiries and demands for the information, subjecting the diplomatic relationships at issue to unacceptable uncertainty about how the Court will address those demands. Worse, the risks created by addressing the Court’s pending questions would undermine the Executive Branch’s ability to negotiate with foreign sovereigns in the future by subjecting all of the arrangements resulting from any such negotiations – as well as the negotiations themselves – to a serious risk of micromanaged and unnecessary judicial fishing expeditions and potential public disclosure.
Updated
Trump to speak with Ukraine's Zelenskyy as negotiations over ceasefire continue
Donald Trump is speaking this morning with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a day after the president spoke to Vladimir Putin as he aims to reach a ceasefire agreement in Ukraine.
A White House official said the call should have started around 10am. Here’s more on the result of Trump’s call with the Russian president yesterday, in which Putin agreed to what could best be described as a partial ceasefire:
A forthcoming book reveals that top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, who is in a bit of hot water with his party at the moment, thought the GOP would retreat from its embrace of Maga ideology if Donald Trump lost last year’s election. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:
Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, insisted Republicans would move on from Donald Trump and go back to a past version of the party even as Trump’s return to power loomed last year, according to the authors of a new book on politics during the Biden administration.
The revelation comes as Trump’s second term has begin in a flurry of radical policy moves that have rocked the US’s political landscape and triggered fears of a slide into authoritarianism. It also comes amid serious Democratic backlash against Schumer for failing to provide stiff enough resistance to Trump’s actions.
Schumer told Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater: “Here’s my hope … after this election, when the Republican party expels the turd of Donald Trump, it will go back to being the old Republican party.”
That insult may cause a splash at the White House in light of Trump’s abuse of Schumer, who he said last week was “not Jewish any more”, over the senator’s response to anti-Israel college protests.
Trump administration pulls $175m in funding from University of Pennsylvania over transgender athletes - report
Donald Trump has ordered the government to cancel $175m in funding to the University of Pennsylvania over its support of transgender athletes, and warned more cuts could come, Fox Business Network reports.
A senior administration official described the move as a “proactive punishment” for the university, and said it could have all its federal funding cut for allowing Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer who graduated in 2022, to compete. The initially cancelled contracts were issued by the departments of defense and health and human services.
The move against the University of Pennsylvania came after Trump withdrew $400m in grants and contracts from Columbia University, alleging it failed to protect students from antisemitism.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian’s Anna Betts, Mahmoud Khalil described himself as a “political prisoner” who the Trump administration was targeting to suppress dissent:
In his first public remarks since being detained by federal immigration authorities, Palestinian activist and recent Columbia graduate, Mahmoud Khalil, spoke out against the conditions facing immigrants in US detention and said he was being targeted by the Trump administration for his political beliefs.
“I am a political prisoner,” he said in a statement provided exclusively to the Guardian. “I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.”
Khalil, a permanent US resident who helped lead Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests last spring, was arrested and detained in New York on 8 March by federal immigration authorities who reportedly said that they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card.
The Trump administration, he said, “is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent”, warning that “visa-holders, green-card carriers and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs.”
The statement, which Khalil dictated to his friends and family over the phone from an Ice detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, railed against the US’s treatment of immigrants in its custody, Israel’s renewed bombardment of the Gaza Strip, US foreign policy, and what he described as Columbia University’s surrender to federal pressure to punish students.
Judge denies government's attempt to dismiss Mahmoud Khalil's challenge to his deportation
A federal judge has turned down a request from the Trump administration to dismiss Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s challenge to his deportation, and ruled his case should be heard in New Jersey rather than Louisiana, where he is now detained.
In his decision, judge Jesse M Furman said that since Khalil’s attorney filed the challenge to his arrest while he was in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention in New Jersey, the case must be heard there. Government lawyers had asked that his petition be considered in Louisiana, where Khalil had been flown to after being arrested by Ice in New York City and then briefly held in New Jersey.
“Given that the District of New Jersey is the one and only district in which Khalil could have filed his Petition when he did, the statutes that govern transfer of civil cases from one federal district court to another dictate that the case be sent there, not to the Western District of Louisiana,” Furman wrote.
He added that “the Court’s March 10, 2025 Order barring the Government from removing him (to which the Government has never raised an objection and which the Government has not asked the Court to lift in the event of transfer) shall similarly remain in effect unless and until the transferee court orders otherwise.”
