Court denies Trump administration’s appeal against order to ‘facilitate’ return of wrongly deported US man – as it happened

Thanks for reading along with us. Trump targeted protected areas of the Pacific with two orders Thursday, in a move he claims increases competitiveness of the commercial fishing. In a proclamation, he removed fishing regulations in the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, an area known to have “some of the most pristine coral reef ecosystems in the Pacific Ocean,” according to a description from NOAA Fisheries. The incredibly biodiverse area supports a range of marine mammals, seabirds, and “vegetation not found anywhere else in the world,” including many threatened and endangered species. As the president makes moves to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status following the universities rejection of the administration’s demands, he’s also now considering using the strategy to target other nonprofit organizations that don’t align with his priorities, including environmental and ethics nonprofits. Here’s what else we’ve covered: James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee, and Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican leadership, have launched an investigation into Harvard University, accusing the university of a “lack of compliance with civil rights laws”. Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield. The supreme court said it will hear arguments next month over Donald Trump’s bid to restrict automatic birthright citizenship. In their unanimous opinion issued today, a US appeals court warned the Trump administration that battles against the judiciary could undermine public confidence. After weeks of strong rhetoric, the president told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday that he thought trade deals could be finished in the “next three or four weeks”. Trump on Thursday extended a government-wide federal hiring freeze that was set to expire this weekend. The Washington DC headquarters for the Department of Housing and Urban Development may soon be up for sale. The Washington DC headquarters for the Department of Housing and Urban Development may soon be up for sale. More than a month after the Trump Administration announced it would sell “non-core” federal properties, officials announced Thursday that the HUD building had been added to a list for “accelerated disposition” according to a press release from the General Services Administration. In the announcement, the GSA said that the building faces “$500 million in deferred maintenance and modernization needs and costs the American taxpayer more than $56 million in yearly rent and operations expenditures. In addition, with every member of HUD staff at its headquarters, the Weaver Building is at half of its total occupancy.” Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing United Healthcare chief executive Brian Thompson, was federally indicted Thursday. Mangione is also facing state charges in NY in connection with Thompson’s killing. The maximum punishment for the state charges is life in prison. “The president’s directive was very clear: We are to seek the death penalty when possible,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Fox News Sunday earlier this month. Bondi also said in a press release that she directed federal prosecutors to bring the case in an effort to “carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again”. The federal grand jury returned a four-count indictment, which also includes two counts of stalking and a firearms count. Mangione, a 26-year-old who was widely championed online after being arrested for the crime, maintains his innocence in the shooting. Donald Trump on Thursday extended a government-wide federal hiring freeze that was set to expire this weekend. According to the memo signed by Trump, “no Federal civilian position that is presently vacant may be filled, and no new position may be created.” Positions in the armed forces or related to immigration enforcement or national security are exempt. Trump first implemented the freeze via a presidential memo on his first day in office, and was due to expire on Sunday. It now extends until 15 July. The initial order helped set the stage for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to slash federal employees and services. In total, more than 260,000 employees have been fired, taken early retirement, have been targeted for termination or have accepted buyouts, according to a Reuters count. As the president makes moves to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status following the universities rejection of the administration’s demands, Trump is now considering using the strategy to target other nonprofit organizations that don’t align with his priorities. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Trump said environmental groups and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (Crew) were now being considered, the Associated Press reports. From AP: His remarks come as conversations have been swirling among advocacy and civil society groups about Trump’s campaign of retribution turning to them. CREW has been tracking the administration’s actions and sued over its firing of federal workers. “It’s supposed to be a charitable organization,” Trump said of Crew. “The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump. So we’re looking at that. We’re looking at a lot of things.” Trump appears to have changed his mind on taking the US through a lengthy trade war. After weeks of strong rhetoric, the president told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday that he thought trade deals could be finished in the “next three or four weeks”. From the Associated Press: That timeline would be ambitious, as Trump’s tariffs have sent nations scrambling to Washington. Yet it’s still unclear what he wants, and he still seems committed to imposing tariffs. Trump has indicated that tariff rates can change, but he said his biggest limitation is that “there’s only so many hours in the day.” The president’s timeline was about making a deal with China and “everybody.” Trump targeted protected areas of the Pacific with two orders Thursday, in a move he claims increases competitiveness of the commercial fishing. In a proclamation, he removed fishing regulations in the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, an area known to have “some of the most pristine coral reef ecosystems in the Pacific Ocean,” according to a description from NOAA Fisheries. The incredibly biodiverse area supports a range of marine mammals, seabirds, and “vegetation not found anywhere else in the world,” including many threatened and endangered species. “President Trump believes that removing unnecessary restrictions on American fishermen will strengthen the U.S. economy, support local communities, and restore fairness to an industry disadvantaged by overregulation and foreign competition,” a fact sheet on the order said. The other order, which specifically focuses on American seafood competitiveness, directs the Secretary of Commerce to “consider suspending, revising, or rescinding regulations that overly burden America’s commercial fishing, aquaculture, and fish processing industries,” and the National Marine Fisheries Service to expand permit programs. The order also calls for officials to review all marine national monuments to “assess opening them to commercial fishing”. In their unanimous opinion issued today, a US appeals court warned the Trump administration that battles against the judiciary could undermine public confidence, Reuters reported. Part of the fourth US circuit court of appeals, the three-judge panel said the executive branch and the courts were “grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both.” The strongly worded unanimous opinion came as the panel denied Trump’s appeal to stop an order from a federal judge who is seeking more detail on whether the administration took any steps to return Kilmar Ábrego García, a request the court said was “shocking”. “We yet cling to the hope that it is not naive to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos,” wrote US circuit judge J Harvie Wilkinson, who was appointed by Republican president Ronald Reagan. “This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time.” The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is reportedly planning to revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status in what would be a probably illegal move amid Donald Trump’s concerted attack on the independence of US institutions of higher education. