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  • Trump says U.S. and Canada have reached last-minute deal to delay 50% U.S. tariffs on Canadian imports

    Trump says U.S. and Canada have reached last-minute deal to delay 50% U.S. tariffs on Canadian imports

    WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he was delaying 50% U.S. tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian imports after the two countries reached a last-minute deal hours before the sanctions were to go into effect.

    The announcement, which Trump made on his social media platform, buys time for more negotiations and avoids, for now, another strain in already tense relations between the historic allies.

    “I have paused the 50% Tariffs against Canada, that were scheduled to kick in tomorrow morning for a three day period, based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!” Trump posted on Truth Social less than two hours before the 12:01 a.m. Wednesday deadline.

    If they had gone into effect as scheduled at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, Trump’s import taxes would have hit Canadian products ranging from hockey sticks to tongue depressors.

    But the political impact would likely have been bigger than the economic one. Canada had threatened to retaliate against any new tariffs with levies of its own, aggravating a trade fight between countries that sold each other $880 billion worth of goods and services last year.

    Canadian officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday night.

    Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Trump had spoken twice by phone in the past two days about the ongoing negotiations, including a call Tuesday afternoon, Carney’s office said, underscoring the last-minute push for a deal.

    Both countries had reason to step back from the brink. Nearly 72% of Canada’s goods exports last year went to the United States. And the Trump administration would be taking a risk by imposing a hefty new tariff — paid by U.S. importers who try to pass along the cost to consumers via higher prices — ahead of November’s midterm elections. U.S. voters are already frustrated with the high cost of living.

    “I don’t think either side really wants these tariffs to come into effect,’’ Ryan Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding and a former U.S. trade official, said before the delay was announced. “There’s a pretty strong push on both sides to find an off-ramp here.’’

    Trump’s approach to dealing with Canada marks an extraordinary departure from the traditionally cooperative relationship between the two countries. Trump has hit Canadian goods with tariffs — in a push to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. — and has repeatedly made inflammatory comments about turning Canada into America’s 51st state.

    Trump has made tariffs the centerpiece of his second-term economic agenda. Last year, he imposed double-digit import taxes on almost every country, justifying them by declaring the longstanding U.S. trade deficit a national emergency. The Supreme Court in February ruled that he’d overstepped his authority, striking down those tariffs and setting the stage for the federal government to pay refunds to importers.

    So Trump has looked for other legal authority to impose tariffs.

    To hit Canada, he reached back to the Great Depression, invoking Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to threaten 50% tariffs on products that account for about 5% of Canadian exports to the United States.

    Nearly a century ago, with the U.S. and world economies in collapse, Congress passed the 1930 tariff law, imposing taxes on imports from around the world. Known as the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, named for their congressional sponsors, they are notorious among economists and historians for limiting world commerce and making the Great Depression worse.

    Section 338 tariffs have never been used before.

    Section 338 authorizes the president to impose tariffs of up to 50% on imports from countries that have discriminated against U.S. businesses. No investigation is required to justify the levies. Nor is there any limit on how long the tariffs can stay in place.

    The U.S. is renegotiating a North American trade pact — the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement — that Trump strong-armed America’s neighbors into accepting in his first term. The threat of Section 338 tariffs gives the United States leverage to seek fresh concessions from Ottawa.

  • Byron Donalds and David Jolly will compete to replace Ron DeSantis as Florida governor

    Byron Donalds and David Jolly will compete to replace Ron DeSantis as Florida governor

    ORLANDO — U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds won the Republican nomination for Florida governor and former Rep. David Jolly picked up the Democratic nod in Tuesday’s primaries, setting the stage for a fall campaign to replace outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis and decide the state’s future political direction.

    November’s election will test President Donald Trump’s grip on his adopted state and Democrats’ ability to resurrect Florida as a national political battleground. Florida has moved notably to the right since Trump’s victory in 2016, though Democrats hope to regain ground from his slumping popularity ratings.

    DeSantis, a leading conservative figure who has both clashed and collaborated with Trump over the years, is barred from running for a third consecutive term.

    Also Tuesday, progressive state Rep. Angie Nixon won the Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate special election, defeating retired Army Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, a onetime National Security Council official who testified in Trump’s first impeachment in 2019.

    Nixon, who was heavily outspent by Vindman, will face Sen. Ashley Moody, winner of the Republican nomination, in November to fill the last two years of Marco Rubio’s Senate term. Rubio left the seat to become Trump’s secretary of state last year.

    Donalds could be a historic figure in Florida

    Donalds would be Florida’s first Black governor if he wins in November. He defeated a former DeSantis running mate, Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, political newcomer James Fishback and others Tuesday.

    The 47-year-old congressman Donalds told his supporters at a Universal Studios resort hotel that he’d heard from Republican rivals who pledged their help in winning the general election.

    “The primary is over,” Donalds said. “Tonight we put aside our differences. Tonight we are one united Republican Party.”

    Donalds described Trump’s backing as important but not determinative.

    “Obviously, he has the strongest following of anybody in our party,” he said. However, he added, “you can’t just sit back and think the president’s endorsement is going to carry you.”