Updated
Maryland Democrat first in Congress to say Schumer should step aside as leader after government funding flap – report
Democratic congressman Glenn Ivey told constituents at a town hall meeting in his Maryland district that Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s Democratic minority leader, should step down from his position after a bitter intraparty fight over government funding last week, HuffPost reports.
Ivey is the first member of Congress to say Schumer should leave his leadership position, after the leader supplied enough votes to pass a Republican-backed government funding bill through the Senate. House Democrats had near-unanimously rejected the measure, and many in the party believe Schumer, who argued the bill was better than allowing a shutdown that could be exploited by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, gave up leverage he could have used against the administration.
“I respect Chuck Schumer. I think he had a great, long-standing career, did a lot of great things, but I’m afraid that it may be time for the Senate Democrats to get a new leader,” Ivey said.
“I know shutting down the government is not good, I’ve tried to oppose it every time I could, but in this particular instance, it was something that we needed to do.”
Schumer has been under fire from leftwing groups for his support of the bill, which will keep the government running through September but reduce spending on a number of Democratic priorities.
Updated
Government faces noon deadline to share details of migrant deportation flights
The justice department has until noon ET to share with federal judge James Boasberg specific details of three flights carrying alleged Venezuelan gang members that may have departed the United States despite him ordering them not to do so.
The case has raised concerns that the Trump administration is ready to violate court rulings in order to carry out its hardline immigration policies, though Donald Trump last night insisted in an interview that he would not allow that.
The government yesterday asserted that two of the three flights had already departed US airspace and hence were beyond Boasberg’s authority when he ordered on Saturday that they refrain from taking off, or turn back if they were in the air. Attorneys also revealed that a third plane, which departed after the judge’s ruling, was carrying migrants who had gone through the normal deportation process, rather than being expeditiously kicked out under the Alien Enemies Act, which is at issue in the case Boasberg is considering.
It’s unclear if what the government shares with Boasberg today will be made public, as justice department attorneys say they have national security concerns about revealing the information, and the judge yesterday said they can file it under seal. Here’s more about the case:
Updated
Donald Trump’s zeal to roll back environmental regulations could have real impacts on health in the United States, reports the Guardian’s Oliver Milman, Dharna Noor and Aliya Uteuova:
A push by Donald Trump’s administration to repeal a barrage of clean air and water regulations may deal a severe blow to US public health, with a Guardian analysis finding that the targeted rules were set to save the lives of nearly 200,000 people in the years ahead.
Last week, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provoked uproar by unveiling a list of 31 regulations it will scale back or eliminate, including rules limiting harmful air pollution from cars and power plants; restrictions on the emission of mercury, a neurotoxin; and clean water protections for rivers and streams.
Lee Zeldin, the EPA’s administrator, called the extraordinary series of rollbacks the “greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen” and declared it a “dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion”. One of the most consequential actions will see the EPA reconsider a landmark 2009 finding that greenhouse gases harm human health, which has been used to underpin laws aimed at addressing the climate crisis.
But the rules targeted by Zeldin have immediate, measurable benefits to Americans’ health even without considering the longer-term impacts of the climate crisis. In total, the regulations on the hit list will prevent nearly 200,000 deaths over the next 25 years, by helping avoid an array of heart, respiratory and other health problems worsened by air and water pollution, according to assessments conducted by the EPA itself.
Trump administration planning new tariffs on 'trillions' of dollars of imports – reports
The Washington Post reports that the Trump administration is planning additional tariffs on imports to the US running into “trillions” of dollars.
Speaking anonymously to the paper, a person described as familiar with the planning confirmed the sum involved would be in the “trillions” of dollars.
It said that an earlier administration plan to group countries into three broad bands had been rejected, with the plan now “calibrating a new tariff rate for each trading partner”.
Donald Trump has previously described the plan to impose the tariffs on 2 April as a “liberation day”.
Updated
George Joseph and Yoav Gonen report for the Guardian
The administration of New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, is continuing to pay more than $500,000 a month to a hotel developer who could potentially provide valuable testimony to prosecutors against the mayor and several of his top allies.
