Rubio says 10 Americans detained in Venezuela have been released
"I want to thank my team at the @StateDep & especially President @nayibbukele for helping secure an agreement for the release of all of our American detainees, plus the release of Venezuelan political prisoners," Rubio said in a post on X.
El Salvador's government would send detained Venezuelans home in exchange for Americans held in Venezuela, two U.S. government officials earlier told Reuters.
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Daily Mail
22 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Trump rages as Jewish judge rips administration apart for stripping 'antisemitic' Harvard of its funding in blistering courtroom showdown
Donald Trump has fired off a furious missive at a Jewish judge who holds power in his war with Harvard. Judge Allison Burroughs is presiding over the tense lawsuit to determine whether the Trump administration can legally defund Harvard for not taking a strong enough stance against antisemitism on campus. While she did not issue a ruling in Monday's hearing, her barrage of questions toward the administration's lawyer and her status as an Obama-era appointee was enough for Trump to find fault with her handling of the case. 'The Harvard case was just tried in Massachusetts before an Obama appointed Judge. She is a TOTAL DISASTER, which I say even before hearing her ruling,' he wrote in a Truth Social post. 'She has systematically taken over the various Harvard cases, and is an automatic 'loss' for the people of our country! 'How did this Trump-hating Judge get these cases? When she rules against us, we will IMMEDIATELY appeal, and WIN.' Trump argued Harvard 'has $52 billion dollars sitting in the bank, and yet they are anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and anti-America.' 'Much of this money comes from the USA, all to the detriment of other schools, colleges, and institutions,' he wrote, adding, 'we are not going to allow this unfair situation to happen any longer.' Trump vowed to 'not stop until there is victory', promising to cut funding to Harvard no matter how much effort it took. But if Judge Burroughs rules in Harvard's favour, it could make Trump's promise hard to deliver on. Steven Lehotsky, representing Harvard, said at Monday's hearing the case is about the government trying to control the 'inner workings' of the institution. At Monday's hearing, Harvard asked to reverse funding freezes in an effort to revive Harvard's sprawling scientific and medical research operation and hundreds of projects that lost federal money. A lawyer for the government, Michael Velchik, said the Trump administration has authority to cancel the grants after determining the funding did not align with its priorities, namely Trump's executive order combating antisemitism. He argued Harvard allowed antisemitism to flourish at the university following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on Israel. He said protesters had camped out on campus chanting antisemitic slogans and cited attacks on Jewish students. 'Harvard claims the government is anti-Harvard. I reject that,' Velchik, a Harvard alumnus, said. 'The government is pro-Jewish students at Harvard. The government is pro-Jewish faculty at Harvard.' Judge Burroughs pushed back, at one point describing the government's assertions as 'mind-boggling.' 'What I'm wrestling with is this idea that the executive branch can decide what is discriminatory or racist,' she said. 'You're saying you can terminate a contract for any and all reasons, even if the reason you're giving is a violation of the Constitution? I don't think you can justify a contract action based on impermissible suppression of speech.' Velchik said the case comes down to the government's choosing how best to spend billions of dollars in research funding. Judge Burroughs said: 'Let's assume for the sake of argument that Harvard has not covered itself in glory on the topic of antisemitism.' Noting her own Jewish faith, the judge asked what the relationship was between antisemitism and cutting funding to cancer research. 'You're not taking away grants from labs that have been antisemitic,' she noted. Despite her strongly worded rebuke, Judge Burroughs did not deliver a verdict at the bench, and is instead expected to issue a written decision at a later date. Harvard's lawsuit accused the Trump administration of waging a retaliation campaign against the university after it rejected a series of demands from a federal antisemitism task force in April. The task force's demands included sweeping changes related to campus protests, academics and admissions. Harvard was told to audit the viewpoints of students and faculty and admit more students or hire new professors if the campus was found to lack diverse points of view. Harvard President Alan Garber says the university has made changes to combat antisemitism but said no government 'should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.'