    Donalds has promised to push tax cuts, overhaul Florida’s insurance regulations to lower consumer costs and seek greater price transparency from healthcare providers.

    The Democrats’ candidate for governor, Jolly, is a former Republican congressman who switched parties last year. He did not shy away from his partisan history as he addressed supporters Tuesday night.

    “To my Democratic friends, thank you for welcoming me into the party,” he said.

    Jolly’s speech detailed a platform that balances between both political parties: an embrace of capitalism and a lean government, but one that “needs to do its part to fill the gaps,” such as with education and housing.

    “As an old-school Republican, I talk about ending the culture wars not to celebrate some progressive platform,” he said, “but because I still believe in the old school Republican, Libertarian policy that government should simply stay out of your life, and stay out of your bedroom.”

    It’s the second time in a row that Democrats have nominated a onetime Republican for governor.

    Four years ago, they backed former Gov. Charlie Crist, only to see him lose by nearly 20 percentage points to DeSantis.

    Rich Chamberlin, a retiree in Port St. Lucie, said he supported Jolly in Tuesday’s primary, spurred on by attack ads against him.

    “I saw anti-Jolly ads. I said ‘OK, if they are against him, then I must be for him,’” Chamberlin said, adding it didn’t matter to him that Jolly was once a Republican.

    A progressive gets Democratic nomination for Senate

    Florida voters haven’t sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 2012, and this year’s race was always going to be an uphill climb.

    Moody, a former state attorney general, was appointed by DeSantis to fill Rubio’s seat last year after he became Trump’s secretary of state. She’s now running to finish the last two years of his term.

    Moody will face Nixon, a progressive state lawmaker who scored an upset victory over the Army veteran Vindman. Nixon would be Florida’s first Black U.S. senator if elected in November.

    “Rep. Nixon ran a strong campaign,” Vindman posted on social media. “I will be standing by her side in the fight against Ashley Moody. I hope you’ll join me.

    Wasserman Schultz wins in a new plurality Black district

    In U.S. House primaries, Tuesday’s biggest contest saw longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz defeat former U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and others in a redrawn South Florida district.

    Wasserman Schultz, who is white, urged voters in the new, plurality Black district to help her return to Washington for a 12th term. Cherfilus-McCormick had sought a comeback after resigning earlier this year under a pending federal indictment and threat of House ethics sanctions.

    Wasserman Schultz entered a new district after DeSantis’ successful push for new congressional maps intended to boost Trump’s midterm election prospects.

    Her four Black primary opponents — including Cherfilus-McCormick — had argued that the district should have a Black representative. But the voters went with a candidate who touted long experience from serving in Congress since 2005.

    Surrounded by her campaign staff Tuesday night, Wasserman Schultz tearfully thanked voters for having confidence in her. She said she wanted to “make all of you proud, to make sure that the people we spoke to all across this district know that I will fight so they can pay their rent.”

    Republican Rep. Cory Mills is ousted by a challenger

    Former television news reporter Ryan Elijah won the Republican nomination for Florida’s 7th Congressional District, ousting the scandal-plagued Mills.

    A two-term congressman, Mills has denied allegations of domestic violence against a former girlfriend and other controversies.

    But Florida Republicans including DeSantis had abandoned Mills ahead of the primary and the congressman was not included on Trump’s final list of Florida endorsements. Elijah advances to the general election in a central Florida district that is considered reliably Republican.

  • Frank Beard, drummer of boogie-rock trio ZZ Top, has died at 77

    Frank Beard, drummer of boogie-rock trio ZZ Top, has died at 77

    NEW YORK — Frank Beard, the drummer for the Texas boogie-rock trio ZZ Top who kept the tempo for the band’s biggest hits like “Sharp Dressed Man,” “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” and “Legs,” has died. He was 77.

    Mr. Beard was in hospice care when he died Tuesday at his ranch in Richmond, Texas, with family members at his side, according to publicist Bob Merlis. Band cofounder and guitarist Billy Gibbons, on tour with bassist Elwood Francis, hailed Mr. Beard in a statement.

    “Today, Elwood and I lost a great friend and collaborator, and the world lost one of the most naturally innovative drummers and a great and true son of Texas. His signature backbeat was key to keeping ZZ on top. The band of which he was part for six decades is going to keep on keeping on as he had wished,” Gibbons said.

    ZZ Top sold more than 50 million records and had six singles that reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. Seven of their albums have been in the Billboard 200’s Top 10 and they earned three Grammy Award nominations.

    “I’ve found the people I was meant to play with,” Beard says in the 2019 documentary ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band from Texas. “I never wanted to quit, and never wanted to get fired.”

    Drummers went to social media to pay tribute to Mr. Beard’s influence, including Rage Against the Machine’s Brad Wilk, who wrote his mind was blown seeing Mr. Beard’s two-hand shuffle live in high school. Former Guns N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum called Mr. Beard “a very special and unique man behind the kit.”

    How the band came together

    Mr. Beard, from Frankston, Texas, met Gibbons in a band called the Moving Sidewalks and later introduced bassist and vocalist Dusty Hill who had been in several bands with Mr. Beard.

