‘There's nothing like seeing their faces when they come in': Hostage envoy on freeing Americans in Venezuela
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
35 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Pope Leo reflects on migrants and refugees as ‘messengers of hope'
Pope Leo XIV urged the public to see migrants and refugees as 'messengers of hope' on Friday, as the Trump administration focuses on mass deportation efforts in the pontiff's former home country. In a letter, Leo wrote that the 'widespread tendency to look after the interests of limited communities' poses a serious threat to the 'pursuit of the common good and global solidarity for the benefit of our entire human family.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
$200M Columbia payout a ‘blueprint' for Trump to squeeze Harvard and other Gaza protest schools: report
The Trump administration views the recent $200 million deal with Columbia University as a 'blueprint' for how it can squeeze Harvard and other top colleges over claims they have failed to tackle antisemitism on campus, according to a report. Columbia agreed to pay the Trump administration a $200 million settlement in exchange for access to federal funding that was cut over claims the Ivy League school failed to combat antisemitism, the university announced Wednesday. The college laid off nearly 180 staffers in May after funds were cut. It comes as President Donald Trump's White House has for months attempted to bend Harvard and other academic institutions to ideologically driven demands. The deal with Columbia has paved the way for negotiations with other top schools, including Cornell, Brown, Duke and Northwestern, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited an unnamed White House official. In Harvard's case, the school has fought back in a lawsuit arguing that the government has illegally cut $2.6 billion of its federal funding. The Trump administration hopes to make an example of the country's oldest academic institution. 'The White House hopes to extract hundreds of millions of dollars from Harvard, in a deal that would make Columbia's $200 million payment look like peanuts,' the Journal reports, citing a person familiar with the talks. The Independent has contacted Harvard, Cornell, Brown, Duke, Northwestern and the White House for comment. The Trump administration pulled research funding from Columbia over what it described as the university's failure to deal with antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Hamas war that began in October 2023. Columbia then agreed to a series of demands laid out by the administration, including overhauling the university's student disciplinary process and adopting a new definition of antisemitism. Wednesday's agreement, which does not include any admission of wrongdoing, codifies those reforms while preserving the university's autonomy, acting University President Claire Shipman said. But the deal has divided academics and university leaders. 'This cannot be a template for the government's approach to American higher education,' Ted Mitchell, president of the university lobbying group American Council on Education, told the Journal. Mitchell said it was 'chilling' that Columbia's fine came without typical due process when investigating antisemitism claims. 'We're in a world now where the government can say to all these schools, 'Hey, we're serious, you're going to have to pay the piper to get along with the most powerful organization in the world,'' Michael Roth, president of Connecticut's Wesleyan University told the outlet. 'Which is the federal government.' Elsewhere, Harvard's former president Lawrence Summers lauded the deal as 'an excellent template' for other universities in a post on X. 'This may be the best day higher education has had in the last year,' he wrote, arguing that the deal 'preserved academic freedom.'
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Murkowski: Trump administration funding freeze could result in ‘closing schools'
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) fears the Trump administration's multibillion-dollar education funding freeze could cause schools in her state to close as districts struggle to keep employees without the money. The administration originally froze a total of $6 billion in funding to schools, affecting after-school and summer programs, along with classes for adult and English learners. Last week, the president released about $1 billion that was aimed at after-school programs, but $5 billion is still held up. 'Many of our school districts have already made really hard decisions about closing schools,' Murkowski told ABC News. 'Both in Fairbanks and Anchorage, we've seen layoffs,' she continued. 'If your literacy skills are weak, if you're working on your English skills, I mean, these are all things that are keeping people out of the workforce at a time when we're trying to get people into it,' Murkowski added. 'So I am very worried.' She was one of nine Republicans to sign a letter to the Office of Management and Budget last week demanding the funding be released and rejecting the administration's claim the money is going toward 'woke' programs. The letter prompted the office to release the about $1 billion in funding for after-school and summer programming, prompting a sigh of relief for parents. But the rest of the money is still in limbo, with no timeline on when it will be given to schools. 'I'd like to see some of the other programs released, but, you know, we haven't heard one way or the other,' Sen. Shelley Moore Capito ( who led the Republican letter, told ABC. While Murkowski is hesitant to say the money is cut, she stresses the funding needs to be released before the school year begins. 'I don't want to call it cuts yet, because my hope is that they're just unpaused and that they are going to materialize,' Murkowski told ABC News. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