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said late on Wednesday that Harvard would lose its ability to enrol foreign students if it did not meet demands the Trump administration demands to share information on some visa holders. A US appeals court denied the Trump administration’s request for a stay of Judge Paula Xinis’ order in the case of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador. The court described the administration’s request as “shocking”. Cory Booker, a Democratic senator from New Jersey, reportedly plans to travel to El Salvador, as Democrats seek to pressure the Trump administration to return Ábrego García. Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador this week, said he attempted to drive to the prison where his Maryland constituent is being held, but was stopped by the military at a checkpoint. Donald Trump condemned the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, for not lowering US interest rates, and expressed a wish for him to be gone from his role. Trump claimed Powell would resign if he asked him to. Powell himself has said that he would not resign if asked to do so by the president. Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni said Trump had accepted her invitation for an official trip to Rome, as the pair met in Washington in an attempt by Meloni to bridge the gap between the EU and US amid trade tariff tensions. The supreme court said it will hear arguments next month over Trump’s bid to broadly enforce his executive order to restrict automatic birthright citizenship. The court will hear arguments in the case set on 15 May. Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish PhD student and former Fulbright scholar detained after co-authoring a campus newspaper op-ed about Gaza has been denied bond by an immigration judge. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer called on the justice department to investigate whether the arson attack on Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro’s home qualifies as a federal hate crime. James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee, and Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican leadership, have launched an investigation into Harvard University, accusing the university of a “lack of compliance with civil rights laws”. In a letter on Thursday, Comer and Stefanik directed Harvard to provide documents relating to hiring, admissions and diversity, equity and inclusion. The congressional inquiry follows Harvard’s refusal to comply with demands from the Trump administration. Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, six people familiar with the matter said. Musk’s rocket and satellite company is partnering with the software maker Palantir and the drone builder Anduril on a bid to build key parts of Golden Dome, the sources said, which has drawn significant interest from the technology sector’s burgeoning base of defense startups. All three companies were founded by entrepreneurs who have been major political supporters of Trump. Here’s more on the order from a US appeals court denying the justice department’s request to suspend Judge Paula Xinis’s investigation into whether the Trump administration complied with an order to return Kilmar Ábrego García, the man wrongly deported to El Salvador. A three-judge panel from the 4th US circuit court of appeals unanimously refused to suspend Xinis’s decision to order sworn testimony by Trump administration officials to determine if they complied with her instruction to “facilitate” Ábrego García’s return. The panel said the administration’s claim that it could not do anything to free Ábrego García and return him to the US “should be shocking”. It comes after the justice department appealed after Xinis on Tuesday ordered sworn testimony by at least four officials who work for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department. The executive and judicial branches of the federal government “come too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both,” the judges wrote in their order today. “This is a losing proposition all around. The Judiciary will lose much from the constant intimations of its illegitimacy, to which by dent of custom and detachment we can only sparingly reply. The Executive will lose much from a public perception of its lawlessness and all of its attendant contagions. A Massachusetts family is demanding answers from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), complaining its agents smashed a car window with a large hammer and detained a man whom they say had applied for asylum. A lawyer for the family also claims agents were not looking for the man in the car, Juan Francisco Mendez, when they grabbed him on Monday in New Bedford while he was driving to a dental appointment. He is now believed to have been taken into Ice detention. The lawyer, Ondine Galvez-Sniffin, told the Associated Press in an interview that the agents claimed they were looking for another man with a different name before they dragged Mendez and his wife out of the car. A federal appeals court has rejected an effort by the justice department to halt a judge’s investigation into whether the Trump administration violated court orders to “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador. In its order on Thursday, the court said the Trump administration’s request to bar US district judge Paula Xinis from opening her inquiry was “both extraordinary and premature”. We shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the supreme court’s recent decision,” the order states. “It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all,” it continues. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear. The supreme court said it will hear arguments next month over Donald Trump’s bid to restrict automatic birthright citizenship. The justices, in an unsigned order, did not immediately act on a request by Trump’s administration to narrow the scope of three nationwide injunctions issued by federal judges in Washington state, Massachusetts and Maryland that halted his 20 January order while the matter is litigated. Instead, the court deferred any decision on that request until it hears arguments in the case set for 15 May. Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen said he attempted to drive to the prison where his Maryland constituent Kilmar Ábrego García is being held, but was stopped by the military at a checkpoint. Ábrego García was deported to his home country last month due to what the Trump administration has admitted was an “administrative error”. The supreme court has ordered the government to “facilitate” his return to the United States, but Donald Trump has refused to do so. Van Hollen arrived in El Salvador yesterday intending to meet Ábrego García and report on his well-being to his family. The senator met with vice-president Félix Ulloa, who refused his request to see the deportee in person, or speak to him on the phone. The senator said he attempted today to drive to the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), where Ábrego García is being held. Van Hollen said in a video filmed on the side of a road: I understand we’re about three kilometers now from Cecot, and as you can see, they’re letting other cars go by, but they stopped us because they’re under orders not to allow us to proceed to check on the well being of Kilmar Ábrego García. You can watch it here. Here’s more on Van Hollen’s attempt to visit Ábrego García. Trump said he had been “fully briefed” on the mass shooting at Florida State University, which has reportedly resulted in multiple casualties. “It’s a horrible thing. It’s horrible that things like this take place,” he said. Trump said the US and Ukraine would sign a new minerals deal next Thursday. “We have a minerals deal,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We have a deal on that.” Asked about Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said “I’m not happy with him,” adding: I’m not blaming him, but what I am saying is that I wouldn’t say he’s done the greatest job. Donald Trump continued his criticism of Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell and indicated he believes he has the power to remove him from his post. “Oh he’ll leave. If I ask him to, he’ll be out of there,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. He added: I don’t think he’s doing the job. He’s too late, always too late. Little slow, and I’m not happy with him. I let him know it, and if I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast. He did not respond to a follow-up question on whether he would try to remove Powell from the post. Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni said Donald Trump has accepted her invitation to come to Italy for an official visit. “I want to thank President Trump for having accepted an invitation to pay an official visit to Rome in the near future and consider [the] possibility to meet also with Europe,” Meloni told reporters in the Oval Office. She said her goal is to “make the west great again”. “I think we can do it together.” When I speak about [the] west, I don’t speak about geographical space. I speak about a civilization, and I want to make that civilization stronger. Donald Trump and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni have been speaking to reporters in the Oval Office. Trump praised Meloni as a “friend” who has done a “fantastic job” and “taken Europe by storm”. “Everybody loves her and respects her, and I can’t say that about many people,” Trump said. “We really have a great relationship between Italy and ourselves.” Students, faculty and members of the Harvard University community have been protesting on campus, a day after the Trump administration threatened to revoke the university’s ability to enrol international students. Harvard made headlines on Monday by becoming the first university to stand up against a series of onerous demands from the Trump administration, setting the stage for a showdown between the federal government and one of the US’s most prestigious institutions. Donald Trump has also threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, after freezing $2.3bn in federal funds to the school. Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has invited Donald Trump to visit Italy as the two leaders sat down for talks at the White House. Their meeting comes a day before Meloni hosts vice-president JD Vance in Rome, and the back-to-back talks could be critical in determining whether she can play a mediator role between the US and Europe. Meloni added that she expected Italy would announce at the next Nato meeting in June that her country would be able to reach the alliance requirement that each member nation spend 2% of GDP on defense spending. Donald Trump and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni have said they are certain they can make a trade deal ahead of talks at the White House. “I am sure we can make a deal, and I am here to help with that,” Meloni said as she sat across a table from Trump ahead of a lunch on Thursday. Trump said that broadly speaking he expected he would make an announcement about trade deals but was “in no rush”. Per pool report: Oh, there will be a trade deal, 100% … Of course there will be a trade deal. They want to make one very much. And we are going to make a trade deal. I fully expect it. And it will be a fair deal. Asked about what countries were on his priority list, Trump said, “Everybody is on my priority list.” Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has attacked Comcast, claiming that the media company is “misleading the American public” by describing Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 29-year old Salvadorian man living in Maryland who was wrongfully sent to El Salvador, as a “Maryland man.” Carr, who was appointed to his position by Trump, targeted Comcast outlets and accused them of “news distortion” on X. The FCC chair’s comments come a day after Trump attacked Comcast in a separate Truth Social post this week, writing that Comcast and its leadership “are a disgrace to the integrity of Broadcasting!!!” Last week, the supreme court unanimously ruled and ordered the administration to “facilitate” the return of Garcia, who was supposed to have been protected from deportation to El Salvador, regardless of whether he was part of the MS-13 gang – a claim that the Trump administration has repeated and which García’s family and attorneys staunchly refutes. Garcia has no criminal record in the US, according to court documents. It’s also noteworthy that while members of the Trump administration continue to make the claim on television, the Department of Justice has not made the MS-13 accusation in court papers and has admitted the deportation was an error. Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has arrived at the White House ahead of talks with Donald Trump. Speaking to reporters before their formal bilateral meeting, Trump praised Meloni, calling her a “great prime minister” and “one of the real leaders of the world”. Meloni said she wants to “speak frankly about the needs that every one of us has” and “find the best way to make us both stronger”. In respose to whether Meloni will be the one to “mediate your relationship with Europe”, Trump said: “Well, I do like her very much… I’m very proud to be with her…can’t do better than that.” Treasury secretary Scott Bessent has cautioned White House officials to avoid firing Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, Politico reports, citing sources familiar with the matter. Trump’s frustration with Powell stems from Powell’s refusal to cut interest rates, something which Trump has repeatedly advocated for. On Thursday, Trump took to Truth Social and vowed that Powell’s “termination cannot come fast enough”! Since Trump issued sweeping tariffs – which he later scaled back as part of a 90-day pause on most countries – the president has been calling for lower rates. However, Powell has kept rates elevated in attempts to control rising prices across the country. Politico reports that according to federal law, members of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors are appointed for 14-year terms and are can only be dismissed for “cause”. Powell has previously said that the removal and demotion of top Federal Reserve officials are “not permitted under