A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction Friday blocking the Trump administration’s efforts to keep Harvard University from hosting international students.
The order from U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs preserves the ability of Harvard to host foreign students while the case is decided. It marks another victory for the Ivy League school as it challenges multiple government sanctions amid a battle with the White House.
In other news, California’s challenge of the Trump administration’s military deployment in Los Angeles returned to a federal courtroom in San Francisco on Friday for a brief hearing after an appeals court handed President Donald Trump a key procedural win.
Here is the Latest:
Who is ‘Jose Padilla?’
Vice President JD Vance referred to Sen. Alex Padilla as “Jose Padilla,” eight days after the California Democrat was forcefully removed from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s news conference and handcuffed as he tried to speak about immigration raids.
“I was hoping Jose Padilla would be here to ask a question,” Vance said, in an apparent reference to that altercation. “I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn’t a theater. And that’s all it is.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a post on the social platform X that it was “not an accident” that Vance referred to Sen. Padilla that way. And Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said, “How dare you disrespect him and call him Jose.”
Jose Padilla is the name of a convicted al-Qaida terrorism plotter who was sentenced to two decades in prison.
He was arrested in 2002 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport during the tense months after 9/11 and accused of a “dirty bomb” mission. It later emerged through interrogation of other al-Qaida suspects that the “mission” was only a sketchy idea, and those claims never surfaced in the South Florida terrorism case.
Responding to the outrage, Vance spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk said: “He must have mixed up two people who have broken the law.”
US evacuates 79 staff and family members from embassy in Israel as more Americans ask how to leave
The evacuations came Friday as the conflict between Israel and Iran i ntensifies and growing numbers of American citizens seek information on how to leave those countries.
An internal State Department memo obtained by AP said the military flight, the second known to have occurred this week, left Tel Aviv for Sofia, Bulgaria, where some or all of the passengers were to catch a charter flight to Washington.
The document also said more than 6,400 U.S. citizens in Israel filled out an online form on Friday alone asking for information about when and if the government would organize evacuation flights. And 3,265 people called an emergency number seeking assistance.
According to the document, an estimated 300 to 500 people per day could need evacuation assistance should the U.S. decide to offer flights or ships to get Americans out. Officials have said that is being considered.
Khalil says no one should be detained for protesting the war in Gaza
He said his time in the detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, showed him “a different reality about this country that supposedly champions human rights and justice.”
“No human is illegal,” Khalil said when asked what message he would like to send the public. “The message is: Justice will prevail, no mater what this administration may try to portray, portraying that immigrants are criminals.”
How Trump has targeted Harvard’s international students — and what the latest court ruling means
The president and his administration have tried several tactics to block its enrollment of international students, part of an effort to secure policy changes at the private Ivy League college.
The block on international enrollment, which accounts for a quarter of Harvard’s students and much of its global allure, strikes at the core of the identity of the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college. Courts have stopped some of the government’s actions, at least for now, but not all.
In the latest court order, a federal judge put one of those efforts on hold Friday until a lawsuit is resolved. But the fate of Harvard’s international students — and its broader standoff with the Trump administration — remain in limbo.
▶ Read more about all the ways the administration has moved to block Harvard’s foreign enrollment, and where each effort stands
Mahmoud Khalil: “Justice prevailed, but it’s very long overdue”
“This shouldn’t have taken three months,” Khalil said, speaking outside the immigration detention center in remote Louisiana following his release.
The government filed notice in the evening that it is appealing Khalil’s release.
Dodgers announce $1 million donation to aid families affected by Southern California immigration raids
The team also said it intends to form partnerships with the California Community Foundation, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and other organizations to continue providing aid to immigrant families.
“What’s happening in Los Angeles has reverberated among thousands upon thousands of people, and we have heard the calls for us to take a leading role on behalf of those affected,” Dodgers president Stan Kasten said. “We believe that by committing resources and taking action, we will continue to support and uplift the communities of Greater Los Angeles.”
