Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Wednesday.
Columbia activist’s deportation case goes to courtOutside a Manhattan courthouse today, hundreds of protesters gathered to criticize the Trump administration’s plan to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate who helped lead protests there against Israel. Inside, a judge said he would grant Khalil’s lawyers the ability to speak with him privately for the first time since he was arrested and sent to immigration detention in Louisiana. The case is at the center of President Trump’s effort to expel foreign students who took part in last year’s campus protests over the war in Gaza. After months of threatening deportations, Trump celebrated the arrest of Khalil, a legal permanent resident with a green card, as the first of “many to come.” Behind the scenes, federal investigators who typically focus on human traffickers and drug smugglers have been searching social media for posts showing protesters’ sympathy toward Hamas. The authorities have not accused Khalil of having any contact with the terrorist group or providing material support to it. Instead, Trump’s aides are arguing that he had organized antisemitic activities on campus, which makes him deportable under an obscure legal statute. “This is not about free speech,” Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, said today. “This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card.” Trump’s critics argue that Khalil’s pending deportation is a clear violation of the First Amendment. The arrest put a spotlight on Columbia, which has been struggling with the competing demands of free speech and student safety. Last week, the Trump administration revoked $400 million in federal funds for the school. In related higher education news, Yale suspended a scholar after an A.I.-powered news site accused her of having links to terrorists.
The federal government edged closer to a shutdownSenate Democrats will not help Republicans pass a bill to fund the government through Sept. 30, according to Chuck Schumer, the party’s leader in the chamber. Schumer instead urged Republicans to consider a shorter extension to allow time to negotiate individual spending bills. The decision significantly raised the chances of a shutdown at the end of the week, when the government’s funding is set to run out. There is little time to find another path: House Republicans left town after passing their funding bill. Here’s the latest.
Europe and Canada engage in a trade fight with TrumpJust hours after Trump’s global tariffs on steel and aluminum imports took effect this morning, the European Union and Canada responded with retaliatory measures. Canada said it would impose additional fees on $20 billion worth of U.S. goods, effectively raising the prices for imported American metal, computers and sporting goods, among other things. The E.U. said its retaliatory tariffs, on about $28 billion of U.S. goods, would take effect on April 1. But European officials emphasized that they were ready to strike a deal with the U.S. Here’s what products their tariffs might hit. Some economists worry that the trade fights will eventually hurt the U.S. economy. However, economic data still looks solid, for now: Inflation eased more than expected in February. In other economic news, egg prices are still surging.
Putin faces a dilemmaSecretary of State Marco Rubio said today that he hoped a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine would take place within “days.” Ukrainian leaders, who agreed to such a truce, are glad that their relationship with the U.S. appears to be on the mend. That complicates things for Vladimir Putin. He has signaled that he does not want to stop fighting until he extracts major concessions from the West, but he also wants to maintain a good relationship with Trump. One thing that could benefit Putin: Russian troops have made advances in Kursk, a territory Ukraine hoped to use as a bargaining chip in peace talks. More top news
After 125 years, a lost Ravel will be premieredThe conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the New York Philharmonic are excitedly preparing to premiere a five-minute piece by the great 20th-century composer Maurice Ravel. The work, which will be performed for the first time tomorrow, was written around 1900 but was never published. Written for an unfinished cantata about the Babylonian queen Semiramis, the piece was only recently discovered when researchers at a Paris library began looking for works that could be performed to commemorate Ravel’s 150th birthday. “It’s precious,” Dudamel said.
Where are our Covid memes now?It was five years ago this week when Covid seemed to grind the world to a halt almost overnight. In the months that followed, many of us spent a lot of time online, where fun and wacky trends offered some joy in the dark days of lockdown. Who doesn’t remember the Cat Lawyer, the baked feta pasta craze, the bizarre monolith and Stanley Tucci’s Negroni recipe? My colleagues looked back at the moments that offered us a distraction.
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