    The trio formed ZZ Top in 1969, naming themselves in part after blues singer Z.Z. Hill and influenced by the British power trio Cream and Jimmy Reed. They maintained their original lineup for more than five decades. Their signature look — long, bushy beards on Gibbons and Hill, and dark sunglasses for all — didn’t change much, either.

    When Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards helped induct the trio into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, he joked: “These cats know their blues and they know how to dress it up. When I first saw them, I thought, ‘I hope these guys are not on the run, because that disguise is not going to work.’ ”

    ZZ Top songs — with their sly and humorous lyrics — were popular in Hollywood, which used “Gimme All Your Lovin’” in Happy Feet, “Sharp Dressed Man” in Evan Almighty, “Legs” in Air, “Sleeping Bag” in I, Tonya, “Tush” in Dazed and Confused, “Mexican Blackbird” in From Dusk Till Dawn, and “La Grange” in Armageddon.

    “The best way to describe ZZ Top is we’re interpreters of a great American art form,” Gibbons told the Dallas Morning News.

    Their debut release, ZZ Top’s First Album, came out in 1970. Their sound was described as a hybrid mixing elements of rock, blues, and funk into a steaming-hot Houston stew. They called themselves a “Little Ol’ Band From Texas.”

    Breaking through

    Three years later, they broke through commercially with “La Grange,” a funky blues song on the album Tres Hombres that paid tribute to the Chicken Ranch, a brothel outside of the Texas town of La Grange that operated from 1905 until 1973 and was immortalized in the Broadway show and the film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Gibbons has ascribed the power of “La Grange” to its simplicity — just two chords and a Robert Johnson-inspired guitar solo.

    The band went on to have such hits as “Tush” and “Cheap Sunglasses.” But their 1983 Eliminator — named after one of Gibbons’ custom cars — added more production elements, synthesizers, and drum machines to their stripped-down sound and yielded the hits “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Legs,” and “Sharp-Dressed Man.” The band toured with a Texas-shaped stage, live rattlesnakes, and a longhorn steer.

    Long beards weren’t always part of the band’s look. Gibbons said it happened by accident: In 1976, the trio took a long break and scattered. Mr. Beard went to Jamaica, Hill went to Mexico, and Gibbons went to France.

    “Although we were speaking by phone, this was pre-video phone. And Dusty and I did not know that we had gotten so lazy that we had decided to forget to shave,” Gibbons told The Tribune in San Luis Obispo in 2010. “So after three years we returned and showed up, and lo and behold here was this sort of wacky-looking image. And it just kind of stuck with us.”

    A boost from MTV

    The band’s rock-chic cool played well on the nascent MTV crowd and their videos, featuring models in short skirts emerging from one of Gibbons’ custom roadsters, became a mainstay.

    They kept the beards, hats and cheap sunglasses in the video trilogy of “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” and “Legs,” made with director Tim Newman.

    “ZZ Top reveled in the humor and ridiculousness of it all, busting their synchronized dance moves and spinning their white-fur guitars. These guys always got the joke, at a time when other bands were still just nervously lip-syncing in front of brick walls,” Rolling Stone said in 2021.

    In 2012, superstar producer Rick Rubin helped update the trio’s sound with the band’s comeback album, La Futura. The album landed at No. 6 on the Billboard chart, their highest position since 1990’s Recycler, some 22 years previously.

    Hill died in 2021.

    In March 2025, the band announced via Instagram that Mr. Beard would temporarily step away from the band’s tour to tend to foot and ankle problems. Mr. Beard died weeks after ZZ Top called off its Aug. 5 concert at the Hollywood Bowl due to his health issues.

    Mr. Beard is survived by his wife, Debbie Meredith, and three children.

  • Whistleblower alleges political pressure, lack of evidence in antisemitism probes targeting schools

    Whistleblower alleges political pressure, lack of evidence in antisemitism probes targeting schools

    WASHINGTON — A Trump administration task force created to combat antisemitism pushed for settlements with Ivy League universities despite government investigations that were rushed and incomplete or that failed to establish legal violations by the schools, a former Justice Department lawyer alleged in a whistleblower disclosure obtained by the Associated Press.

    The complaint alleges that the investigations into some of the nation’s most prestigious academic institutions were designed to strong-arm the schools into cutting deals for political purposes. Outcomes of the investigations were “predetermined, without regard to the evidence” in a “politically mandated effort” to extract money from schools through settlement demands and funding freezes under the pretext of rooting out antisemitism, the complaint alleges.

    The work of the multiagency task force, launched by the Justice Department under then-Attorney General Pam Bondi in February 2025, was “marked by extraordinary procedural irregularities, predetermined outcomes without factual or legal support” and disregard for the law and Constitution, lawyers for the former government attorney wrote in seeking watchdog investigations into their client’s complaints.