The Dodgers announced the steps in a five-paragraph statement that was delicately worded to avoid potentially inflammatory political terms and which stopped short of an explicit condemnation of federal policy. The team said only that the aid would be “for families of immigrants impacted by recent events in the region.”
Team manager Dave Roberts praised the decision, saying “it’s certainly the right thing to do.”
▶ Read more about the Dodgers’ donation
Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil freed from immigration detention
The Palestinian activist was released Friday by a judge’s ruling after becoming a symbol of the president’s clampdown on campus protests.
The former Columbia University graduate student left a federal facility in Louisiana and was expected to head to New York to reunite with his U.S. citizen wife and newborn son.
Held for over three months while the Trump administration sought to deport him for his role in pro-Palestinian protests, Khalil was released after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence.
“Petitioner is not a flight risk and the evidence presented is that he is not a danger to the community,” he said. “Period, full stop.”
Later in the hourlong hearing, which took place by phone, the judge said the government had “clearly not met” the standards for detention.
Vance refers to Sen. Alex Padilla as ‘Jose Padilla’
Speaking at a news conference in Los Angeles, Vice President JD Vance said, “I was hoping Jose Padilla would be here to ask a question.”
“I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn’t a theater. And that’s all it is,” Vance said.
It was an apparent reference to an altercation eight days earlier in which Padilla, a California Democrat, was forcefully removed from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s news conference in LA and handcuffed by officers as he tried to speak up about immigration raids.
It was not clear if the vice president made an accidental slip with the senator’s name or was trying to disparage Padilla, the son of Mexican immigrants. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Vance and Padilla served in the Senate together.
North Carolina Gov. vetoes bills including one on immigration
Democratic Gov. Josh Stein vetoed his first bills Friday, blocking for now Republican legislation that would let adults carry concealed handguns without a permit and make state agencies and local sheriffs more active in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The vetoed measures now return to the legislature, where Republicans are one House seat shy of holding a veto-proof majority. Its leaders will decide whether to attempt overrides as early as next week.
Voting so far followed party lines for one of the immigration measures, which in part would direct heads of several state law enforcement agencies, like the State Highway Patrol and State Bureau of Investigation, to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But one House Democrat ended up voting for the other immigration bill that Stein vetoed. It would toughen a 2024 law that required sheriffs to help federal agents seeking criminal defendants.
Pakistan nominates Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize
Pakistan said in a post on the social platform X that the president should get it in 2026 “in recognition of his decisive diplomatic intervention and pivotal leadership during the recent India-Pakistan crisis.”
Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for playing a substantial role in easing the conflict — despite Indian authorities disputing that.
The nomination came after Trump was asked Friday about the Nobel and said he should be awarded it for a variety of reasons, including his work on India and Pakistan and arranging a treaty he said would be signed on Monday to end hostilities between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda.
“I should have gotten it four or five times,” the president said. “They won’t give me a Nobel Peace Prize because they only give it to liberals.”
California governor wants VP to urge Trump to approve billions in federal wildfire assistance
Vice President JD Vance is in Los Angeles to tour federal immigration enforcement operations.
In a post on the social platform X, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said Vance should visit victims of the deadly January wildfires while in town and also talk with Trump. Earlier this week the president suggested that his feud with Newsom might influence his consideration of $40 billion in federal wildfire aid for California.
“I hope we get that back on track” Newsom said. “We are counting on you, Mr. Vice President.”
Trump heads to Iowa to begin July Fourth festivities
The president is kicking off this year’s celebrations with a “major event” at the Iowa State Fair.
In an e-mail to supporters, Trump said he will give a speech July 3 at the annual fair, one of the most popular events in the state and long a magnet for political candidates.
Trump narrowly lost the 2016 Iowa presidential caucuses to Ted Cruz but overwhelmingly defeated Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley in 2024.
