Key occasions
Donald Trump’s administration on Monday pushed ahead in defending US guidelines easing entry to the abortion drug mifepristone from a authorized problem that started throughout Democratic former president Joe Biden’s administration.
The US Division of Justice in a short filed in Texas federal courtroom urged a decide to dismiss the lawsuit by three Republican-led states on procedural grounds.
Whereas the submitting doesn’t focus on the deserves of the states’ case, it suggests the Trump administration is in no rush to drop the federal government’s protection of mifepristone, utilized in greater than 60% of US abortions.
Missouri, Kansas and Idaho declare the US Meals and Drug Administration acted improperly when it eased restrictions on mifepristone, together with by permitting it to be prescribed by telemedicine and distributed by mail.
The justice division and the workplace of Missouri’s lawyer basic, Andrew Bailey, didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
Town of New York and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority requested a US decide late on Monday to dam the Trump administration from killing Manhattan’s congestion pricing program.
Attorneys for the town’s transport division and the MTA sought an order to dam Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s effort to kill this system and his menace to withhold federal authorities approvals for different initiatives and funding.
New York launched its first-in-the-nation program in January, charging most passenger automobiles a toll of $9 throughout peak intervals to enter Manhattan south of sixtieth Avenue, in a bid to chop congestion and lift funds to enhance mass transit.
President Donald Trump stated Moscow and Kyiv wish to settle the battle in Ukraine and that Russian president Vladimir Putin was extra inclined in the direction of peace after the latest fall within the value of oil.
“I think Russia with the price of oil right now, oil has gone down, we are in a good position to settle, they want to settle. Ukraine wants to settle,” Trump advised reporters within the Oval Workplace on Monday.
The value of oil – which drives the Russian financial system – has fallen about $15 a barrel because the begin of the yr. OPEC+ will speed up oil output hikes, sources advised Reuters.
“We’ve come a long way, and, it could be something will happen, but hopefully it will,” Trump stated.
Mike Pence rebukes Trump over tariffs and ‘wavering’ assist for Ukraine
Robert Tait
Donald Trump’s tariffs coverage will set off a “price shock” and potential shortages, and result in public stress on him to vary his strategy, the previous vice-president Mike Pence has stated.
In considered one of his most wide-ranging critiques but on the insurance policies of the president he used to serve, Pence, talking to CNN, derided the White Home’s “wavering” assist for Ukraine and declared – in direct contradiction of repeated assurances from Trump – that President Vladimir Putin of Russia “doesn’t want peace”.
Pence’s feedback got here in an interview after receiving the John F Kennedy Profile in Braveness award in recognition of his refusal to bow to stress from Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election when he presided over Congress’s certification of the outcomes on 6 January 2021.
The vice-president’s dedication to hold out his constitutional function and certify Joe Biden’s victory presaged an assault on the US Capitol by a violent mob, who chanted “hang Mike Pence”, because the vice-president was spirited to security by safety personnel.
Pence advised CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Trump’s resolution to pardon about 1,600 convicted rioters after he returned to workplace in January “sent the wrong message”.
“I was deeply disappointed to see President Trump pardon people that engaged in violence against law enforcement officers that day,” he stated.
FDA bargaining session cancelled over layoffs, union says
The Trump administration final week canceled the primary bargaining session scheduled with the US Meals and Drug Administration’s largest staff’ union since its capacity to signify authorities employees was quickly restored by a federal courtroom, in accordance one of many union’s bosses.
President Donald Trump in March signed an government order that excluded companies from collective bargaining obligations that he stated “have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.”
The order utilized to the FDA, in addition to companies underneath the Justice, State, Protection, Treasury and Veterans Affairs departments, Reuters experiences.
Senior US district decide Paul Friedman on 25 April issued an injunction to dam the manager order from being applied, pending the end result of a lawsuit by the Nationwide Treasury Workers Union (NTEU), which represents about 160,000 federal workers together with as many as 9,000 FDA employees.

Robert Mackey
The US Division of Training knowledgeable Harvard College on Monday that it was ending billions of {dollars} in analysis grants and different assist except the college accedes to a listing of calls for from the Trump administration that might successfully cede management of the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college to the federal government.
