President Donald Trump's administration announced a lawsuit Wednesday against Maine’s education department for not complying with the government’s push to ban transgender athletes in girls sports, escalating a dispute over whether the state is abiding by a federal law that bars discrimination in education based on sex.
Also, a federal judge has said she'll order sworn testimony by Trump administration officials to determine if they complied with her orders to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to a notorious El Salvador prison.
Here's the latest:
A prominent opponent of diversity, equity and inclusion programs is imploring President Trump to cut all federal money and strip nonprofit status at Harvard and other Ivy League schools that defy federal orders.
Conservative strategist Christopher Rufo said the government should respond to Harvard’s defiance with the same tools used to force desegregation during the Civil Rights Movement.
“Trump needs to follow through on his threat to defund one of the Ivy League universities,” Rufo said on social media Tuesday. “Cut the funding and watch the university implode.”
Harvard on Monday became the first school to openly defy sweeping orders from the Trump administration, prompting the government to freeze more than $2 billion in grants and contracts.
Rufo said Harvard has discriminated against white and Asian American students, citing events including graduation celebrations specific to certain ethnic groups, along with a 2021 theater performance exclusively “for Black-identifying audience members.”
She was asked at an unrelated news conference about the case of the El Salvador man living in Maryland who was wrongly deported to an El Salvador prison. The Supreme Court has said the administration must “facilitate” his release.
Bondi said the U.S. government would fly him back on a plane if El Salvador President Nayib Bukele wanted to return him.
“President Bukele said he was not sending him back. That’s the end of the story,” Bondi said. Even if he were to return to the U.S., the government would deport him again, Bondi said.
“He would have come back, had one extra step of paperwork and gone back again. But he’s from El Salvador, he’s in El Salvador and that’s where the president plans on keeping him,” Bondi said.
The Trump administration has alleged he’s a member of MS-13. Abrego Garcia was never charged with a crime and has denied the allegations.
Vice President JD Vance says the trip will take place April 18-24.
In Rome, Vance will meet with Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, who’s scheduled to visit the White House on Thursday. He’ll also meet with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
His India stops include New Delhi, Jaipur and Agra, which is known for the Taj Mahal, and include meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Vance and his family will also visit cultural sites.
The vice president converted to Catholicism. His wife, Usha Vance, is the first Indian American person to become second lady. They have three young children.
And the World Trade Organization says that’s due to Trump’s shifting tariff policies and a standoff with China, but it would take a more severe hit if the U.S. president carries through on his toughest “reciprocal” tariffs.
The decline in trade will be particularly steep in North America even without the stiffest tariffs, the global trade forum said Wednesday, with exports there this year expected to fall by 12.6% and imports by 9.6%.
The WTO based its report on the tariff situation as of Monday. Initially, 2025 and 2026 were expected to have continued expansion of world trade, but Trump’s trade war forced WTO economists to substantially downgrade their forecast, the forum said.
▶ Read more about the WTO’s trade forecast
This morning, at 11:30 a.m., Trump will receive an intelligence briefing. Later this evening, at 6:30 p.m., he will attend an Easter prayer service and dinner.
It’s fueled by a spending spree on big ticket items from gadgets to cars before Trump’s expansive new tariffs started kicking in.
Retail sales rose 1.4% in March, after rising 0.2% in February, according to the Commerce Department. Retail sales fell 1.2% in January, hurt in part by cold weather that kept more Americans indoors, denting sales at car dealers and most other stores.
Excluding sales at auto dealers, sales only rose 0.5%.
Sales at auto dealers rose 5.3%, while electronics retailers had a 0.8% increase. Sporting goods retailers enjoyed a 2.4% gain.
But analysts expect sales will start falling off as the slew of tariffs increase costs for companies and many retailers are forced to raise prices, hurting shopper demand.
▶ Read more about U.S. retail sales
The administration announced the lawsuit Wednesday against Maine’s education department for not complying with the government’s push to ban transgender athletes in girls sports, escalating a dispute over whether the state is abiding by a federal law that bars discrimination in education based on sex.