San Diego clergy visit federal immigration court to bear witness during crackdown on migrants
About a dozen religious leaders paid the visit Friday to serve as witnesses to “what goes down” as some cases arising from the Trump administration’s migration crackdown are heard, an organizer said.
Some migrants have been arrested at the court by federal immigration officers. The Rev. Scott Santarosa, a Jesuit priest who was lead organizer of the group, said the purpose of the visit “is more than anything just to provide some sense of presence.”
“People are longing for people of faith to walk with vulnerable migrants,” added Santarosa, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. “Our goal is not trying to prevent arrests — but we can witness it.”
The visit was preceded by a Mass at San Diego’s Catholic Cathedral with bishops and other clergy — including Bishop Michael Pham, the top-ranking official in the group and one of the first bishops appointed by Pope Leo XIV — offering prayers for refugees and migrants on World Refugee Day.
Senate parliamentarian deals blow to GOP plan to gut consumer bureau in tax bill
Republicans suffered a sizable setback Friday on one key aspect of the president’s big bill after their plans to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other provisions from the Senate Banking Committee ran into procedural violations with the parliamentarian.
Republicans proposed zeroing out funding for the CFPB, the landmark agency set up in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, to save $6.4 billion. The bureau was designed as a way to better protect Americans from financial fraud but has been opposed by many GOP lawmakers since its inception. The Trump administration has targeted it as an example of government over-regulation and overreach.
The findings by the parliamentarian’s office, which is working overtime scrubbing Trump’s overall bill to ensure it aligns with the chamber’s strict “Byrd Rule” processes, signal a tough road ahead. The most daunting questions are still to come as GOP leadership rushes to muscle the package to the floor by July 4.
▶ Read more about the push to gut the CFPB
Verdict against a pardoned Capitol rioter is only a partial victory for a police officer’s widow
Coming to court this week, Erin Smith wanted to prove that a man assaulted her husband during the attack on Jan. 6, 2021, and ultimately was responsible for his suicide nine days later.
On Friday an eight-member jury held a 69-year-old chiropractor, David Walls-Kaufman, liable for assaulting Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith. The panel will hear more testimony before deciding whether to award Erin Smith any monetary damages.
But the judge presiding over the civil trial dismissed her wrongful-death claim before jurors began deliberating, saying no reasonable juror could conclude that Walls-Kaufman’s actions were capable of causing a traumatic brain injury leading to Smith’s death.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes divided the trial into two stages: one on the merits of Smith’s claims and another on damages. Closing arguments for the latter are expected Monday.
The judge urged the parties to discuss a possible settlement over the weekend.
▶ Read more about the lawsuit
Family of ex-FBI agent presumed dead in Iran hopes talks with US can lead to return of his remains
The family of Robert Levinson, who vanished in Iran 18 years ago, is calling for any deal between the United States and Iran to include the return of his remains.
Levinson disappeared March 9, 2007, when he was scheduled to meet a source on the Iranian island of Kish. For years U.S. officials would say only that he was working independently on a private investigation. But a 2013 Associated Press investigation revealed that he had been sent on a mission by CIA analysts who had no authority to run such an operation.
In 2020 the U.S. government said it concluded that Levinson died while in Iranian custody. The family said then that it did not know when or if his body would be returned but vowed that those responsible would face justice.
“We want to make sure that our dad is not forgotten,” son Daniel Levinson told AP on Friday.
Trump says of his immigration policies: ‘I’m never going to do anything to hurt our farmers’
The president is again suggesting that he doesn’t want his hard-line immigration policies to hurt American farmers — seemingly flip-flopping anew on the issue.
The Department of Homeland Security said this week that immigration raids at farms hotels and restaurants would continue despite Trump suggesting that longtime employees in such jobs were difficult to replace.
On Friday he again suggested that exemptions might be made for agricultural workers. “I’m never going to do anything to hurt our farmers,” he said.
The president defended getting “the criminals out of our country” but said that in cases of “good, reputable farmers, they can take responsibility for the people they hire” and “you can’t put farms out of business.”