    The complaint taps into a broader public discussion about the administration’s efforts to confront allegations of antisemitism at colleges, a problem that received renewed attention during campus protests over Israel’s war in Gaza that some Jewish students said made them feel unsafe. President Donald Trump returned to the White House with a goal of rooting out antisemitism that he said had gone unchecked during the Biden administration, but critics have called his government’s response heavy-handed and said it infringed on free speech rights and coerced concessions from public institutions.

    A key House Democrat is publicizing whistleblower’s allegations

    Lawyers for the former Justice Department attorney, identified as Haley Van Erem, filed the disclosure Tuesday with the inspectors general at the departments of Justice and Health and Human Services and the Office of Special Counsel.

    Van Erem spent nearly a decade working in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division before being involuntarily assigned to HHS to work on the Title VI investigations into the universities, the complaint says.

    The health department assignees were initially told to scrutinize allegations of antisemitism at medical school commencement ceremonies — the lawyers were advised of a New York Post story describing antisemitic conduct at graduation events, the complaint says — but the inquiries were later expanded to focus on the entire schools in the cases of Columbia and Brown, according to Van Erem’s account.

    She left the Justice Department in May 2025 because she was “unwilling to be made vulnerable to further participation in politically motivated investigations unsupported by facts and contrary to law,” says the complaint, which also accuses the task force of having targeted Muslim professors.

    Kiersten Pels, a Justice Department spokesperson, said the department “stands behind the integrity” of its investigations. A spokesperson for the Health and Human Services Department did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment Tuesday.

    Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote separately to Harmeet Dhillon, who as the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has been a public face of the department’s efforts to counter antisemitism. In his letter, Raskin said antisemitism at colleges and medical schools is a real problem that needs to be investigated.

    “But,” he told Dhillon, “your ‘investigation’ into antisemitism was fake, a pre-baked frame-up operation thoroughly political in nature.”

    Raskin wrote that “the whole project was designed to harass professors and administrators at major universities, to curtail their freedom of speech and academic freedom, and to strip targeted institutions of hundreds of millions of dollars in grants that they had already been awarded on the merits of their applications.”

    Scrutiny over the handling of investigations into elite schools

    The whistleblower complaint deals chiefly with investigations into three Ivy League universities: Brown, Harvard, and Columbia.

    It alleges that in the case of Brown, the investigative team did not find evidence to support a violation of Title VI, the section of the Civil Rights Act that bars discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in programs that receive federal funding, but that “leadership refused to permit a notice of no violation and instead sought some form of settlement or resolution despite acknowledging the absence of a legal basis for doing so.”

    Investigators did find evidence of discrimination at Columbia, the complaint says, but the investigation was done on an accelerated timetable before adequate factual development and legal review were completed and relied on allegations that “were unsupported, based on news reports or litigation filings, or that implicated protected First Amendment activity.”

    Columbia University agreed to pay the government $200 million as part of an agreement restoring access to federal funding. Brown University separately agreed to pay $50 million to Rhode Island workforce development organizations to end the three federal investigations involving allegations of antisemitism and racial bias in admissions, with no findings of wrongdoing.

    In the investigation into Harvard, Trump administration officials discussed “extraordinary funding freezes and sweeping proposed settlement terms” before an investigation had been completed that could establish Title VI violations. Sean Keveney, then-HHS acting general counsel, said he believed Harvard would settle because they were “over a barrel,” according to the complaint.

    A federal judge last year ordered the Trump administration to reverse its cuts of more than $2.6 billion in research funding for the university, saying the government “used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.” And a different judge last week dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit that accused Harvard University of turning a blind eye to harassment of Jewish students.

  • Trump says U.S. has no talks planned with Iran, says Strait of Hormuz is open

    Trump says U.S. has no talks planned with Iran, says Strait of Hormuz is open

    U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday the U.S. has no talks planned with Iran but insisted the Strait of Hormuz remains “open and operating,” despite limited traffic and a reported strike on a ship exiting the waterway.

    Earlier this week, Trump threatened to bomb Oman as the country sought a deal with Iran to manage shipping traffic through the strait, two regional officials said Tuesday, a day after Trump reportedly leveled the threat if Oman “gets in the way.” Iran says the waterway will not be reopened until the U.S. meets its conditions.

    As talks between Iran and Oman continue, a projectile hit a ship in the strait and Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed they fired drones at an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia.

    Trump looms over negotiations to reopen Strait of Hormuz

    As Oman and Iran say they are nearing a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said on social media Tuesday that the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports remains “in full force and effect,” but asserted that all water mines have been removed and that other marine traffic was free to pass.

    Trump posted a map depicting the strait as U.S. territory.

    Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi appeared to respond to Trump’s post.

    “Just as Trump correctly wrote the name of the eternal Persian Gulf, soon his delusion regarding the Strait of Hormuz will either be corrected or we will correct the delusions of this deluded man,” he wrote on X.

    The Trump administration has told Oman it opposes parts of the yet-to-be-announced deal, according to officials briefed on the U.S. position. Those include joint Iranian and Omani management of the passage’s exit route and the collection of voluntary fees from vessels, even if the money is used for security and maritime environmental protection.

    The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

    The White House on Tuesday referred to Trump’s remarks in the Oval Office and declined to comment further about Oman.