the law”. Republican senator Lisa Murkowski has said a fear of retaliation under the Trump administration is rising to levels she has not seen before. “We are all afraid,” the Alaska senator said at leadership summit on Monday. “It’s quite a statement,” she continued. We’re in a time and place where – I don’t know, I certainly have not – I have not been here before. And I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice because retaliation is real. And that’s not right. “It is as hard as anything I have been engaged in, in the 20-plus years I’ve been in the Senate,” she added. The wife of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man unlawfully deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador, has strongly criticized the Trump administration’s attempt to smear his character, saying a temporary restraining order against him was “out of caution” and that “he is a loving partner and father” who is being denied justice. Jennifer Vasquez Sura said she “acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar” when she got the civil protective order in 2021, according to a statement emailed to the Baltimore Sun. Vasquez Sura said she decided not to follow through with the civil court process because “things did not escalate” with her husband. She wrote: We were able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling. Our marriage only grew stronger in the years that followed. No one is perfect, and no marriage is perfect. That is not a justification for ICE’s action of abducting him and deporting him to a country where he was supposed to be protected from deportation. The Trump administration has refused to attempt to return Ábrego García to the US after he was mistakenly placed on a deportation flight to El Salvador last month, despite legal rulings ordering his return. The Trump administration claims that Ábrego García is a member of MS-13, a gang the administration has listed as a foreign terrorist organization. Ábrego García, through his attorneys, has denied any affiliation. He has no criminal record in either the US or El Salvador. The White House is preparing a budget that could include deep cuts to federal housing, including a sweeping overhaul of aid to low-income families, according to a New York Times report. The potential changes primarily concern federal housing vouchers, including those more commonly known as Section 8, the paper writes. Section 8 helps low-income families, elderly persons, veterans and disabled individuals cover the monthly costs of apartments, town homes and single-family residences. The overhaul would be reportedly included in Donald Trump’s new budget, which is expected to be sent to Capitol Hill in the coming weeks. Talks between Iran and the US over Tehran’s nuclear program are in a “very crucial” stage, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog said. Iran and US are expected to meet on Saturday in Rome for a new round of talks after last weekend’s first meeting in Oman. “We know that we are in a very crucial, I would say, stage of this important negotiation, so I want to concentrate on the positive,” International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said. There is a possibility of a good outcome. Nothing is guaranteed. We need to make sure that we put all of the elements in place ... in order to get to this agreement. Grossi was speaking during a visit to Iran, during which he met with the country’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi. Several international students who have had their visas revoked in recent weeks have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, arguing the government denied them due process. The actions by the federal government to terminate students’ legal status have left hundreds of scholars at risk of detention and deportation. Their schools range from private universities such as Harvard and Stanford to large public institutions such as the University of Maryland and Ohio State University and to some small liberal arts colleges. At least 901 students at 128 colleges and universities have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since mid-March, according to an Associated Press review of university statements and correspondence with school officials. In lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), students have argued the government lacked justification to cancel their visa or terminate their legal status. The Trump administration plans to focus on the financial investments of elite universities as part of the next phase of Donald Trump’s war on top universities, according to a report. White House officials plan to examine investments in areas disfavored by Trump, including clean energy and China, Semafor reports, citing sources. It comes after Trump announced pauses in federal funding on some of the top US universities he accuses of antisemitism and pushing progressive ideology, and as the IRS is reportedly preparing to revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status. Semafor cites a White House memo from February that states: It is past time for American universities to stop supporting foreign adversaries with their investment decisions, much as they should stop granting university access to supporters of terrorism. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has called on the Department of Justice to investigate whether the arson attack on Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro’s home constitutes a hate crime. In a letter to attorney general Pam Bondi, Schumer wrote: While the local district attorney has not yet filed hate-crime charges, he acknowledged that Governor Shapiro’s religion appears to have factored into the suspect’s decisions. Schumer referred to revelations contained in search warrants made public yesterday about the arson attack suspect’s comments signaling support for Palestinians. According to a search warrant in the case, 38-year-old Cody Balmer identified himself by name in a 911 call and said Shapiro “needs to know that he ‘will not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people’”. The suspect’s statements, “in conjunction with the timing of the attack during Passover, Governor Shapiro’s visible embrace of his Jewish faith, and the context of rising antisemitism globally and across the country” raise “serious concerns about antisemitic motivation”, Schumer wrote. Illinois congresswoman Delia Ramirez, a Democrat, has requested a congressional delegation to visit the Salvadorian mega-prison where the Trump administration is sending deportees. Among those who have been sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) in El Salvador is Kilmar Ábrego García, whom the Trump administration admitted to wrongly deporting but has refused to bring back. In a statement on Wednesday, Ramirez said she had sent a letter to the Committee on Homeland Security demanding an oversight visit to Cecot, which she described as a “notorious, off-shore prison with a history of gross human rights violations”. President Trump and Secretary Noem deported Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, Andry Hernandez Romero, Jerce Reyes Barrios and hundreds of others to Cecot with no due process, resulting in ‘administrative errors’. Their actions are illegal, unconstitutional and inhumane. Maryland’s Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday but said his request to visit Ábrego García was denied. Several other Democratic lawmakers have signaled that they would like to visit El Salvador to check on Ábrego García, including Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic caucus, and Robert Garcia and Maxwell Alejandro Frost, both members of the House oversight committee. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is making plans to rescind Harvard University’s tax-exempt status, with a final decision expected soon, according to multiple reports. Some IRS officials have told colleagues that the treasury department asked the agency on Wednesday to consider revoking Harvard’s tax exemption, the New York Times reported. Linda McMahon, the education secretary, said she doesn’t know whether Harvard will lose its tax-exempt status but argued “it was certainly worth looking into.” “We’ll see what IRS comes back with relative to Harvard,” McMahon told CNN. I certainly think, you know, in elitist schools, especially that have these incredibly large endowments, you know, we should probably have a look into that. Donald Trump on Tuesday publicly called for Harvard to lose its tax-exempt status, hours after his administration announced a $2.2bn freeze in federal funds to Harvard. “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting “Sickness?” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!” According to the Times, federal law bars the president from either directly or indirectly requesting the IRS to investigate or audit specific targets. The IRS has previously revoked tax exemptions from organizations for political or commercial activities, but federal law gives non-profits the right to appeal the agency’s decision in court. “To my knowledge, this is the first time an administration has tried something like this,” R William Snyder, accounting and taxes professor at George Mason University’s Costello College of Business, told CNN. An immigration judge denied bond to a Tufts University PhD student who was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents outside her Massachusetts apartment because her student visa had been revoked. Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, was targeted by the Trump administration for arrest, detention and deportation in retaliation for an op-ed she co-authored in her student newspaper, according to her lawyers. Öztürk’s attorneys said the immigration ruling on Wednesday was a “complete violation of due process and the rule of law”. Ms. Öztürk has committed no crime and DHS has provided zero evidence in their case against her. Despite that, the court yesterday relied on a previously submitted State Department memo that points to nothing that Ms. Öztürk said or did — other than her 2024 school newspaper op-ed — to falsely claim she is a danger to her community. Öztürk is one of several international university students facing deportation over their involvement in pro-Palestinian protests and activism on college campuses. The European Central Bank cut its main interest rate to 2.25% from 2.5% today in response to slowing growth and Donald Trump’s tariffs. The Frankfurt-based bank cut its benchmark deposit rate to tackle a slowdown in the bloc and the impact from the border taxes imposed earlier this month on all EU imports into the US. It marks the third time this year that the cost of borrowing fell across the 20-member euro area. Financial markets expect central banks in all major economies to cut interest rates this year as tariffs hit global trade and slow growth. Donald Trump is set to meet with Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, at the White House today, marking the first visit by a European leader since Trump announced tariffs on EU imports. The EU faces 25% import tariffs on steel and aluminum and cars, and broader tariffs on almost all other goods. Posting to Truth Social this morning, Trump said he had a “very productive” call with Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, and also a “very productive” meeting with the “highest level” Japanese trade representatives. “Every Nation, including China, wants to meet!” he wrote. “Today, Italy!” Meloni, the leader of Italy’s most right-wing government in decades, was the only EU leader invited to Trump’s inauguration in January. Trump has previously described her as a “fantastic woman”. The two leaders are expected to hold talks and have lunch during Meloni’s day visit to Washington. She is then scheduled to host vice-president JD Vance in Rome later this week. Today’s meeting will be closely watched. On one hand, it is an ideal opportunity for Meloni to demonstrate an affinity with Trump, with whom her natural political tendencies lie, while boosting her credentials as a conduit towards more meaningful dialogue. On the other, it will be a delicate balancing act for the prime minister, who also knows she must be careful to maintain her allegiance to Italy’s EU partners. Joe Biden visited Harvard University on Wednesday, during which he applauded its decision to defy demands from the Trump administration. According to the Harvard Crimson, the former president attended a private seminar in which he said Harvard had “stepped up in a way no one else has”. Asked if Harvard should pursue legal action, Biden said he believed it should “just do what it’s doing – lifting everybody up”. Biden’s comments came after another former US president, Barack Obama, praised Harvard for having “set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom”. Donald Trump said Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell’s termination “cannot come fast enough”, while calling for the US central bank to cut interest rates. In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump reiterated his stance on rate cuts, saying that Powell “should have lowered interest rates, like the ECB, long ago, but he should certainly lower them now”. Conservationists on Wednesday sued the Trump administration over its attempts to boost the oil industry by rolling back green policies. Filed by the environmental non-profit Center for Biological Diversity, the litigation focuses on Trump’s day-one “unleashing American energy” executive order. In an effort to boost already booming US energy production, the emergency declaration directed federal agencies to identify all policies and regulations that “unduly” burden fuel producers and create “action plans” to weaken or remove them. The lawsuit seeks information about the development of these action plans from four federal agencies: the Department of the Interior, the Department of Commerce, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service. Since the executive order was passed, the administration has announced plans to eliminate scores of other green policies. Last week, for instance, it emerged that the EPA plans to eliminate long-standing requirements for polluting companies to collect and report their greenhouse gas emissions, ProPublica reported. The IRS is considering revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status, marking an escalation in the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure the university, according to the New York Times. On Tuesday, Donald Trump called for Harvard to pay taxes, as part of an ongoing push for changes to its hiring, admissions and curriculum. Sources said IRS officials told colleagues the treasury department requested the agency consider revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status on Wednesday. Donald Trump has declared that Harvard University should no longer receive federal funds, calling it a “joke” that “teaches hate and stupidity”, while his administration said the pre-eminent US university could lose its ability to enrol foreign students. Harvard made headlines on Monday by becoming the first university to stand up against a series of onerous demands from the Trump administration, setting the stage for a showdown between the federal government and one of the US’s most prestigious institutions. The Trump administration swiftly retaliated by announcing it would freeze more than $2bn in multiyear grants and contracts with the university. On Wednesday it was also reported by CNN that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was planning to take away Harvard’s tax-exempt status. Numerous Democratic politicians and top universities across the country have rallied in support of Harvard, but the Trump administration has doubled down, threatening to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status and insisting that the university apologize. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said late on Wednesday that Harvard would lose its ability to enrol foreign students if it did not meet demands the Trump administration demands to share information on some visa holders. The department’s secretary, Kristi Noem, also announced the termination of two DHS grants to Harvard totalling more than $2.7m. Noem said she wrote a letter to the university demanding records on what she called the “illegal and violent activities” of Harvard’s foreign student visa holders by 30 April. “And if Harvard cannot verify it is in full compliance with its reporting requirements, the university will lose the privilege of enrolling foreign students,” she said in a statement. A spokesperson for Harvard said it was aware of Noem’s letter and that the university stood by its statement earlier in the week to “not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights”, while saying it would comply with the law. Donald Trump blasted Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell on Thursday for not lowering interest rates, calling him “always TOO LATE AND WRONG”. “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Too Late should have lowered Interest Rates, like the ECB, long ago, but he should certainly lower them now.” The central bank’s chair warned on Wednesday that Trump’s sweeping tariffs on virtually every trade partner could put the Fed in the unenviable position of having to choose between tackling inflation and unemployment. Trump’s stop-start tariff policy has unnerved investors and trading partners unsure about the long-term strategy, and what it might mean for international trade. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that Trump has repeatedly urged Powell to cut interest rates, but the US central bank has adopted a wait-and-see attitude, holding interest rates steady at 4.25% to 4.5% since the start of this year. And we have just heard from Moscow, with the Kremlin welcoming today’s meeting in Paris as a chance for Witkoff to update Europeans on his long conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin last week. “The United States is continuing to work in this direction with the Europeans and with the Ukrainians,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said. “Unfortunately, from the Europeans we see a focus on continuing the war,” he said, as reported by Reuters. US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, arrived in Paris on Thursday to meet French president, Emmanuel Macron, about crafting a Ukraine ceasefire, as Washington and Europe seek common ground on ending the fighting. Top Ukrainian officials were also in the French capital to meet EU and US delegations, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff said, without saying precisely who they were meeting, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). The latest diplomatic initiative comes as Trump’s push for a ceasefire has yet to bear fruit despite his pledges to quickly end the war. Zelenskyy himself urged the Paris talks participants to lean on Russia to agree to a ceasefire. “Russia uses every day and every night to kill. We must put pressure on the killers … to end this war and guarantee a lasting peace,” Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post. Rubio and Keith Kellogg, Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, arrived in Paris mid-morning. US envoy Steve Witkoff is also expected to join them. Donald Trump’s administration will ask a US federal appeals court on Thursday to pause a judge’s ruling lifting access restrictions the White House imposed on the Associated Press (AP) for referring to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage. The Trump administration has argued that the lower-court ruling, which mandates AP journalists be granted access to press events in the White House, infringes on the president’s ability to decide whom to admit to sensitive spaces. The White House has asked to put the ruling on hold while it appeals. The White House began limiting AP’s access to Trump in February after the news agency said it would continue using the name Gulf of Mexico while acknowledging Trump’s order to change the name of the body of water to the Gulf of America. The case has become a flashpoint in Trump’s relationship with the news media as the White House moves to exert greater control over who gets to ask the Republican president questions and report on his statements in real time. Lawyers for the AP accused the White House on Wednesday of defying the court order by continuing to exclude its journalists from some events and then limiting access by all news wires, including Reuters and Bloomberg, to Trump. The White House has argued that the AP does not have a right to what the administration has called special access to the president. The 8 April ruling from US district judge Trevor McFadden, appointed by Trump during his first term, temporarily ordered the administration to allow AP journalists to attend events open to similar types of news organizations in the Oval Office and on Air Force One, as well as in larger spaces in the White House while its lawsuit moves forward. The AP sued three top Trump aides, alleging the restrictions were an attempt to coerce the news media into using the government’s preferred language and had hampered its ability to cover Trump. McFadden found the measures retaliated against the AP over its coverage choices, likely violating free speech protections under the US constitution. The three-judge panel to hear the White House’s request on Thursday afternoon includes two circuit judges Trump appointed during his first term, Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, as well as judge Cornelia Pillard, nominated by Democratic president Barack Obama. The AP alleged, and McFadden agreed, that the White House singled out the AP because it publishes an influential stylebook, which sets the language and grammar standards used by many US news organizations. The AP says in its stylebook that the Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years and, as a global news agency, the AP will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. A former Michigan public health official and Democratic candidate for governor entered the race for the state’s open US Senate seat on Thursday. Abdul El-Sayed, 40, is the second Democrat to put his name in the running in what could be one of the most watched races in the 2026 midterm elections. He is also the second candidate this week to launch a campaign to replace Democratic senator Gary Peters, who is not seeking reelection. “It’s way too hard to survive here in the richest, most powerful country in the world and it should not be this hard to get by,” he told the Associated Press (AP). El-Sayed ran for governor in 2018 as a progressive Democrat and was endorsed by Bernie Sanders. He came in second in the Democratic primary, losing to Gretchen Whitmer by more than 20 points and beating Shri Thanedar by more than 12 points. Whitmer went on to win the general