“We don’t want to hurt people that aren’t criminals,” Trump said, adding, “I never want to hurt our farmers are great people. They keep us happy and healthy and fat.”
Court blocks Louisiana law requiring schools to post Ten Commandments in classrooms
The panel of three federal appellate judges ruled that the law is unconstitutional.
Friday’s ruling is a major win for civil liberties groups who say the mandate violates the separation of church and state and that the poster-size displays would isolate students — especially those who are not Christian.
The mandate has been touted by Republicans including Trump and is one of the latest pushes by conservatives to incorporate religion into classrooms. Backers of the law say the Ten Commandments belong because they are historical and part of the foundation of U.S. law.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ order stems from a lawsuit filed last year by parents of Louisiana students from various religious backgrounds who said the law violates First Amendment language guaranteeing religious liberty and forbidding government establishment of religion.
The mandate was signed into law last June by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry.
Supreme Court rejects toy company’s push for a quick decision on Trump’s tariffs
The high court denied the motion from Learning Resources Inc., which was asking for a speedy decision on the legality of the tariffs.
The Illinois company wanted the justices to take up the case soon rather than let it continue to play out in lower courts. It argues that the tariffs and uncertainty are having a “massive impact” on businesses around the country and the issue needs swift attention from the Supreme Court.
The Trump administration has defended the tariffs by arguing that the emergency powers law gives the president the authority to regulate imports during national emergencies and the country’s longtime trade deficit qualifies as such an emergency.
The justices did not explain their reasoning in a brief order rebuffing the motion, but the court is typically reluctant to take up cases before lower courts have decided.
An appeals court is set to hear the case in late July.
Layoff notices delivered to hundreds of Voice of America workers
The notices were sent Friday to 639 employees of Voice of America and the U.S. agency that oversees it, effectively shutting down an outlet that has provided news to countries around the world since World War II.
They included employees at VOA’s Persian-language service who were suddenly called off administrative leave last week to broadcast reports to Iran following Israel’s attack. Three journalists working for the Persian service Friday who left their office for a cigarette break had their badges confiscated and were not allowed back in, according to one fired employee.
In total some 1,400 people at Voice of America and the U.S. Agency for Global Media, or 85% of its workforce, have lost their jobs since March, said Kari Lake, Trump’s senior advisor to the agency.
Trump says his director of national intelligence ‘was wrong’ on Iran’s nuclear program
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, told lawmakers in March that U.S. spy agencies believed that Iran had not made a decision to build a nuclear weapon.
Speaking to reporters after touching down in New Jersey, Trump was asked about that assessment and responded, “Then my intelligence community was wrong.”
When told it was Gabbard who said, that he said, “She’s wrong.”
Trump doesn’t think US should meet NATO spending target
Members of the NATO alliance will meet next week with hopes of finalizing a pledge for all countries to pledge to spend more on defense.
But the U.S. shouldn’t have to do that, according to the president.
The NATO pledge would entail all members spending 5% of their gross domestic product on defense.
Asked about it Friday, Trump said, “I don’t think we should, but I think they should.”
“We’ve been supporting NATO so long,” he told reporters.
He also called Spain, a NATO member that has rejected the 5% spending pledge, a “very low payer.”
“They were either good negotiators, or they weren’t doing the right thing,” Trump said in northern New Jersey, where he is spending part of the weekend. “I think Spain has to pay what everybody else has to pay.”
Trump says it’s ‘hard to see’ why Iran would need a civilian-use nuclear power program
“They’re sitting on top of one of the largest piles of oil in the world. I just don’t know why they’d need that for civilian purposes,” Trump told reporters after landing in New Jersey on Friday, when asked about Iran developing nuclear capabilities for use to generate power and other civilian pursuits.
“You’re sitting on one of the largest oil piles anywhere in the world,” the president added. “It’s a little bit hard to see why you’d need that.”
