From 4h ago 12.35 BST Harvard returns to court for key hearing against Trump administration Harvard University returns to court on Monday in a key hearing against the Trump administration over a freeze on more than $2 billion in federal research funding. US district judge Allison Burroughs will hear arguments from Harvard and the Department of Justice as the university seeks to have the funding freeze declared unlawful, CNN reports. The freeze, imposed earlier this year, has halted major research efforts and Harvard argues it’s a politically motivated attempt to pressure the school into adopting federal policies on student conduct, admissions, antisemitism, and diversity. The university’s lawsuit claims the move violates the First Amendment and the Civil Rights Act. The Trump administration says the freeze is justified, citing Harvard’s failure to adequately address antisemitism on campus following the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks. Share Updated at 12.37 BST

20m ago 15.56 BST Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia are requesting for a delay in his release from a Tennessee jail, fearing the Trump administration will immediately deport the Maryland construction worker if he’s freed. Abrego Garcia became a symbol of Trump’s immigration crackdown after being extrajudicially deported to El Salvador in March despite a judge’s protection order, only to be returned last month to face what his attorneys are calling “preposterous” human smuggling charges. Share

49m ago 15.27 BST Trump Media, which runs the Truth Social social media platform, has ploughed $2 billion into Bitcoin and crypto securities, and in a press release CEO Devin Nunes claimed the move will protect the company from “discrimination by financial institutions”. The Trump family’s relentless crypto push since January signals the president’s media empire is banking heavily on cryptocurrency’s continued rise. Share

1h ago 14.48 BST A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration illegally withheld real-time data showing how it spent billions in congressionally mandated funds. Judge Emmet Sullivan said the data, required by law, is essential for watchdogs and lawmakers to track whether the administration was improperly delaying or blocking spending. “There is nothing unconstitutional about Congress requiring the Executive Branch to inform the public of how it is apportioning the public’s money,” Judge Sullivan writes. “Defendants are therefore required to stop violating the law!” Share

2h ago 14.43 BST A former federal prosecutor told AP that she doesn’t expect the grand jury transcripts from the Jeffrey Epstein case to reveal much new information. Sarah Krissoff, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, told AP: “It’s not going to be much.” She added that testimony could run to about 60 pages because “the Southern District of New York’s practice is to put as little information as possible into the grand jury”. Krissoff said: “They basically spoon-feed the indictment to the grand jury. That’s what we’re going to see. I just think it’s not going to be that interesting. … I don’t think it’s going to be anything new.” Trump directed his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to request the release of the transcripts in an effort to quell the political crisis linekd to the Epstein case that was increasingly engulfing his government last week. On Friday, the US Department of Justice asked a federal court to unseal the transcripts in Jeffrey Epstein’s case. Share

2h ago 14.35 BST George Chidi A plan for Texas to redraw its congressional districts and gain five additional Republican seats barrels through flimsy legal arguments and political norms like a rough-stock rodeo bronco through a broken chute. But the fiddly process of drawing the maps to Republicans’ advantage for 2026 may require more finesse than cowboy politics can produce. “It is more than redistricting. It’s really theft,” said Democratic representative Al Green, whose Houston-area congressional district is likely to be one targeted by Republicans in a redrawn map. “It’s the kind of election theft that you use when you realize that you can’t win playing with the hand that you’ve been dealt. So, you decide that you’ll just rearrange the cards so that they favor you.” The attempted power grab comes at a time when the state legislature is meant to be focused on the floods that killed more than 130 people just two weeks ago. ‘It’s really theft’: the Republican plan to redraw Texas maps – and grab more power Read more Share

2h ago 13.54 BST It’s a year since Joe Biden dropped out of presidential race One year ago today, Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris to take his place at the top of their party’s ticket. The extraordinary decision upended American politics and Democrats are still wrestling with the fallout of Biden’s late exit from the 2024 race for the White House. As the Guardian’s David Smith wrote: Some argue that he could have pushed on and won; most believe that he left the race too late and paved the way for Trump’s return to the White House. Younger voters accuse the party establishment of betrayal and beat the drum of generational change. Share Updated at 13.59 BST