The developer, Weihong Hu, was indicted last month for allegedly bribing a New York City non-profit’s CEO. The indictment charges that she gave the non-profit’s executive stacks of cash and helped him purchase a $1.3m townhouse in exchange for more than $20m in city-funded contracts for her two Queens hotels and a catering company. Hu has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Despite these allegations brought by the US attorney for the eastern district of New York, Adams’s administration has continued to pay one of Hu’s companies more than $542,000 a month to host another non-profit program at one of her Queens hotels, according to two city officials with knowledge of the matter.
Updated
Republicans have been put in a bind by Donald Trump’s confrontation with the judiciary and the rebuke handed out by the chief justice of the supreme court, John Roberts.
On his Truth Social platform, the president called for Judge James Boasberg to be impeached, calling him “a troublemaker and agitator” and “crooked”.
In a rare public intervention, Roberts said: “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
Political website the Hill quotes a senior Republican strategist saying:
Republicans, by and large, will support Trump publicly because of the situation, we’re dealing with Venezuelan gang members and most Americans agree they should have been deported.
Privately, most congressional Republicans will think this is really going right up to the line on having a constitutional crisis and that situations like this need to be avoided in the future. They do believe in due process.
The former Republican senator Judd Gregg also commented, saying:
When you arbitrarily try to cancel the rule of law, which is what Trump is trying to do, and leave by the edict of an individual, whether he is president or not, you’re creating almost a banana republic-type of event.
How does it affect Republicans? Significantly. Because even though senior Republicans in the Senate may disagree and hopefully would disagree strongly, it’s the president who’s head of the party and is defining the party.
Updated
The Associated Press reports that one program shuttered by the Trump administration cutting off funding to USAid is in Vietnam, where clean-up efforts have been halted.
At a former American airbase in southern Vietnam, the removal of toxic soil contaminated with the US army’s Agent Orange defoliant has been abruptly stopped, and work to clear unexploded American munitions and landmines has also been ended.
It quotes an American Vietnam war veteran who has dedicated his time to humanitarian programs in the country for the last three decades, Chuck Searcy, saying: “It doesn’t help at all. It is just another example of what a lot of critics want to remind us of: You can’t depend on the Americans. It is not a good message.”
Updated
About 2,200 files comprisng more than 63,000 pages concerning the assassination of John F Kennedy have been posted on the website of the US National Archives and Records administration. The Trump administration claims they were previously classified.
The Associated Press reports that the National Archives says the vast majority of its collection of more than 6m pages of records, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings and artifacts related to the assassination have already been released.
No major revelations appear to be contained in the documents so far, with the New York Times reporting on the release with the headline “Here’s what to know. (Oswald still did it.)”
Adam Nagourney wrote for the paper that “Trump, in teasing the release on Monday, said there would be no redactions – but an early review found that some information appeared to have been blocked out.”
The paper quoted historian David J Garrow saying: “This dump is profoundly more impenetrable than all the previous more annotated ones.” Many of the documents released appeared to be hard to read.
Updated
Pentagon reportedly looking to cut civilian workforce by at least 50,000
The Pentagon is reported to be hoping to reduce its civilian workforce by about 50,000 to 60,000 people, chiefly through voluntary means, it has been reported.
ABC News quotes one senior defense official saying: “The number sounds high, but I would focus on the percentage, a 5% to 8% reduction is not a drastic one. [It] can be done without negatively impacting readiness, in order to make sure that our resources are allocated in the right direction.”
The cuts are expected to come from freezing hiring, dismissing probationary workers with less than one or two years service, and by people taking up an offer to resign on full pay until the end of September.
Welcome and opening summary …
Hello, and welcome to the Guardian’s rolling coverage of US politics and the second Donald Trump administration. Here are the headlines …
Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order seeking to shift responsibility for disaster preparations from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) to state and local governments.
Trump also fired the two Democratic commissioners on the US Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday, further blurring the lines of bipartisanship at regulatory agencies.
A federal judge has granted an injunction that temporarily blocks the US military from enforcing the administration’s executive order barring transgender people from military service.
The Trump administration has released thousands of records related to the assassination of John F Kennedy that it claimed had previously been classified.
The White House has fueled speculation it has plans to eliminate two large national monuments in California established by Joe Biden and turn them over to potential economic development.
A blaze at a Tesla showroom is being investigated as potential terrorism.
Palestinian activist and recent Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil has said he is being targeted by the Trump administration for his political beliefs.
Updated
