TV News LIES

Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and detained Palestinian activist, was finally allowed to hold his infant son for the first time Thursday – one month after he was born – thanks to a federal judge who blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to keep the father and infant separated by a Plexiglass barrier.

The visit came before a scheduled immigration hearing for Khalil, a legal permanent resident who has been detained in a Louisiana jail since 8 March.

The question of whether Khalil would be permitted to hold his newborn child, Deen, or forced to meet him through a barrier had sparked days of legal fighting, triggering claims by Khalil’s attorneys that he is being subject to political retaliation by the government.

A district judge ruled Thursday the federal government could not revoke the legal status of international students after a nationwide crackdown on foreign individuals at U.S. universities.

The case involves two dozen students who were admitted to the U.S. on F-1 nonimmigrant visas who saw their status changed when the federal government took them off the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS).

Along with blocking terminations, District Judge Jeffrey White, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, is enjoining the federal government from arresting the plaintiffs or those similarly situated or transferring those arrested outside of their resident jurisdiction.

The Hill has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment.

This is the first time a judge has issued a nationwide injunction after dozens of lawsuits appeared in response to the federal government’s crackdown on international students.

More...

The Trump administration told Harvard University on Thursday it no longer would be allowed to enroll international students, a significant escalation in President Trump’s war against the university.

Kristi Noem, the head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ordered Harvard to be taken off the Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification.

Along with not allowing new foreign students, the DHS said the thousands of current foreign-born students at Harvard “must transfer or lose their legal status.”

“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” Noem said. “It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments.

More...

The Supreme Court cleared the way Thursday for President Trump to fire two Democratic-appointed independent agency leaders, for now, over the dissents of the court’s three liberal justices.

The emergency order lifts a lower decision reinstating the two officials, handing the president a win in his quest to expand control over all aspects of the federal bureaucracy.

But the justices declined the Trump administration’s additional ask to immediately take up the case in full and expedite it so the high court can settle this term whether Trump could fire the two officials.

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily reinstated hundreds of Education Department workers laid off by the Trump administration and blocked the president's executive order attempting to dismantle the decades-old agency.

District Court Judge Myong J. Joun, a Biden appointee in Boston, said the White House's decision to fire more than 1,300 workers in March has prevented the federal government from effectively implementing legally required programs and services.

At the request of a coalition of states, he granted a preliminary injunction to rehire the staffers while a lawsuit plays out over whether the employees were illegally fired.

States and school districts are experiencing "delays and uncertainty in their receipt of federal educational funding, amounting in the millions, which jeopardize their missions of ensuring an educated citizenry and providing quality education," the judge wrote in the order. "Such delays and uncertainty raise immediate predicaments about whether there will be sufficient staff and student programming for the 2025-2026 school year and hinder long term planning."

More...

A divided Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the creation of the nation's first religious charter school, a major loss for those advocating a greater role for religion in public life.

The court split 4-4 over whether to allow St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Charter School, keeping in place the Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision that a religious charter school would violate the Constitution’s clause aimed at keeping religion separate from government.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in the decision, leaving the nine-member court evenly divided. Although she didn't give a reason, Barrett is close friends with the Notre Dame Law School professor who was an early legal adviser to the Catholic Church in Oklahoma, which wanted to open St. Isidore.

The court issued its one sentence decision announcing the deadlock three weeks after hearing oral arguments. The announcement did not include how each of the participating justices voted.

Because neither side had a majority, no precedent was established by its decision.

More...

 

Medical sources tell Al Jazeera that at least 93 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip since dawn on Wednesday.

International condemnation is mounting after Israeli forces fired warning shots towards foreign diplomats visiting the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.

The United Nations’s chief spokesperson said the limited humanitarian aid “finally” entering Gaza is “nowhere near enough to meet the needs” of the war-torn enclave’s famished population.

More...