    Egypt says Iran-Oman agreement could open door to Iran-U.S. deal

    The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that the Iranian-Omani deal could pave the way for Washington and Tehran to return to negotiations for a “comprehensive and permanent deal that addresses all concerns and enhances regional security and stability.”

    The statement came after a meeting between Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and Omani counterpart Badr al-Busaidi. But it did not address Trump’s latest threat against Oman.

    The 60-day negotiating period ended this week between the U.S. and Iran with no clear end to the war in sight.

    Ship traffic drops significantly in Strait of Hormuz

    Ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz dropped significantly last week, with confirmed crossings falling 19.5% to 95 transits. Only three vessels made it through the waterway on Sunday, according to shipping data platform Kpler.

    The ships used the Iranian-designated route through the strait, with no crossings recorded through the Omani routes.

    Crossings through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait increased 6.7% to 254 transits, while so-called dark transits, in which ships turn off the transponders that broadcast their location, fell from 40 to 16, Kpler said.

    Projectile damages ship in strait causing casualty

    An unidentified projectile damaged the engine room of a ship in the Strait of Hormuz near Oman and “resulted in a crew casualty,” according to the British military’s U.K. Maritime Trade Operations center.

    The maritime monitoring agency did not release any details about the ship or its cargo, and it was not clear whether the crew member was killed or wounded.

    No environmental damage has been reported and the agency said the Omani Coast Guard was assisting other crew members and authorities were investigating.

    Iran-backed Houthis claim an attack on a Saudi oil refinery

    Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed they fired drones at an oil refinery in neighboring Saudi Arabia, the latest attack threatening to reignite Yemen’s civil war and open another front in the Middle East.

    The attack targeted a facility run by Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, according to a report by the Houthi-run SABA news agency. There were no immediate reports of damage or comment from Saudi Arabia.

    The Houthis have escalated attacks against government forces in Yemen and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, which supports the Yemeni government, and the kingdom’s shipping in the Red Sea, an important alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.

    Israel strike on Gaza City kills 7 people

    An Israeli strike hit Gaza City on Tuesday, killing six people, including a child, and wounding 14 others, according to Shifa Hospital, where the casualties were taken.

    The Israeli military said it struck Hamas commanders in the Shati area who it said were planning to carry out attacks against Israeli forces.

    The heaviest fighting has subsided since a ceasefire in the more than two-year war took hold in October. Israeli forces have carried out repeated airstrikes since then, killing at least 1,266 Palestinians, according to health officials in Gaza.

    The Gaza Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. But it does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants.

    Missiles fired at the United Arab Emirates

    The defense ministry of the United Arab Emirates said two ballistic missiles were launched from Iran toward the UAE on Tuesday.

    One landed outside of the country’s waters, and the other landed within them, the Emirati Defense Ministry said. It was unclear whether the missiles were shot down by air defenses or fell. No damage or injuries were reported. There was no immediate statement from Iran.

    In the weeks after the U.S. and Israel launched a war against Iran on Feb. 28, the UAE was frequently targeted by Iranian missiles and drones, but Tuesday’s reported attack was the first in weeks.

  • Pentagon orders audit of 30 universities’ partnerships with foreign institutions

    Pentagon orders audit of 30 universities’ partnerships with foreign institutions

    The Department of Defense has ordered 30 U.S. universities to audit their partnerships with mostly Chinese universities and military training institutions as the Trump administration scrutinizes the country’s growing global influence.

    If the schools don’t complete a review and terminate any arrangements deemed problematic within the next two weeks, they face losing funding. The goal is to protect taxpayer-funded research from theft and exploitation, the Pentagon said Monday.

    “The Department of War has zero tolerance for academic partnerships that compromise our national security,” Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, said in a news release.

    The release didn’t name the schools, but a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters said they include Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Johns Hopkins University.

    The schools didn’t immediately respond to emails from the Associated Press seeking comment.

    Sarah Spreitzer, vice president at the American Council on Education, which represents college and university presidents, raised concerns that the announcement suggests, without any evidence, that the schools are engaged in wrongdoing.

    The order comes after the Pentagon last month released an updated list of 130 foreign institutions it accused of engaging in “activities that increase the likelihood of U.S. government-funded research and development efforts being misappropriated.”

    While the vast majority were Chinese, such as the University of Science and Technology of China and the country’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, several Iranian and Russian institutions also appeared on the list.

    The first version of the list was developed during Trump’s first term, with the help of the American Council on Education, Spreitzer said.

    She said most of the council’s member institutions moved away from research partnerships with those institutions in the years that followed. She said she worries U.S. schools will be held liable for partnerships that predate the creation of the list.

    “We don’t appreciate the implication that we are not good partners on research security, given that we helped create this list, and given that we’ve always partnered with the federal government when there has been national security concerns,” she said.

    The audit comes as the Trump administration continues to express deep concern about China’s activities in the Americas, pushing back on Chinese ownership of ports at either end of the Panama Canal, infrastructure projects funded by China’s Belt and Road initiative in the region, and Chinese investment in the telecommunications sector.