election and is in the midst of a second term. She cannot run again because of term limits. A resident of Ann Arbor, El-Sayed recently served as director of the Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services in Wayne County, home to Detroit. Before that, he was the public health director of the city after it declared bankruptcy in 2013, reports the AP. El-Sayed said he is inspired to run for Senate after the overhaul of the federal government brought on by president Donald Trump and Elon Musk, including changes and cuts made at the nation’s top health agencies. But he said Democrats must do more than just run on the opposite of Republican policies. “You have to come with your own independent analysis of what you think the problem is and how you want to solve it, if you want to earn the trust of the public,” he said. El-Sayed joins state senator Mallory McMorrow in the Democratic field of candidates looking to replace Peters. Others considering a run include Haley Stevens and Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel. Former US Representative Mike Rogers launched his bid on Monday after losing a Senate race last year by 19,000 votes to Democrat Elissa Slotkin. Maryland’s Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen says the government of El Salvador has denied his request to visit Kilmar Ábrego García, his constituent who was wrongly deported to the Central American country last month. Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday with the intention of meeting Ábrego García at the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), where US authorities have said that the Maryland resident is being held along with others deported at Donald Trump’s orders. The senator’s visit came days after Trump and El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, refused to take steps to return Ábrego García to the United States, even though the US supreme court last week said the administration must “facilitate” his return. At a press conference in El Salvador, Van Hollen said that he had met with the country’s vice-president, Félix Ulloa, who told him it would not be possible for him to speak with Ábrego García in person or on the phone. “I asked the vice-president if I could meet with Mr Ábrego García. And he said, well, you need to make earlier provisions to go visit Cecot,” Van Hollen said. “I said, I’m not interested at this moment in taking a tour of Cecot, I just want to meet with Mr Ábrego García. He said he was not able to make that happen.” Van Hollen said he offered to come back next week to meet with Ábrego García, but Ulloa “said he couldn’t promise that either”. The vice-president also said he could not arrange for Ábrego García’s family to speak to him by phone. When the senator asked if he could do so, Ulloa told him that the US embassy must make that request, Van Hollen said. “We have an unjust situation here. The Trump administration is lying about Ábrego García,” said Van Hollen, who said his constituent had been wrongly named as a member of the MS-13 criminal gang. The Trump administration has admitted that an “administrative error” led to the deportation of Ábrego García to his native country, despite an immigration judge granting him protected status in 2019. California is preparing to ask a court to block Donald Trump’s “illegal” tariffs, accusing the president of overstepping his authority and causing “immediate and irreparable harm” to the world’s fifth-largest economy. The lawsuit, to be filed in federal court on Wednesday by California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, and attorney general, Rob Bonta, is the most significant challenge yet to Trump’s flurry of on-again-off-again tariffs. In the complaint, California officials argue that the US constitution explicitly grants Congress the power to impose tariffs and that the president’s invocation of emergency powers to unilaterally escalate a global trade war, which has rattled stock markets and raised fears of recession, is unlawful. “No state is poised to lose more than the state of California,” Newsom said, formally unveiling the lawsuit during a press conference at an almond farm in the Central valley on Wednesday. “It’s a serious and sober moment, and I’d be … lying to you if I said it can be quickly undone.” Invoking a statute known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), Trump has issued a series of declarations imposing, reversing, delaying, restarting and modifying tariffs on US trading partners. The complaint argues that the law does not give the US president the authority to impose tariffs without the consent of Congress. It asks the court to declare Trump’s tariff orders “unlawful and void” and to order the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection to stop enforcing them. “The president is yet again acting as if he’s above the law. He isn’t,” Bonta said at the press conference on Wednesday, noting that it was the state’s 14th lawsuit against the Trump administration in less than 14 weeks. “Bottom line: Trump doesn’t have the singular power to radically upend the country’s economic landscape. That’s not how our democracy works.” Pronouncing himself “disgusted” by Donald Trump’s favorable attitude to Russia and Vladimir Putin, the former UK defence minister Grant Shapps said the US president calling a Russian missile strike that killed dozens in Ukraine last weekend a “mistake” was an example of “weasel language we used to hear … from the IRA” terrorist group. “All anybody needs Putin to do is get the hell out of a democratic neighboring country,” Shapps told the One Decision podcast, regarding attempts to end the war in Ukraine that has raged since Russia invaded in February 2022. Shapps said: And I just have to [put] this on record: it disgusts me, I feel disgusted [by] the idea that the leader of the free world cannot tell the difference between the dictator who locks up and murders his opponents and invades innocent democratic countries and the country itself that has been invaded. This lack of moral clarity is completely demoralizing for the rest of the democratic world. Shapps, 56, filled numerous roles in Conservative cabinets before becoming minister of defence in August 2023, becoming a key player in maintaining international support for Ukraine. He lost his seat in parliament last July, as Labour won power in a landslide. This month, Shapps was given a knighthood. One Decision is a foreign policy focused podcast, with co-hosts including Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of the British MI6 intelligence service, and Leon Panetta, a former US defense secretary and CIA director. Higher education leaders worry the arrests and visa revocations could discourage students overseas from pursuing higher education in the United States. The lack of clarity of what is leading to revocations can create a sense of fear among students, said Sarah Spreitzer, vice-president of government relations at the American Council on Education, reports the Associated Press (AP). Spreitzer said: The very public actions that are being taken by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security around some of these students, where they are removing these students from their homes or from their streets, that’s not usually done unless there is a security issue when a student visa is revoked. The threat of this very quick removal is something that’s new. Several international students who have had their visas revoked in recent weeks have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, arguing the government denied them due process when it suddenly took away their permission to be in the