3h ago 13.38 BST Trump libel case assigned to Obama-appointed judge in Florida Donald Trump’s libel lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch has been assigned to Darrin P Gayles, a US district judge for the southern district of Florida. Trump’s lawsuit on Friday, which also targets Dow Jones and News Corp, was filed in the southern district of Florida federal court in Miami. Gayles was appointed in February 2014 by Barack Obama. Under the district court’s procedures, new cases are randomly assigned to a judge sitting in the division where the case arose – or a neighbouring one, even if it relates to a previous case. The New York Times reported on how judges are assigned cases after the selection of Trump-appointed Aileen Cannon to the Mar-a-Lago documents case raised questions in 2023. Share Updated at 14.08 BST

3h ago 13.18 BST Harvard, which has the nation’s largest endowment at $53bn, has moved to self-fund some of its research, but warned it can’t absorb the full cost of the federal cuts. In court filings, the school said the government “fails to explain how the termination of funding for research to treat cancer, support veterans, and improve national security addresses antisemitism”. The Trump administration denies the cuts were made in retaliation, saying the grants were under review even before the April demand letter was sent. It argues the government has wide discretion to cancel contracts for policy reasons. “It is the policy of the United States under the Trump administration not to fund institutions that fail to adequately address antisemitism in their programs,” it said in court documents. Share

3h ago 13.08 BST If US district Judge Allison Burroughs decides in the university’s favour, the ruling would reverse a series of funding freezes that later became outright cuts as the Trump administration escalated its fight with the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university. AP reports that such a ruling, if it stands, would revive Harvard’s sprawling scientific and medical research operation and hundreds of projects that lost federal money. “This case involves the government’s efforts to use the withholding of federal funding as leverage to gain control of academic decisionmaking at Harvard,” the university said in its complaint. “All told, the tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: allow the government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution’s ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions.” Share Updated at 13.08 BST

3h ago 12.57 BST Peter Stone Ever since Donald Trump began his second presidency, he has used an “invented” national energy emergency to help justify expanding oil, gas and coal while slashing green energy – despite years of scientific evidence that burning fossil fuels has contributed significantly to climate change, say scholars and watchdogs. It’s an agenda that in only its first six months, has put back environmental progress by decades, they say. Trump’s skewed and unscientific energy priorities have come even as climate-change related weather disasters from huge floods in Texas to giant California fires have increased, and as Trump regulators are clamping down on spending for alternative fuels and weather research. As the death toll from the Texas floods rose to over 100 on 7 July, Trump signed an executive order that added new treasury department restrictions on tax subsidies for wind and solar projects. That order came days after Trump signed his One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included provisions to gut big tax credits for green energy contained in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act legislation Congress passed during Joe Biden’s presidency In another oddly timed move, underscoring the administration’s war on science, its proposed budget for the coming fiscal year would shutter 10 labs that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration runs – specifically ones that conduct key research on ways weather changes are affected by a warming earth. Trump fossil-fuel push setting back green progress decades, critics warn Read more Share

3h ago 12.53 BST Michael Sainato An 82-year-old man in Pennsylvania was secretly deported to Guatemala after visiting an immigration office last month to replace his lost green card, according to his family, who have not heard from him since and were initially told he was dead. According to Morning Call, which first reported the story, long-time Allentown resident Luis Leon – who was granted political asylum in the US in 1987 after being tortured under the regime of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet – lost his wallet containing the physical card that confirmed his legal residency. So he and wife booked an appointment to get it replaced. When he arrived at the office on 20 June, however, he was handcuffed by two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, who led him away from his wife without explanation, she said. She herself was kept in the building for 10 hours until relatives picked her up. The family said they made efforts to find any information on his whereabouts but learned nothing. Then, sometime after Leon was detained, a woman purporting to be an immigration lawyer called the family, claiming she could help – but did not disclose how she knew about the case, or where Leon was. Ice secretly deported Pennsylvania grandfather, 82, after he lost green card Read more Share

4h ago 12.35 BST Harvard returns to court for key hearing against Trump administration Harvard University returns to court on Monday in a key hearing against the Trump administration over a freeze on more than $2 billion in federal research funding. US district judge Allison Burroughs will hear arguments from Harvard and the Department of Justice as the university seeks to have the funding freeze declared unlawful, CNN reports. The freeze, imposed earlier this year, has halted major research efforts and Harvard argues it’s a politically motivated attempt to pressure the school into adopting federal policies on student conduct, admissions, antisemitism, and diversity. The university’s lawsuit claims the move violates the First Amendment and the Civil Rights Act. The Trump administration says the freeze is justified, citing Harvard’s failure to adequately address antisemitism on campus following the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks. Share Updated at 12.37 BST