    The Justice Department also is investigating whether Harvard University is allowing Chinese donors to create scholarships that exclude American students, adding to the barrage of federal inquiries the Trump administration has opened in its battle against the Ivy League school.

    A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy said in a statement that the country opposes what it described as the politicization of “normal scientific, educational, and academic exchanges.”

    “The U.S. side,” the statement continued, “should abandon the Cold War mentality and foster an open, fair, and non-discriminatory environment for educational, scientific, and people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States.”

  • Minnesota attorney general sues Texas governor to compel extradition of ICE agent for trial

    Minnesota attorney general sues Texas governor to compel extradition of ICE agent for trial

    ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota’s attorney general sued the governor of Texas on Tuesday, seeking to compel the extradition of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent charged with wounding a man and then lying to justify the shooting during the agency’s crackdown in Minneapolis.

    Attorney General Keith Ellison is asking a federal judge to bar the sheriff in Cameron County, Texas, from releasing ICE agent Christian Castro, and to order Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to sign his extradition warrant so that Minnesota officers can take custody.

    Minnesota officials have clashed with the federal government over who has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute federal officers for on-duty conduct. Ellison is a Democrat and Abbott is a Republican ally of President Donald Trump.

    Castro was arrested in Texas in May on Minnesota charges of assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 wounding of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. Castro, 52, is accused of firing a gun through the front door of a Minneapolis home, striking Sosa-Celis in the leg with a bullet that lodged in a child’s bedroom wall. Prosecutors say Castro then falsely accused Sosa-Celis and another man of attacking an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel.

    Minnesota officials fear ICE agent could flee

    Ellison told a news conference that unless he’s extradited, Castro could be released from jail next week — 90 days since he was detained — under Texas law. And if he’s freed, Castro could slip into Mexico from the border town where he’s being held, Ellison said. The lawsuit said Castro has been making calls from jail to a woman in Mexico, talking “about marrying her and buying a house in Mexico when he is released.”

    “Christian Castro has been charged with breaking the law in Minnesota,” Ellison said. “He must face justice in Minnesota. Gov. Abbott should have granted Gov. Walz’s extradition request long ago and is required to do so now.”

    It was not immediately known if Castro had a lawyer who could speak for him. Online court records in Minnesota and county jail records in Texas did not list a defense attorney.

    Abbott’s office said in a statement that it would not comment on “pending extradition matters.”

    Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said the legal action to compel Castro’s extradition “should be a completely unnecessary lawsuit.” She said jail officials and prosecutors in Texas have been “very cooperative,” and that an extradition “is not supposed to be controversial.”

    The office of Cameron County Sheriff Manny Trevino declined to comment Tuesday on the case.

    Federal agency has called agent’s prosecution a ‘political stunt’

    Authorities say Sosa-Celis was shot after Castro and another officer chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived. Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were legally in the U.S., according to Minnesota officials.

    Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of beating an officer. A federal judge later dismissed the charges, and ICE and the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether agents lied about what happened.

    Regardless, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has called Moriarty’s prosecution of Castro “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt,” saying only federal authorities have jurisdiction in the case.

    The federal government took a similar stance following the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during the Minneapolis enforcement surge. Moriarty sued the Trump administration to gain access to evidence in those cases before federal prosecutors turned it over last month.

    The extradition lawsuit Ellison filed in U.S. District Court in Texas cites a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that compliance with the Constitution’s extradition clause is mandatory, affording no discretion to the governor or courts of a state where a defendant is being held.

    Moriarty said that since Castro’s arrest, Texas has extradited three unrelated criminal defendants without incident to Minnesota.

    “Gov. Abbott has received communication with us on an ongoing basis, including recently,” Ellison said. “We have to take the position that they are refusing to honor the extradition request.”

  • The Moscow region is hit by a drone blitz as Russian missiles kill 10 in a Ukrainian village

    The Moscow region is hit by a drone blitz as Russian missiles kill 10 in a Ukrainian village

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces launched one of their biggest drone attacks on Russia since Moscow’s invasion over four years ago, firing almost 800 drones only two days after a similar salvo, officials said Tuesday.

    Meanwhile, a Russian missile strike on a village in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed at least 10 people and wounded 17 others as the barrage demolished homes, officials said.

    The countries are locked in an escalating duel of long-range aerial strikes. Fighting on the roughly 780-mile front line in eastern and southern Ukraine is restricted by large numbers of drones and ground robots threatening troop movements, and neither side is making significant battlefield progress, analysts say.

    Putin resists pressure for peace talks

    In the past year, Ukraine has devised and deployed domestically produced long-range drones for strikes deep inside Russia. Its drone technology has impressed governments and defense manufacturers around the world.

    Officials in Kyiv aim to make the Russian public feel the war’s consequences and pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into negotiating a peace settlement. Putin has so far shown no sign he intends to stop the invasion.

    “Putin continues to drag out the war instead of accepting Ukraine’s realistic ceasefire proposals and ending the bloodshed,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X.