Judge asks if troops in Los Angeles are violating Posse Comitatus Act
A federal judge held a brief hearing on California’s challenge of the Trump administration’s military deployment in Los Angeles.
The hearing followed Trump’s key procedural win Thursday in which an appellate court said he can continue deploying the troops while the case plays out.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer put off any more rulings Friday. Instead, he asked for briefings from both sides on whether the Posse Comitatus Act is being violated.
That act prohibits troops from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil.
Breyer also asked the attorneys to address whether he or the appellate court retains primary jurisdiction to grant an injunction.
Judge blocks Trump effort to keep Harvard from hosting foreign students
Friday’s preliminary injunction from U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs preserves the ability of Harvard University to host international students while the case is decided.
It marks another victory for the Ivy League school as it challenges multiple government sanctions amid a battle with the White House.
Trump chats up construction crew working at the White House
The president stopped to chat with workers who are busy piling gravel around the Rose Garden outside the White House, where grass has been removed.
The exact conversation couldn’t be heard, but Trump spoke to a crew of workers for several minutes.
The exchange came as Trump was heading to Marine One, which was parked on the South Lawn, part of the journey to his Bedminster club in New Jersey where the president will host a Friday evening event for his Maga Inc. super PAC.
Crews began working earlier this month to pave over the once grassy areas near the Rose Garden, just off the Oval Office. Trump also had two towering flagpoles erected outside the White House.
California argues in court against Trump’s National Guard deployment
California’s challenge of the Trump administration’s military deployment on the streets of Los Angeles is back before a federal judge.
Friday’s hearing in San Francisco comes after an appeals court handed Trump a key procedural win. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that for now, Trump can keep control of the California National Guard troops he deployed in response to protests over immigration raids.
Despite the appellate setback, California’s attorneys are expected to ask a judge Friday for a preliminary injunction returning control of the troops in Los Angeles, where protests have calmed down in recent days.
▶ Read more on the California National Guard case
Judge says he will order Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil freed from detention
Judge Michael Farbiarz made the ruling from the bench in federal court in New Jersey on Friday. Lawyers for the Palestinian activist had asked a federal judge to immediately release him on bail from a Louisiana jail, or else transfer him to New Jersey, where he can be closer to his wife and newborn son.
The same judge had ruled earlier that the government can continue to detain the legal U.S. resident based on allegations that he lied on his green card application. Khalil disputes the accusations that he wasn’t forthcoming on the application. The judge previously determined that Khalil couldn’t continue being held based on the U.S. secretary of state’s determination that he could harm American foreign policy.
Supreme Court still hasn’t ruled on birthright citizenship
The justices released six opinions on Friday on everything from California emission standards to a lawsuit filed by victims of terrorism attacks. That leaves 10 cases still to decide, including Trump’s executive order denying birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children of parents who are in the country illegally. The order has been blocked by lower courts.
The issue before the justices is whether to limit the authority of judges to issue nationwide injunctions, which have plagued both Republican and Democratic administrations in the past 10 years. These nationwide court orders have emerged as an important check on Trump’s efforts and a source of mounting frustration to the Republican president and his allies.
The Supreme Court is in the homestretch of a term dominated by the Trump administration’s emergency appeals of lower court orders seeking to slow the president’s efforts to remake the federal government.
▶ Read more about what’s left for the Supreme Court this term
Trump hints at more potential deployments following his appellate victory in California
A three-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously concluded that Trump can likely show that he lawfully exercised his authority in federalizing control of the California National Guard — and that even if the federal government failed to notify the governor of California in advance as required by law, Newsom had no power to veto the president’s order.
Trump celebrated the decision on his Truth Social platform, calling it a “BIG WIN.”
He wrote that “all over the United States, if our Cities, and our people, need protection, we are the ones to give it to them should State and Local Police be unable, for whatever reason, to get the job done.”
▶ Read more on developments following the appellate ruling
The Associated Press
