Heat from Trump administration puts higher education leaders in ‘terrible position’ with so much at stake
CNN
The dangerous assault against the country’s leading universities, higher education leaders warn, has unfolded rapidly on multiple fronts – threatening not only America’s economic and technological strength but also its vaunted democratic system and traditions of academic freedom and free speech.
The University of California system and Princeton this week joined more than a dozen top schools – including Harvard, Duke and Stanford – in announcing hiring freezes following Trump administration spending cuts. Johns Hopkins University said it was laying off more than 2,000 employees after it lost more than $800 million from US Agency for International Development funding amid White House efforts to reduce wasteful spending and downsize the federal government. The drastic moves come as dozens of colleges and universities face federal investigations for allegedly failing to protect Jewish students during pro-Palestinian demonstrations that disrupted campuses across the country last spring over the war in Gaza. And in the biggest salvo in the escalating war against elite universities, the Trump administration this month targeted Columbia University, canceling about $400 million in federal grants and contracts over allegations of antisemitism on campus. Washington’s unprecedented campaign against the Ivy League school has the attention of US higher education leaders, who must weigh whether to acquiesce or fight back against a series of onslaughts on issues from pro-Palestinian activism to diversity programs to transgender women competing in women’s sports. The dangerous assault against the country’s leading universities, higher education leaders warn, has unfolded rapidly on multiple fronts – threatening not only America’s economic and technological strength but also its vaunted democratic system and traditions of academic freedom and free speech.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?
The Army gynecologist described in a recent lawsuit as a “predator in uniform” is now being held in the Bell County Jail in Texas, “after apparently violating conditions of liberty imposed by his commander,” according to an Army spokesperson.
Brian Walshe on Thursday came face-to-face for the first time with the man who had been having an affair with his wife before her death, as he took the stand to testify in Walshe’s murder trial.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Texas to use a congressional map that will boost President Donald Trump’s effort to keep Republicans in control of Congress, blocking a lower court decision that found the new boundaries were likely unconstitutional because they were drawn based on race.
The US military carried out a strike Thursday on a suspected drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to a social media post from US Southern Command.
A grand jury voted against indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James after being asked to look at the mortgage fraud case against her a second time, according to multiple people familiar with the development Thursday.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge’s ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city’s streets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.
Authorities in Colombia are dealing with increasingly sophisticated criminals, who use advanced tech to produce and conceal the drugs they hope to export around the world. But police and the military are fighting back, using AI to flag suspicious passengers, cargo and mail - alongside more conventional air and sea patrols. CNN’s Isa Soares gets an inside look at Bogotá’s war on drugs.