    Russian air defenses overnight intercepted 791 Ukrainian drones over a number of regions, as well as annexed Crimea and the Black and the Azov seas, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said, in what was the second-largest drone attack since January 2025, according to an Associated Press tally.

    More than 600 Ukrainian drones flew toward the Moscow region, where 180 were shot down, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said without elaborating.

    Officials reported no deaths or major damage. Ukraine has increasingly launched swarms of hundreds of drones to try to overwhelm Russian air defenses.

    In the region that surrounds the capital, three people were wounded, Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said.

    Three people were also wounded in the adjacent Ryazan region where three private houses were damaged, Gov. Pavel Malkov said.

    The overnight attack started a fire at a warehouse of Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer, in an industrial zone. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted the company, which it says helps supply the Russian military, an allegation Moscow denies.

    Wildberries said its facility sustained “insignificant damage.”

    Russian TV doesn’t report news of the attack

    Coverage of the attack in state and Kremlin-backed Russian media was mostly muted, as is often the case. Russia’s main TV channels — state-run Russia 1 and Channel One — did not mention the attack at all in their morning news bulletins.

    But Russian state news agency RIA Novosti featured it among the main news on its website’s homepage, describing it as “one of the most large-scale attacks on Moscow since the beginning of the summer.”

    State newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta on its website prominently featured a roundup of what Moscow regional Gov. Andrei Vorobyov reported about the attack, describing it as “massive” in the headline. Pro-Kremlin tabloid MK featured a news brief about it on its home page.

    Zelensky accuses Russia of a ‘brutal attack’ on civilians

    A Russian missile strike on the village of Pechenihy in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed 10 civilians, according to preliminary information, said Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration.

    Another 17 people were wounded, he said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called it “a brutal attack” that damaged 10 homes, a cafe, a post office, a store, and at least seven vehicles, according to Syniehubov.

    “We will definitely respond to this Russian strike,” he said on social media.

    Also, three people were killed and three others were wounded over the past day in Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Sumy region, Ukraine’s National Police said.

    U.K. vows continued Ukraine support

    British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who took office last month, said the U.K. will continue to stand by Ukraine after Russia said that Kyiv’s reported use of British drones for attacks on Russian soil would bring unidentified consequences.

    “We are providing support so that Ukraine can defend itself, and that’s been the British position all the way through this conflict by previous prime ministers,” Burnham said. “It remains the case with me.”

    British newspaper the Sunday Times reported that two U.K. companies made drones used by Ukraine to hit Russia.

    Following the report, the Russian Embassy in the U.K. said in a statement that “London’s actions will inevitably carry consequences.”

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Russian state TV that Moscow has the right to view British involvement in strikes on Russian territory as “participation in the war, with all the ensuing consequences.”

  • Justice Department pushes to revive criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia

    Justice Department pushes to revive criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia

    NASHVILLE — The Justice Department is pushing to revive criminal charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, telling a federal appeals court late Monday that a judge erred in his scathing ruling that called the case against the man mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison an “abuse of prosecuting power.”

    The government is appealing the May ruling by U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw that threw out charges of human smuggling against the Salvadoran national. The ruling amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of a Justice Department that under President Donald Trump has repeatedly been accused of targeting defendants for political purposes.

    Crenshaw found that Abrego Garcia would never have faced criminal charges had he not successfully sued the government over his 2025 deportation. The ruling was an embarrassment for the Trump administration, which only brought him back after securing a criminal indictment against him.

    Crenshaw stopped short of finding the government acted with “actual vindictiveness,” a rarely-met standard that usually requires evidence like a prosecutor admitting that charges were filed in retaliation against someone. But the judge did find there was enough evidence of “presumptive vindictiveness.” That included the timing of the indictment.

    Homeland Security had been aware of the 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee that was the basis for the human smuggling charges for more than two years before Abrego Garcia was deported. The agency only reopened the case and began investigating in earnest after Abrego Garcia was ordered returned to the U.S.

    Crenshaw also found that statements by U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was a deputy at the time, suggested the Justice Department was targeting Abrego Garcia because he won his wrongful-deportation case.

    In a brief filed Monday night with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, federal prosecutors argued that Crenshaw got it wrong. Blanche’s statements, they argue, demonstrated a legitimate motive for prosecuting him. His rationale reflected a “normal assessment of the societal interest in punishment,” not an “improper penalty,” they said. The statements “explained that the government was seeking to protect the public and confirm its prior assertions about Abrego’s criminal activity,” the brief states.

    But even if Blanche’s statements reflected an animus against Abrego Garcia, they are irrelevant because the person who actually brought the charges was then-Acting U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Rob McGuire, the brief states — rehashing an argument thoroughly rejected by Crenshaw that McGuire’s motives were the only motives that mattered in the case.

    Crenshaw’s ruling noted the sustained oversight of the case by top Justice Department officials, including regular communications between McGuire and Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh, in finding that the criminal case was thoroughly tainted. Crenshaw also noted that prosecutors never called as a witness the investigator who actually reopened the case, to explain why.