The information was delivered to Dr Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a deeply partisan letter from Linda McMahon, the schooling secretary, which she additionally posted on social media.
“This letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek grants from the federal government, since none will be provided,” McMahon wrote.
The principle motive for the crackdown on Harvard is the college’s rejection of an extended listing of calls for from the Trump administration’s antisemitism taskforce, prompted by campus protests in opposition to Israel’s brutal army marketing campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led assaults of seven October 2023. McMahon additionally accuses the college of “a systematic pattern of violating federal law”.
As Garber defined in a message to the Harvard group final month, the college determined to sue the federal authorities solely after the Trump administration froze $2.2bn in funding, threatened to freeze an extra $1bn in grants, “initiated numerous investigations of Harvard’s operations, threatened the education of international students, and announced that it is considering a revocation of Harvard’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status”.
The federal government’s “sweeping and intrusive demands would impose unprecedented and improper control over the university”, Garber wrote.
Opening abstract
Good morning and welcome to our US politics weblog as Donald Trump prepares to welcome his newly elected northern counterpart, Canada’s Mark Carney, to the White Home.
At 11.30am ET the president is because of welcome Carney and the occasion will even embrace talks and a lunch. That is unlikely to be an easy assembly, Trump’s tariffs on Canada and even strategies that it might turn out to be the “51st state” created anger over the border that helped propel Carney to energy.
In his victory speech only a week in the past, Carney claimed that Trump needed to “break us, so that America can own us”, including: “That will never, ever happen.”
The next day they did have what Trump described as an “extremely productive” name and later he stated needed a “very good relationship” with Canada. In fact, with Trump, issues are by no means predictable, so let’s see how right now performs out.
Amid the talks, more likely to centre on the tariff difficulty, the pair appear unlikely to debate one other main topic we’ll be protecting right now – Trump’s transfer to dam grant funding for Harvard till it meets his calls for.
The Canadian economist and central banker is a Harvard graduate and served on the Board of Overseers, Harvard’s second-highest governing physique, earlier than resigning earlier this yr to take up his function main the Liberal get together.
In different information:
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Donald Trump has stated he’s directing the administration to reopen and increase Alcatraz, the infamous former jail on an island off San Francisco that has been closed for greater than 60 years. California Democrats referred to as the concept “absurd on its face” and a part of the US president’s technique of political distraction. Different officers pointed to the closure of the jail complicated in 1963, identified for its brutal situations, as a result of operational expense and the excessive variety of (unsuccessful) escape makes an attempt.
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Trump introduced his 100% tariff on movies “coming into our country produced in foreign lands” sooner or later after assembly with actor Jon Voight to debate his proposals to carry movie manufacturing again to the US – which solely steered that tariffs might be used “in certain limited circumstances”.
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Donald Trump’s tariffs coverage will set off a “price shock” and potential shortages, and result in public stress on him to vary his strategy, the previous vice-president Mike Pence has stated. In considered one of his most wide-ranging critiques but on the insurance policies of the president he used to serve, Pence, talking to CNN, derided the White Home’s “wavering” assist for Ukraine and declared – in direct contradiction of repeated assurances from Trump – that president Vladimir Putin of Russia “doesn’t want peace”.
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Trump stated Moscow and Kyiv wish to settle the battle in Ukraine and that Russian president Vladimir Putin was extra inclined in the direction of peace after the latest fall within the value of oil. “I think Russia with the price of oil right now, oil has gone down, we are in a good position to settle, they want to settle. Ukraine wants to settle,” Trump advised reporters within the Oval Workplace on Monday.
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Mass protests have been referred to as for 14 June, when Donald Trump plans to throw himself a army parade celebration.
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US intelligence officers concluded final month that the federal government of Venezuela is “probably not directing” the actions of Tren de Aragua gang members inside the USA. That undermines Trump’s declare that the Alien Enemies Act empowers him to deport suspected gang members.
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The US Division of Training knowledgeable Harvard College on Monday that it was ending billions of {dollars} in analysis grants and different assist except the college concedes to a listing of calls for from the Trump administration that might successfully cede management of the nation’s oldest and wealthiest to the federal government.