Contributing Writers

Education Secretary Linda McMahon says Columbia University is on track to regain its federal funding after the Ivy League institution yielded to the Trump administration’s demands on Friday. The demands include banning face masks on campus, hiring 36 new security officers with greater power to arrest and crack down on students and appointing a “senior vice provost” to oversee the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies and the Center for Palestine Studies.

Badar Khan Suri is one of the many pro-Palestine scholars being targeted by the Trump administration. Suri, originally from India, is a Georgetown University professor and postdoctoral scholar on religion and peace processes in the Middle East and South Asia. Last Monday evening, Suri was ambushed by masked federal agents with the Homeland Security Department as he and his family returned to their home in Rosslyn, Virginia, after attending an iftar gathering for Ramadan.

The Trump administration has ramped up efforts to target free speech on college campuses and one doctoral student at Cornell University who was involved in pro-Palastinian protests on campus now finds himself targeted for deportation once again. Momodou Taal is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Africana Studies at Cornell University who is a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the Gambia.

The U.S. government this week released thousands more records on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, long a source of fascination and intrigue. This is the final batch of JFK files after the federal government began declassifying documents in the early 1990s.

We speak with the Brennan Center’s Faiza Patel, who warns the Trump administration is ramping up efforts to target international students and other visitors and immigrants to the United States over pro-Palestinian speech. The State Department has reportedly launched a new effort using artificial intelligence to help identify and revoke visas for people the government deems to be supporting U.S.-designated terrorist groups, based primarily on the individuals’ social media accounts.

We get an update on legal efforts to stop the Trump administration from deporting Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who has been detained for two weeks despite being a legal resident with a green card. The Trump administration has explicitly said it is targeting Khalil because of his pro-Palestinian advocacy during protests at Columbia University last year, invoking a rarely used provision of immigration law to claim he could undermine U.S. foreign policy.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday instructing Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to start dismantling her agency, although it cannot be formally shut down without congressional approval. Since returning to office in January, Trump has already slashed the Education Department’s workforce in half and cut $600 million in grants.

The U.S. government this week released thousands more records on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, long a source of fascination and intrigue. This is the final batch of JFK files after the federal government began declassifying documents in the early 1990s.

We speak with the Brennan Center’s Faiza Patel, who warns the Trump administration is ramping up efforts to target international students and other visitors and immigrants to the United States over pro-Palestinian speech. The State Department has reportedly launched a new effort using artificial intelligence to help identify and revoke visas for people the government deems to be supporting U.S.-designated terrorist groups, based primarily on the individuals’ social media accounts.

We get an update on legal efforts to stop the Trump administration from deporting Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who has been detained for two weeks despite being a legal resident with a green card. The Trump administration has explicitly said it is targeting Khalil because of his pro-Palestinian advocacy during protests at Columbia University last year, invoking a rarely used provision of immigration law to claim he could undermine U.S. foreign policy.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday instructing Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to start dismantling her agency, although it cannot be formally shut down without congressional approval. Since returning to office in January, Trump has already slashed the Education Department’s workforce in half and cut $600 million in grants.

The U.S. government this week released thousands more records on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, long a source of fascination and intrigue. This is the final batch of JFK files after the federal government began declassifying documents in the early 1990s.

We speak with the Brennan Center’s Faiza Patel, who warns the Trump administration is ramping up efforts to target international students and other visitors and immigrants to the United States over pro-Palestinian speech. The State Department has reportedly launched a new effort using artificial intelligence to help identify and revoke visas for people the government deems to be supporting U.S.-designated terrorist groups, based primarily on the individuals’ social media accounts.

We get an update on legal efforts to stop the Trump administration from deporting Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who has been detained for two weeks despite being a legal resident with a green card. The Trump administration has explicitly said it is targeting Khalil because of his pro-Palestinian advocacy during protests at Columbia University last year, invoking a rarely used provision of immigration law to claim he could undermine U.S. foreign policy.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday instructing Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to start dismantling her agency, although it cannot be formally shut down without congressional approval. Since returning to office in January, Trump has already slashed the Education Department’s workforce in half and cut $600 million in grants.

The Social Security Administration is considering drastic new anti-fraud measures that could disrupt benefit payments to millions of Americans, according to an internal memo first obtained by the political newsletter Popular Information. The changes would force millions of customers to file claims in person at a field office rather than over the phone. An estimated 75,000 to 85,000 elderly and disabled adults per week would be diverted to field offices.

A legal battle is continuing between the Trump administration and a federal judge over the president’s invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to expel over 130 immigrants from the United States to a “mega-prison” in El Salvador over claims that they are members of a Venezuelan gang.

The new book Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful by The New York Times business investigations editor David Enrich chronicles an ongoing campaign by the wealthy and powerful to overturn the landmark Supreme Court decision New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which in 1964 established bedrock protections against spurious defamation and libel cases in the U.S. legal system.

A jury in North Dakota has ordered Greenpeace to pay more than $660 million in damages for defaming Energy Transfer Partners, the corporation behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Texas-based pipeline company accused Greenpeace of orchestrating criminal behavior by training and providing funds to the Indigenous-led protests at Standing Rock.

The Social Security Administration is considering drastic new anti-fraud measures that could disrupt benefit payments to millions of Americans, according to an internal memo first obtained by the political newsletter Popular Information. The changes would force millions of customers to file claims in person at a field office rather than over the phone. An estimated 75,000 to 85,000 elderly and disabled adults per week would be diverted to field offices.

Immigrant rights activist Jeanette Vizguerra, who has lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years, was arrested by ICE agents in Colorado on Monday. She was ambushed during her work break by ICE officials and is now being held in a private prison in Aurora. Vizguerra rose to fame during Trump’s first term when she evaded immigration officials by staying in a church basement with her four children and was named one of the 100 most influential people of the year by Time magazine in 2017.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare statement Tuesday criticizing attacks by President Trump and his allies on federal judges. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” he said. Roberts’s statement came after Trump called for the impeachment of U.S.

The nearly two-month ceasefire in Gaza has been shattered as Israel carries out a second day of intense airstrikes. At least 27 Palestinians were killed in overnight strikes Tuesday night. This comes a day after Israel killed over 400 Palestinians, including at least 174 children. The bombing is “the most savage attack that Gaza has witnessed in over a year,” says Muhammad Shehada, a writer and analyst from Gaza.