    Abrego Garcia, 31, is a Salvadoran citizen with an American wife and child who has lived in Maryland for years although he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. A 2019 order by an immigration judge prohibited his deportation to El Salvador, finding he had a “well founded fear” of a gang that had targeted his family there. The judge allowed him to live and work in the U.S. under Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision, but he was not given residency status.

    Blocked from re-deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, the Trump administration has vowed to deport him to a third county, threatening to send him to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana, and, most recently, Liberia. Abrego Garcia has said he would agree to be deported to Costa Rica, which has said they will accept him, but the government has so far declined to send him there.

    He is fighting deportation to Liberia in a separate federal court case in Maryland.

  • ICE pitches legal insurance to help shield local officers who make immigration arrests

    ICE pitches legal insurance to help shield local officers who make immigration arrests

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is pitching a plan to help shield local police officers who make immigration arrests from possible financial consequences if they are accused of on-duty misconduct.

    The agency is proposing to subsidize liability insurance for state and local officers who are trained and deputized to enforce federal immigration laws, according to a planning document published Friday.

    ICE’s partnerships with local departments have soared since President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year and may get an additional boost with liability insurance by removing a hurdle that has made some local police departments reluctant to join. The Associated Press is the first to report on this insurance proposal.

    Under the plan, officers would purchase insurance covering up to $500,000 in personal liability, which typically funds legal fees, settlements, and judgments. Officers would be reimbursed up to $250 annually — roughly what the insurance is expected to cost.

    One prominent critic of ICE’s immigration crackdown said the program would be yet another way for officers to avoid personal accountability for misconduct.

    “The concern here is that ICE is going above and beyond to guarantee law enforcement does not have even the slightest risk of liability for violating Americans’ rights while helping ICE arrest people,” said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, who has called on Congress to make it easier to sue ICE agents for wrongdoing.

    ICE outlined the plan in a document informing industry officials that it is considering hiring a contractor to help provide outreach, training, and communications support for its so-called 287(g) partnerships with local departments, which are named for a section of a 1996 immigration law. The contractor would hire the insurance vendor and process the reimbursements, among other tasks.

    ICE has asked for industry feedback by Thursday. The proposed timeline for launching the program and its estimated cost are unclear.

    ICE had no immediate comment on the plan.

    Arrests by ICE’s local partners have spiked since last year

    During Trump’s second term, ICE has offered generous financial incentives to participating local agencies, increasing the number who have partnered with the federal government, as well as the number of arrests.

    Nearly 1,600 agencies in 32 states now have agreements to participate in ICE’s task force model, in which trained local officers can interrogate, arrest, and charge people suspected of being in the country illegally, according to ICE data.

    Departments qualify for funding to help cover expenses like their officers’ pay, equipment, and vehicles. With encouragement from state and local Republican officials, agencies in Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, and Georgia have been among the leaders.

    Arrests made through such programs jumped to an average of 3,000 per month in the first two months of 2026, according to the most recent ICE data provided to the University of California Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project. That compares to a monthly average of 250 in 2024 under President Joe Biden.

    Local departments, officers worried about liability for ICE work

    As local officers increasingly carry out federal immigration work, they and their departments have expressed concerns about the civil liability that could result from claims alleging excessive use of force, wrongful arrest, and illegal search and seizure, among other things.

    That’s because insurance policies that cover their local work may not apply. Pennsylvania’s risk pool, for instance, recently made clear that it would exclude “proactive immigration enforcement activities” from coverage, forcing several participating counties to search for other insurance options.

    Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe said he found insurance to cover his 13 deputies participating in the program at a cost of $20,000 in annual premiums.

    “I want to make sure the guys are additionally covered, so we had to spend the money,” he said, adding that federal funding would cover the cost.

    Federal officers usually enjoy legal immunities and a government-funded defense when they face lawsuits. But those protections may not always apply to local officers, which has heightened their concerns over liability and the need for insurance.

    While lawsuits are the main concern, professional liability insurance typically helps cover legal fees for officers facing criminal investigations as well.

    Sheriffs’ group says ICE’s idea sounds promising

    Justin Smith, a former Colorado sheriff who is executive director of the National Sheriffs’ Association, said ICE’s plan sounds promising and that he was anxious to speak with ICE about how the plan would work.

    Smith said he has shared concerns with ICE that some sheriffs are reluctant to join the partnerships because of the potential liability at a time when immigration enforcement faces intense public protests and media scrutiny. Smith said others who are partnering with ICE have already started facing legal claims tied to their immigration work, which can be costly whether or not deputies are ultimately found to have done anything wrong.

    “Right now, any time you are working on immigration there is going to be a much higher potential for there being problems and having suits and issues,” he said. “They’re recognizing that it is a different environment. And I think trying to be good partners with us as best they can.”

    Under their agreements, ICE warns local departments that they are responsible for the costs of incidents that give rise to liability. But it seeks to reduce the risk by saying local officers performing ICE-authorized functions are “acting under color of federal authority,” which would bar lawsuits against individual officers.

    The agreements also state that local officers who face lawsuits can ask the U.S. Department of Justice to represent them, and that ICE will generally support their requests. But the final decision on whether to do so rests with the Department of Justice.