pelespirit

A letter from the U.S. General Services Administration, which is dated Tuesday, tells agencies to submit a list of contracts they have terminated with the university by June 6.

"Going forward, we also encourage your agency to seek alternative vendors for future services where you had previously considered Harvard," reads the letter, signed by Josh Gruenbaum, the commissioner of the GSA's Federal Acquisition Service.

The government official, who did not want to be named because they were not authorized to speak, confirmed the authenticity of the letter, first published by the New York Times.

NPR sued U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday over his recent executive order aiming to end federal funding for the outlet, a move that the lawsuit calls an illegal attack that "threatens the existence of a public radio system that millions of Americans across the country rely on for vital news and information."

Colorado Public Radio, KSUT Public Radio, and Roaring Fork Public Radio joined NPR in filing the legal challenge, which also names White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

"The order is unlawful in multiple ways," the lawsuit states. "It flatly contravenes statutes duly enacted by Congress and violates the Separation of Powers and the Spending Clause by disregarding Congress' express commands. It also violates the First Amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech and of the press."

A New York Times analysis published Saturday, based on data from the Washington Post and the database Mapping Police Violence, found that the number of police killings nationwide has risen every year since 2020—with Black people constituting a disproportionate number of the victims. Last year, for example, there were a total of 1,226 people killed by police, an 18 percent increase from 2019, the Times found. While most of the victims killed by police reportedly were armed, some, like Floyd, were not. Last year, 53 unarmed people were killed by police, compared to 95 in 2020, according to the Times analysis. Over the past decade, Black people have been killed by police at more than two times the rate of white people. (Native Americans were the racial group with the highest rate of police killings, according to the Times data.)

The rates of police killings were higher—and have increased since 2020—in the redder states that President Donald Trump won in the last election; the bluer states that former Vice President Kamala Harris won, on the other hand, saw stabilized rates of police killings since 2020.

Federal immigration officials arrested dozens of immigrants following their immigration court hearings in multiple U.S. cities this week, in operations that advocates said appeared to target people who had been in the country for less than two years.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained migrants at courthouses in New York City, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Seattle, according to family members, attorneys and news reports.

In Phoenix, Arizona, on Tuesday and Wednesday, ICE arrested several people outside the immigration court. Among them, Geovanni Francisco and his mother from Guerrero, Mexico, who entered the country legally in 2023, after making an appointment using the Biden-era CBP One app, according to his aunt Hilda Ramirez.

Their case was dismissed Wednesday morning, records show.

“They didn’t even give them a chance to gather their things,” said Ramirez, who accompanied her sister and nephew to their hearing.

In late 2023, Florida moved to revoke the license of NeuroRestorative, one branch of the private equity-owned health services company Sevita, which provides services for people with disabilities. State regulators cited repeat violations by NeuroRestorative and a failure to “protect the rights of its clients to be free from physical abuse.” Ultimately the state opted not to revoke the license and fined the company $13,000 in a settlement.

But in recent years regulators have documented instances of patient harm at Sevita’s affiliates in multiple other states, including Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts and Utah. In 2019, a U.S. Senate committee conducted a probe into the company’s operations in Iowa and Oregon following multiple reports of patient abuse and neglect.

There is no way for the general public to book a room or event online. Walk-ins aren’t welcome, according to signs taped to the glass doors at the front entrance. To get in, it helps to know the owner: Craig Mateer, a top sponsor of the governor’s second inauguration who made his private planes available to DeSantis during his presidential campaign.

The dynamics at play inside the Governor’s Inn, as described by more than a dozen people who have been inside for events, overnight stays or drinks, have ethics experts wondering about what is going on inside a venue with no public information about the price of rooms, drinks or events, and no clear criteria about how to get in.

“It’s a black box,” said Bob Jarvis, an ethics professor at Nova Southeastern University’s law school. “There is no way to know what’s going on. There’s no way to know what expectations there are of the owner. There is no way to know whether those expectations have been fulfilled on a quid pro quo basis.”