4h ago 12.01 BST President Donald Trump’s administration wants to visit the Federal Reserve this week to review its $2.5 billion renovation, Semafor reported on Monday, citing White House deputy chief of staff James Blair. Senate banking chair Tim Scott is in talks to attend the visit as well, the report added, citing a person familiar with the plans. Share

The court battle between the Trump administration and Harvard University went before a federal judge in Boston on Monday as both parties seek a final ruling on the Ivy League school’s lawsuit over federal funding cuts.

Judge Allison D. Burroughs, who sided with Harvard in another case over the Trump administration’s attempt to block the university from enrolling foreign students, will likely signal on Monday where she stands on Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration, The New York Times reported. Harvard sued the federal government in April after the Trump administration announced it would strip more than $2 billion in federal funding from the school, citing anti-Israel sentiment on the campus and its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

President Donald Trump has called Harvard “Anti-Semitic,” “Far-Left,” and “a threat to Democracy.”

“The place is a Liberal mess, allowing a certain group of crazed lunatics to enter and exit the classroom and spew fake ANGER AND HATE. It is truly horrific!” Trump added in April.

The federal antisemitism task force, established by the Trump Department of Justice earlier this year, demanded that Harvard submit to federal oversight and reform certain aspects of its admissions, hiring, and student discipline practices. Harvard refused to comply with the task force’s demands.

In its lawsuit, Harvard argues that the Trump administration is violating its First Amendment rights. Harvard also states that the funding freeze will harm essential scientific and medical research more than anything else.

“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” said Harvard’s President Alan M. Garber.

The court hearing comes as President Donald Trump continues to negotiate with the university. One month ago, Trump teased a “mindbogglingly HISTORIC” deal with Harvard that he said would be announced “over the next week or so.”

“They have acted extremely appropriately during these negotiations, and appear to be committed to doing what is right,” Trump said in a June 20 Truth Social post.

Harvard has promised to address antisemitism on its campus, and the Trump administration said it remains “confident that Harvard will eventually come around and support the president’s vision, and through good-faith conversations and negotiations, a good deal is more than possible.” Ahead of Monday’s hearing, White House spokesman Harrison Fields told CNN, “The Trump Administration’s proposition is simple and commonsense: Don’t allow antisemitism and DEI to run your campus, don’t break the law, and protect the civil liberties of all students.”

As Trump pushes Harvard to make a deal, he has ramped up pressure on the school to hand over information on foreign students. Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security sent administrative subpoenas to Harvard, accusing it of “repeatedly” refusing to cooperate with the Trump administration’s “non-coercive requests to hand over the required information for its Student Visitor and Exchange Program certification.”

CNN —

Harvard University will be back in court Monday for a major hearing in its funding fight case against the Trump administration, the next step in a battle over restoring more than $2 billion in federal funding for research frozen by the White House this spring.

US District Judge Allison Burroughs is expected to hear oral arguments from Harvard’s legal team and lawyers for the Department of Justice over the school’s request that she declare the funding freeze unlawful. It marks a critical moment for what’s become the flashpoint of a major clash over academic freedom, federal funding, and campus oversight — and a belief inside the White House that targeting the country’s most elite academic institutions is a winning political issue for President Donald Trump.

Harvard has warned that the Trump administration’s funding freeze has put the university’s medical, scientific and technological research at risk, and that the government is enacting a “pressure campaign to force Harvard to submit to the Government’s control over its academic programs,” according to the original legal complaint filed in April.

The university claimed in the complaint that the government is violating the First Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. It also argued the funding freeze, which could be made permanent, has been “unreasonable and unreasoned.”

The Trump administration, meanwhile, says that Harvard has failed to address antisemitism on campus in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel and that it is now acting within its authority.

“It is the policy of the United States under the Trump Administration not to fund institutions that failed to adequately address antisemitism in their programs,” the administration has argued.

Harvard says it is taking substantive steps to address root causes of antisemitism, including updating its rules around using campus space for protests, reviewing disciplinary processes, and expanding training on combating antisemitism.

