Trump ramps up attacks on judges after week of rulings: Live updates

Companies that speak out about social justice or protecting the environment are under threat like never before, writes Alan Rusbridger. With Trump in charge, we need to celebrate dissenting voices – not silence them

President Trump demanded that Maine Governor Janet Mills apologize to him after she clashed with him during a governors’ meeting at the White House over allowing transgender athletes to compete.

“While the State of Maine has apologized for their Governor’s strong, but totally incorrect, statement about men playing in women’s sports while at the White House House Governor’s Conference, we have not heard from the Governor herself, and she is the one that matters in such cases,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The Department of Education found that Maine violated Title IX protections by allowing a transgender girl to play in women’s and girls’ sports. It comes after Trump signed an executive order banning trans athletes from competing on the team that aligns with their gender identity.

At the heated meeting last month, Mills told the president, “we’ll see you in court” after clashing over the issue.

“Therefore, we need a full throated apology from the Governor herself, and a statement that she will never make such an unlawful challenge to the Federal Government again, before this case can be settled,” Trump wrote.

The Department of Homeland Security said it would revoke legal protections for approximately 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who have come to the United States since October 2022 under a humanitarian parole program.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said they would lose legal protections on April 24 – 30 days after the publication of the notice in the Federal Register.

Under the humanitarian program, migrants could come to the U.S. legally if they were from war-torn countries or those facing political instability.

Here are some highlights:

During a high-stakes hearing over Donald Trump’s use of a centuries-old wartime law to swiftly deport suspected Venezuelan gang members, a federal judge rebuked lawyers for the Department of Justice for their “intemperate and disrespectful language” in their responses to court orders.

Trump and his allies have threatened to impeach Judge James Boasberg after he temporarily blocked the administration from deporting immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act and questioned whether the government intentionally defied his court orders to turn planes around before they emptied out dozens of people into a prison in El Salvador last week.

Alex Woodward reports.

Despite the pressure food banks find themselves under, with funding down from pandemic highs and inflation high, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has chosen to pause and review existing programs, canceling some $500 million in deliveries.

Such an interruption can have serious consequences for people reliant on food banks — one in every six Americans — and especially those in rural areas.

Food banks across the country — already facing huge cuts to locally grown food assistance — learned this week that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is canceling $500 million in expected food deliveries, further disrupting help at a time when need continues to rise.

Vince Hall, chief government relations officer at Feeding America, the country’s largest hunger-relief organization, said some local food banks and food pantries were told that USDA deliveries of commodities such as cheese and meat are being canceled at least temporarily. Many others were not notified by federal officials that their deliveries were not coming, he said.

Hall characterized the USDA’s decision as a pause to review existing programs and said his organization is hoping the administration will resume purchases and deliveries “with minimum disruption on the flow of food.” Groups working in rural areas, which rely more on government food than gleaning, would be especially hard hit by a lack of commodities, he said.

Eric Garcia writes:

But rather, Trump received praise from almost all Republican lawmakers despite the fact that he subverted their power and took away their authority.

Only a few, like Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy, who helped put Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation as Health and Human Services Secretary over the finish line, alluded to proposing legislation.

But it’s just the latest example of Congress utterly abdicating its duties in the name of Trump.

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Alex Woodward listened in.

President Donald Trump’s administration requested that the federal judge overseeing the challenge to Trump’s executive order aimed at the law firm Perkins Coie recuse herself from the case, alleging a “pattern of hostility” toward the president.

Justice Department lawyers said U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell’s impartiality could “reasonably be questioned.” They referenced her previous rulings against Trump and comments made in cases involving his supporters related to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“This Court has not kept its disdain for President Trump secret,” the lawyers wrote in a court filing. “It has voiced its thoughts loudly—both inside and outside the courtroom.”

Last week, Howell temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing much of its order against the Democratic-linked firm Perkins Coie, determining that it likely violated the U.S. Constitution.

The Trump administration has escalated its criticism of federal judges in recent weeks as courts have at times sought to limit Trump’s broad use of presidential power.

With reporting from Reuters

The university will give police new powers to arrest students, ban face masks at protests, and appoint a university official to oversee changes at its Department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies and Center for Palestine Studies.

Josh Marcus reports.