US. The actions by the federal government to terminate students’ legal status have left hundreds of scholars at risk of detention and deportation. Their schools range from private universities like Harvard and Stanford to large public institutions like the University of Maryland and Ohio State University to some small liberal arts colleges. At least 901 students at 128 colleges and universities have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since mid-March, according to an Associated Press (AP) review of university statements and correspondence with school officials. In lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security, students have argued the government lacked justification to cancel their visa or terminate their legal status, reports the AP. The payments frozen to Harvard are for government contracts with its leading research programs, mostly in the medical fields where the school’s laboratories are critical in the development of new medicines and treatments, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). Trump and his White House team have publicly justified their campaign against universities as a reaction to what they say is uncontrolled antisemitism and a need to reverse diversity programs aimed at encouraging minorities. The antisemitism allegations are based on controversy over protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that swept across US college campuses last year. Columbia University in New York stood down last month and agreed to oversight of its Middle Eastern studies department after being threatened with a loss of $400m in federal funds. In the case of Harvard, the White House is seeking unprecedented levels of government control over the inner workings of the country’s oldest and wealthiest university – and one of the most respected educational and research institutions in the world. AFP report that in a letter sent to Harvard, the administration’s demands included: Ending admissions that take into account the student’s race or national origins. Preventing admission of foreign students “hostile to the American values and institutions”. Ending staff hiring based on race, religion, sex or national origin. Reducing the power of students in campus governance. Auditing students and staff for “viewpoint diversity”. Reforming entire programs for “egregious records of antisemitism or other bias” Cracking down on campus protests. Donald Trump also said on Tuesday that Harvard “should lose its tax-exempt status” as a nonprofit educational institution if it does not back down. CNN and the Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was now making plans to do so after a request from Trump. White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields told Agence France-Presse (AFP) by email that “any forthcoming actions by the IRS will be conducted independently of the president.” Demonstrating the broadening resonance of the row, Golden State Warriors basketball coach Steve Kerr spoke out in support of Harvard. Kerr, sporting a Harvard T-shirt, called the demands on the university the “dumbest thing I’ve ever heard” and cited his backing of “academic freedom”, reports AFP. US president Donald Trump called Harvard a “joke” on Wednesday and said it should lose its government research contracts after the prestigious university refused demands that it accept outside political supervision. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that Trump’s administration also threatened to ban Harvard from admitting foreign students unless it bows to the requirements, as US media reported that officials were considering revoking the university’s tax-exempt status. Trump said on his Truth Social platform: Harvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the World’s Great Universities or Colleges. Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds. Trump is furious at the storied institution for rejecting government supervision of its admissions, hiring practices and political slant and ordered the freezing of $2.2bn in federal funding to Harvard this week. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also canceled $2.7m worth of research grants to Harvard on Wednesday and threatened the university’s ability to enrol international students unless it turns over records on visa-holders’ “illegal and violent activities”. “If Harvard cannot verify it is in full compliance with its reporting requirements, the university will lose the privilege of enrolling foreign students,” a DHS statement said, with secretary Kristi Noem accusing the university of “bending the knee to antisemitism”. Harvard has flatly rejected the pressure, with its president, Alan Garber, saying that the university refuses to “negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights”. More on this story in a moment, but first, here are some other developments: Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland traveled to El Salvador in an effort to get answers about the Trump administration’s illegal deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García. He said he hoped to meet Ábrego García in person and see his condition. He previously told the Guardian the case had tipped the US into a constitutional crisis. Hollen says he was told that the Trump administration was paying the Salvadorian government to hold Ábrego García, citing that as the reason he has not been released. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt fired back during a White House press briefing, saying that Democrats refuse to “accept the will of the American people,” and repeating administration claims that García was a member of the MS-13 gang. “Nothing will change the fact that Ábrego García will never be a Maryland father. He will never live in the United States of America again,” she said. Numerous Democratic politicians and top universities across the country have rallied in support of Harvard, but the Trump administration has doubled down, threatening to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status and insisting that the university apologize. UK officials are tightening security when handling sensitive trade documents to prevent them from falling into US hands amid Trump’s tariff war, the Guardian can reveal. In an indication of the strains on the “special relationship”, British civil servants have changed document-handling guidance, adding higher classifications to some trade negotiation documents in order to better shield them from American eyes, sources said. Donald Trump has proposed giving money to immigrants in the country illegally who choose to leave voluntarily, and that his “self-deportation program” would include the prospect of those who are “good” re-entering the country later legally. The Department of Health and Human Services may be facing a severe $40bn budget cut – slashing roughly a third in discretionary spending according to an internal budget document. Jerome Powell, the US Federal Reserve chair, warned that Trump’s tariffs were generating a “challenging scenario” for the central bank and were likely to worsen inflation. His comments on Wednesday came as US stock markets had already been rattled by a new trade restriction on the chip designer Nvidia. The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said in his first press conference that the significant and recent rise in autism diagnoses was evidence of an “epidemic” caused by an “environmental toxin”, which would be rooted out by September. However, autism advocates and health experts have repeatedly stated the rise in diagnoses is related to better recognition of the condition, changing diagnostic criteria and better access to screening.