The dispute stems from Trump’s efforts to remove two federal officials, Gwynne Wilcox of the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris of the Merits Systems Protection Board, earlier this year. Both women were appointed by then-President Joe Biden for terms that were due to expire in 2028.

Wilcox and Harris went to federal court in Washington, D.C., where they argued that their firings violated federal law because, unlike most federal officials, they can only be removed for good cause.

Less than a week after the D.C. Circuit heard oral arguments in the dispute, the court issued its unsigned opinion. The majority observed that although it would not ultimately decide the issue, the “Government is likely to show that both the NLRB and MSPB exercise considerable executive power.”

The majority also rejected Harris’s suggestion that a ruling for the government could threaten the structure of the Federal Reserve. The Fed, it wrote, “is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States.”

The damage, though, was done by the time Arias-Cristobal’s charges were dismissed. The 19-year-old – who is undocumented and was driving with a Mexican license – was brought to the US from Mexico in 2007, when she was just four.

After O’Neal arrested her, local authorities contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the federal agency that detains and deports immigrants. Ice agents then transferred her to an immigration jail in the state.

“I cannot go to jail,” Arias-Cristobal said during the arrest, according to dash-cam footage. “I have my finals next week. My family depends on this.”

Though Dalton’s municipal government did not provide any information about why O’Neal resigned, his wife posted his resignation letter on Facebook, which said he believed the local police department did not adequately defend him. An Ice officer.

“The department’s silence in the face of widespread defamation has not only made my position personally untenable but has also created an environment where I can no longer effectively carry out my duties within the city of Dalton without fear of further backlash from the community,” O’Neal wrote in the letter.

One unnamed person familiar with the merger negotiations told the Financial Times that the president's post was "considered 'tacit approval'" of the $15 billion takeover deal that was first announced in late 2023. The Biden administration blocked Nippon's proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel earlier this year, and Trump opposed the merger during his 2024 presidential campaign.

Former U.S Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) called Trump's reversal "a betrayal of American workers.

United Steelworkers international president David McCall said in response to Trump's announcement that "we cannot speculate" about the details of the arrangement. But he reiterated the union's concerns that "Nippon, a foreign corporation with a long and proven track record of violating our trade laws, will further erode domestic steelmaking capacity and jeopardize thousands of good, union jobs."

The US Department of Justice today announced criminal charges today against 16 individuals law enforcement authorities have linked to a malware operation known as DanaBot, which according to a complaint infected at least 300,000 machines around the world. The DOJ’s announcement of the charges describes the group as “Russia-based,” and names two of the suspects, Aleksandr Stepanov and Artem Aleksandrovich Kalinkin, as living in Novosibirsk, Russia. Five other suspects are named in the indictment, while another nine are identified only by their pseudonyms. In addition to those charges, the Justice Department says the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS)—a criminal investigation arm of the Department of Defense—carried out seizures of DanaBot infrastructure around the world, including in the US.

Aside from alleging how DanaBot was used in for-profit criminal hacking, the indictment also makes a rarer claim—it describes how a second variant of the malware it says was used in espionage against military, government, and NGO targets. “Pervasive malware like DanaBot harms hundreds of thousands of victims around the world, including sensitive military, diplomatic, and government entities, and causes many millions of dollars in losses,” US attorney Bill Essayli wrote in a statement.

A federal judge further blocked the Trump administration from sharply cutting jobs and reorganizing the structure of many major federal agencies as part of its so-called DOGE effort under billionaire Elon Musk.

The order issued late Thursday granted a preliminary injunction that pauses further reductions in force and “reorganization of the executive branch for the duration of the lawsuit.”

The Trump administration on Friday morning appealed the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and is expected to ask that court to block the injunction from taking effect.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Thursday to prohibit the building of golf courses, hotels and other amenities on state parks, putting an end to a nearly yearlong controversy that united people from across the state and political spectrum in support of preserving public land.

The Florida Senate website showed the bill, House Bill 209, called the “State Park Preservation Act,” as having been signed just before 5 p.m. The governor’s office did not immediately announce the signing, nor did his office respond to an email requesting comment.