Asked for comment ahead of the hearing, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told CNN in a statement, “The Trump Administration’s proposition is simple and commonsense: Don’t allow antisemitism and DEI to run your campus, don’t break the law, and protect the civil liberties of all students.”

Fields continued, “We are confident that Harvard will eventually come around and support the president’s vision, and through good-faith conversations and negotiations, a good deal is more than possible.”

The administration also says the court lacks jurisdiction, which means, in its view, this case should be decided in a different type of court.

In April, the Trump administration wrote to Harvard President Alan Garber demanding governance and leadership reform, merit-based hiring and admissions reform, viewpoint diversity in admissions and hiring, and the discontinuation of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, among other demands.

Harvard University President Alan Garber attends the 374th Commencement exercises at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 29. Brian Snyder/Reuters

The administration has terminated $2.4 billion in federal awards for Harvard, representing more than 950 ongoing research projects.

The university says the scientific research being punished by the federal funding freeze has nothing to do with antisemitism, pointing to its cutting-edge cancer prevention and treatment work, efforts to understand neurodegenerative disorders such as like Parkinson’s disease, and boosting awareness and understanding of emerging biological threats.

In one filing from Harvard last month, a Defense Department official told others in the Trump administration that a $12 million biological threat research grant shouldn’t be terminated because it posed “grave and immediate harm to national security.”

A small circle of Harvard leadership and White House officials had been negotiating toward a deal to end multiple legal battles between the administration and the university — including a separate lawsuit against the Trump administration over its earlier this year to hastily revoke the school’s ability to enroll international students. Burroughs, of the federal court in Boston, ruled in Harvard’s favor in that case, though the decision didn’t preclude the administration from undertaking a formal review process that could eventually result in the university being unable to host foreign students and scholars.

Trump appeared to indicate that those talks were bearing fruit last month.

“Many people have been asking what is going on with Harvard University and their largescale improprieties that we have been addressing, looking for a solution. We have been working closely with Harvard, and it is very possible that a Deal will be announced over the next week or so,” he said in a June 20 social media post.

But the negotiations appeared to subsequently derail.

The administration escalated its battle with the university days later, with an investigation finding the school in “violent violation” of the Civil Rights Act, warning in a letter that a failure to immediately institute change “will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government.”

And days after that, the Department of Homeland Security sent the school administrative subpoenas regarding its Student Visitor and Exchange Program certification, seeking all relevant records, communications and other documents about Harvard’s enforcement of immigration laws.

Harvard has sent some signals it is willing to work with the Trump administration, including earlier this month when The Harvard Crimson reported that websites for Harvard College centers serving minority and LGBTQ students and women disappeared. The White House welcomed that development, viewing it as a goodwill gesture one official described as “good news.”

The Trump administration is in discussions with Columbia University and is on the cusp of a possible multimillion-dollar settlement. A group of Columbia officials attended a Thursday meeting at the White House, where, according to one source familiar with the negotiations, progress was made but a final deal was not inked.

Asked about the state of talks, Trump told CNN on July 4, “I think we’re going to probably settle with Harvard. We’re going to probably settle with Columbia. They want to settle very badly. There’s no rush.”

Asked how much money the settlement would entail, Trump said, “A lot of money.”

Harvard has asked for an expedited final decision from Burroughs, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, in this case and says it must be decided “no later than September 3, 2025, which is the first date by which Harvard must start submitting this paperwork that would finally close out grant funding.”

CNN’s Devan Cole and Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.

Lawyers for the Trump administration and Harvard University will square off in a Boston courtroom on Monday with billions in US government funding at stake.

The White House has frozen more than $2bn (£1.5bn) in federal grants, demanding changes to Harvard’s hiring, admissions and teaching practices to fight antisemitism and halt DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion – programmes.

The Trump presidency has also moved to prevent the university from accessing a visa system that allows it to enrol foreign students.

In response, the university filed lawsuits and is requesting summary judgement, a swift decision based on established facts without a full trial.

Monday’s hearing will be held in front of US District Judge Allison Burroughs, who has already made several interim rulings in favour of Harvardin a separate lawsuit over the foreign student visa system.

Although a ruling immediately after the one-day hearing is unlikely, Harvard lawyers have asked for a decision by 3 September, the deadline the Trump administration has given to Harvard to wind up its financial obligations with regards to federal grants.