The Guardian
22 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Trump news at a glance: immigration agents to ‘flood' US sanctuary cities as marines withdraw from LA
The Trump administration is targeting US sanctuary cities in the next phase of its deportation drive, after an off-duty law enforcement officer was allegedly shot in New York City by an undocumented person with a criminal record. Tom Homan, Donald Trump's hardline border tsar, vowed to 'flood the zone' with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (Ice) agents, saying: 'Every sanctuary city is unsafe. Sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals and President Trump's not going to tolerate it.' In Los Angeles, meanwhile, 700 active-duty US marines was being withdrawn, the Pentagon confirmed, more than a month after Trump deployed them to the city against the objections of local leaders. Here's more on these and the day's other key Trump administration stories at a glance. Tom Homan has vowed to 'flood the zone' of sanctuary cities with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (Ice) agents in an all-out bid to overcome the lack of cooperation he said the government faced from Democrat-run municipalities in its quest to arrest and detain undocumented people. The pledge from Donald Trump's hardline border tsar followed the arrest of two undocumented men from the Dominican Republic after an off-duty Customs and Border Protection officer suffered gunshot wounds in an apparent robbery attempt in New York City on Saturday night. Read the full story The Pentagon confirmed to the Guardian on Monday that the full deployment of 700 active-duty US marines was being withdrawn from Los Angeles more than a month after Donald Trump deployed them to the city in a move state and city officials called unnecessary and provocative. Read the full story The president's signature tax and spending bill will add $3.4tn to the national debt over the next decade, according to new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released on Monday. Major cuts to Medicaid and the national food stamps program are estimated to save the country $1.1tn – only a chunk of the $4.5tn in lost revenue that will come from the bill's tax cuts. Read the full story A legal group founded by Trump adviser Stephen Miller has requested the justice department investigate 'illegal DEI practices' at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In a letter to the justice department's civil rights division, America First Legal asked an assistant attorney general to investigate and issue enforcement actions against the prestigious medical university for embracing 'a discriminatory DEI regime as a core institutional mandate'. Read the full story Almost 300 current and former US Nasa employees – including at least four astronauts – have issued a scathing dissent opposing the Trump administration's sweeping and indiscriminate cuts to the agency, which they say threaten safety, innovation and national security. Read the full story The Trump administration has released records of the FBI's surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr, despite opposition from the slain Nobel laureate's family and the civil rights group that he led until his 1968 assassination. Read the full story An artist who first accused Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell of sexual assault almost three decades ago has told the New York Times that she had urged law enforcement officials back then to investigate powerful people in their orbit – including Donald Trump. The artist, Maria Farmer, was among the first women to report Epstein and his partner Maxwell of sexual crimes in 1996 when, according to the new interview with the Times, she also identified Trump among others close to Epstein as worthy of attention. Read the full story Harvard University appeared in federal court on Monday to make the case that the Trump administration illegally cut $2.6bn from the college – a major test of the administration's efforts to reshape higher education institutions by threatening their financial viability. Read the full story Michael Bloomberg is calling on Senate Republicans to oust Robert F Kennedy Jr from his post as Trump's health secretary. The US Federal Reserve is pushing back against claims from the White House that it is undergoing extravagant renovations with a video tour showing the central bank's ongoing construction. Hunter Biden gave a profanity-laced interview during which he attacked George Clooney, denied owning the cocaine found in the White House and spoke about his father's last efforts in the 2024 race before dropping out. Catching up? Here's what happened on 20 July 2025.
Reuters
22 minutes ago
- Reuters
US appeals court temporarily blocks order reinstating FTC commissioner Slaughter
WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court late on Monday temporarily blocked a court order that allowed Democratic U.S. Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter to resume her role at the agency, despite the White House's effort to remove her from office. The Justice Department, in a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, had argued the district court judge's reinstatement of Slaughter runs afoul of the president's executive powers under the U.S. Constitution. The three-judge panel of the court said the lower-court ruling would remain on hold until court papers are filed by July 29. The court said the order was to give the judges sufficient time to consider the request of President Donald Trump's administration request to block the ruling and should not be "construed in any way as a ruling on the merits." The Justice Department is challenging a July 17 order by U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan in Washington that said the White House violated federal law in removing Slaughter, who was first appointed by Trump and reappointed by Democratic former President Joe Biden. The case in the appeals court will mark the latest clash over the Republican Trump administration's efforts to fire some Democratic officials at federal agencies. The U.S. Supreme Court in May ruled that Trump could bar two Democratic members of federal labor boards from their posts while they challenge the legality of his dismissal of them. The White House, FTC and lawyers for Slaughter did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday. Slaughter and another ousted Democratic FTC commissioner, Alvaro Bedoya, sued the Trump administration in March over their removal. They said Trump violated a law that allows a president to fire an FTC member only for good cause, including neglect of duties. Bedoya has since formally resigned from the agency. In her ruling last week, AliKhan said the Trump administration's attempt to remove Slaughter did not comply with removal protections in federal law. AliKhan, who was appointed by Biden, said the Trump administration wants 'the FTC to be something it is not: a subservient agency subject to the whims of the President and wholly lacking in autonomy. But that is not how Congress structured it.'