The lawsuit follows weeks of feuding between the Republican administration and Democratic Gov. Janet Mills that’s led to threats to cut off crucial federal funding and a clash at the White House when she told the president: “We’ll see you in court.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the legal action at a news conference in Washington alongside former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has emerged as a public face of the opposition to transgender athletes.
▶ Read more about the lawsuit over transgender athletes
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Paris this week for talks with European allies on U.S. efforts to negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
The State Department said Wednesday that Rubio and Witkoff would be in the French capital Thursday for the meetings, details of which weren’t immediately available.
The pair will have “talks with European counterparts to advance President Trump’s goal to end the Russia-Ukraine war and stop the bloodshed.”
Rubio will also “discuss ways to advance shared interests in the region,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
Newsom is challenging Trump’s authority to impose a 10% tariff on all imports.
The state, which will file the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, will ask the court to immediately block the tariffs.
Newsom said the tariffs “are wreaking chaos” on Californians and threatening jobs in the state, which has the largest economy in the nation.
“We’re standing up for American families who can’t afford to let the chaos continue,” he said.
The Democratic governor previously asked countries to exempt California exports from retaliatory tariffs.
Trump said in a morning post on his social media platform that he’ll attend the Wednesday meeting alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
“Hopefully something can be worked out which is good (GREAT!) for Japan and the USA!” the president wrote.
Trump’s announcement last week of a 90-day pause on the latest series of duties put Japan’s 24% across-the-board rate on hold, but a 10% baseline tariff and a 25% tariff on cars, auto parts, steel and aluminum exports to the U.S. remain in place.
Japan’s chief trade negotiator, Economic Revitalization Minister Ryosei Akazawa, was traveling to Washington for the talks.
On Monday, Harvard became the first university to openly defy the Trump administration as it demands sweeping changes to limit activism on campus. The university frames the government’s demands as a threat not only to the Ivy League school but to the autonomy that the Supreme Court has long granted American universities.
Both sides are digging in for a clash that could test the limits of the government’s power and the independence that has made U.S. universities a destination for scholars around the world.
But no university is better positioned to put up a fight than Harvard, whose $53 billion endowment is the largest in the nation. But like other major universities, Harvard also depends on the federal funding that fuels its scientific and medical research. It’s unclear how long Harvard could continue without the frozen money.
For the Trump administration, Harvard presents the first major hurdle in its attempt to force change at universities that Republicans say have become hotbeds of liberalism and antisemitism.
▶ Read more about the clash between Harvard and the Trump administration
Trump said he wants to give money and an airplane ticket to any immigrant who is in the country illegally who chooses to “self-deport,” and work to get those who are “good” back in the U.S., a break from his usual hardline immigration rhetoric.
Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to carry out mass deportations, said in a taped interview with Fox Noticias that aired Tuesday that his administration is focused right now on getting “murderers” out of the country. But for others in the U.S. illegally, he said, he’s going to implement “a self-deportation program.”
Trump offered few details about the plan, including timing, but said the U.S. would provide immigrants airfare and a stipend.
“We’re going to give them a stipend. We’re going to give them some money and a plane ticket, and then we’re going to work with them — if they’re good — if we want them back in, we’re going to work with them to get them back in as quickly as we can,” Trump said.
▶ Read more about Trump’s comments on “self-deportation”
A federal judge said Tuesday that she will order sworn testimony by Trump administration officials to determine if they complied with her orders to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to a notorious El Salvador prison.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland issued her order after Trump officials continually refused to retrieve Abrego Garcia. She said they defied a “clear” Supreme Court order.
She also downplayed Monday’s comments by White House officials and El Salvador’s president that they were unable to bring back Abrego Garcia, describing their statements as “two very misguided ships passing in the night.”
“The Supreme Court has spoken,” Xinis said, adding that what was said in the Oval Office on Monday “is not before the court.”
In her written order published Tuesday evening, Xinis called for the testimony of four Trump administration officials who work for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department.
▶ Read more about Judge Xinis’s comments
President Donald Trump arrives to speak at the Commander-in-Chief trophy presentation to the Navy Midshipman football team in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump speaks during the Commander-in-Chief trophy presentation to the Navy Midshipman football team in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