Any ruling in the case is likely to be appealed and could end up in front of the US Supreme Court.

In a briefing filed in June, Harvard’s lawyers argued that the White House is in violation of the free speech provisions of the US Constitution by infringing on the university’s right “to decide what to teach, to express certain views, and to petition the courts to defend itself.”

The university also argues that the administration has failed to follow rules about suspending federal funds and that its actions are punitive and “bear no rational connection to the concerns they purport to address”.

Lawyers for the US Justice Department responded by arguing in a filing that funding comes with “explicit conditions” requiring support of government policies.

“If [universities] fail to meet these conditions, the grants are subject to cancellation,” government lawyers wrote.

Justice Department lawyers also want the case moved to the Federal Court of Claims, which deals only with financial lawsuits against the US federal government.

President Trump has suggested his actions against Harvard are part of a negotiating strategy, at one point saying “I think we’re probably going to settle with Harvard”. In a statement, a White House spokesman: “We are confident that Harvard will eventually come around and support the president’s vision, and through good-faith conversations and negotiations, a good deal is more than possible.”

The administration’s push against Harvard is part of a broader effort to pressure elite Ivy League universities.

Earlier this month, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement sent subpoenas to Harvard demanding information about international students, and President Trump previously suggested ending Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

In March, Columbia University in New York agreed to several administration demands, including banning face coverings at protests, and reviewing admissions policies, after the White House threatened to end $400m in funding.

However the moves did not appear to fully appease the administration, and the US Department of Education has since threatened to strip Columbia of its accreditation.

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Harvard University will urge a federal judge on Monday to order U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to restore about $2.5 billion in canceled federal grants and cease efforts to cut off research funding to the prestigious Ivy League school.

The court hearing before U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston marks a crucial moment in the White House’s escalating conflict with Harvard, which has been in the administration’s crosshairs after it rejected a list of demands to make changes to its governance, hiring and admissions practices in April.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based university says hundreds of research projects including ones concerning cancer treatments, infectious diseases and Parkinson’s disease will be in jeopardy unless the judge declares the grant cancellations unlawful.

The country’s oldest and richest university has become a central focus of the administration’s broad campaign to leverage federal funding to force change at U.S. universities, which Trump says are gripped by antisemitic and “radical left” ideologies.

“The Trump administration’s proposition is simple and commonsense: Don’t allow antisemitism and DEI to run your campus, don’t break the law, and protect the civil liberties of all students,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement.

Among the earliest actions the administration took against Harvard was the cancellation of hundreds of grants awarded to researchers on the grounds that the school failed to do enough to address harassment of Jewish students on its campus.

The Trump administration has since sought to bar international students from attending the school; threatened Harvard’s accreditation status; and opened the door to cutting off more funds by finding it violated federal civil rights law.

As part of Trump’s spending and tax bill, the Republican-led Congress increased the federal excise tax on Harvard’s income from its $53 billion endowment to 8% from 1.4%. Income from the endowment covers 40% of Harvard’s operating budget.

Harvard President Alan Garber said last week that the various federal actions since Trump returned to office in January could strip the school of nearly $1 billion annually, forcing it to lay off staff and freeze hiring.

Harvard has said it has taken steps to ensure its campus is welcoming to Jewish and Israeli students, who it acknowledges experienced “vicious and reprehensible” treatment following the onset of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza in October 2023.

But, Garber has said the administration’s demands have gone far beyond addressing antisemitism and unlawfully seek to regulate the “intellectual conditions” on its campus by controlling who it hires and who it teaches.

Those demands, which came in an April 11 letter from an administration task force, included calls for the private university to restructure its governance, alter its hiring and admissions practices to ensure an ideological balance of viewpoints and end certain academic programs.

After Harvard rejected those demands, it said the administration began retaliating against it in violation of the free speech protections of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment by abruptly cutting funding the school says is vital to supporting scientific and medical research.

Burroughs, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, in a separate case has already barred the administration from halting its ability to host international students.

Trump has expressed optimism that Harvard will eventually settle with his administration. Fields on Friday said a good deal was more than possible and that the administration is “confident that Harvard will eventually come around and support the president’s vision.”

In court, the administration has argued that Burroughs lacks jurisdiction to hear the challenge and that the grant contracts made clear they could be canceled if the funded projects do not carry out federal government policy objectives.