A federal judge on Wednesday said he has found probable cause to hold President Donald Trump’s administration in criminal contempt of court for violating his orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador.
U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg warned he could refer the matter for prosecution if the administration does not “purge” its contempt. Boasberg said the administration could do so by returning to U.S. custody those who were sent to the El Salvador prison in violation of his order so that they “might avail themselves of their right to challenge their removability.”
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Two law professors filed a lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday challenging the sanctions at the International Criminal Court.
Gabor Rona and Lisa Davis said in court documents that they are also subject to the sanctions because they provided legal services to the prosecutor, Karim Khan, and they intended to continue doing so. They said the sanctions unconstitutionally restrict their First Amendment rights.
Trump signed an order this year accusing the ICC of “baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.” It cited an ICC arrest warrant issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Khan was then added to a list of individuals barred from doing business with Americans and facing restrictions on entering the U.S.
The Hague-based court has said it stands by its personnel and will continue to seek justice for victims of atrocities around the world.
The president addressed about 40 Christian leaders in the White House’s Blue Room for an Easter prayer service and dinner, telling them, “I hope this is going to be one of the great Easters ever.”.
He called the death and resurrection of Jesus “two of the most monumental events in history.”
In brief remarks that stuck mostly to a religious message — without the many lengthy asides the president usually relishes when giving speeches — Trump denounced the persecution of Christians in other parts of the world and noted the creation of a Department of Justice task force to combat anti-Christian bias.
Trump also told those gathered that his administration is filled with “fantastic people, and they’re people that believe like you do.”
Trump is picking Jay Clayton to serve as interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, amid a procedural fight with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
In a post on his social media site, Trump noted that during his first term, Clayton chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission and “earned the respect of everyone.”
Trump first tapped Clayton for the Southern District post in November 2024. But Schumer said he will use a Senate procedure letting home-state senators object to judicial nominees to block Trump’s picks for U.S. attorneys for New York’s Southern and Eastern Districts.
Trump thanked Clayton for “taking on this role while we continue to pursue his Senate confirmation.”
A federal judge’s ruling that the Trump administration appears to have willfully violated his order to turn around planes of migrants headed for El Salvador increases the prospect of officials being held in criminal contempt of court and potentially facing prosecution.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said in his ruling Wednesday that probable cause exists to hold the administration in contempt over its defiance of his order in the case involving migrants sent to a notorious El Salvador prison. The judge is giving the administration a chance to remedy the violation first before moving forward with such an action.
The White House says it will appeal.
Here’s what to know about the judge’s ruling, contempt of court and what happens next.
▶ Read more on things to know about the case
The administration indicated that it will appeal a federal judge’s order to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. from an El Salvador prison after he was mistakenly deported to his native country last month.
The notice of appeal focused on last week’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland, which she issued soon after the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. must facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.
The administration said little else in its notice to bring the case to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. But it comes as White House officials have continued to say that Abrego Garcia will not come back or that he would be immediately deported if he did. El Salvador’s president has also said he would not send him back.
Xinis has increasingly scolded Trump officials in court. On Tuesday she ordered administration officials to provide sworn testimony to determine whether they complied with her orders.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is holding a press briefing with Patty Morin, whose daughter, Rachel, was killed in 2023 while exercising on a popular hiking trail northeast of Baltimore.
Victor Martinez-Hernandez was convicted of raping and killing Rachel Morin and concealing her body in a drainage culvert.
Leavitt previously announced the unscheduled briefing with a “special guest”
Leavitt has highlighted the Morin case for days. She has expressed anger, saying it received less attention than that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to a notorious El Salvador prison.
Democrats have criticized the Trump administration for failing to heed a Supreme Court order that it must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release.
U.S. stocks dropped as the costs of U.S. restrictions on global trade compounded. The S&P 500 fell 2.2% Wednesday, the Dow lost 1.7%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 3.1%.
Losses accelerated after the Federal Reserve’s head said President Donald Trump’s tariffs could push economic growth lower and inflation higher than earlier thought.
Nvidia sank after saying new U.S. restrictions on exports to China will chisel billions of dollars off its results.
And United Airlines said conditions are so impossible to predict that it gave two forecasts for its financials this upcoming year, one if there’s a recession and another if not.
Treasury yields also fell.
The showdown between the Trump administration and Harvard University is spotlighting bare-knuckled politics and big dollar figures. But in the battle of the moment, it’s easy to lose sight of a decades-long alliance between the U.S. government and the nation’s most prominent universities, forged to fight a world war.
For eight decades, that interdependence has been prized by academic leaders and politicians of both parties as a paragon for American discovery and innovation.
“In some ways I think it’s a core part of the story of contemporary America,” said Jason Owen-Smith, a University of Michigan professor who studies the scope of research on the nation’s campuses. “Harvard’s an exemplar, but it’s not the only one.”
▶ Read more about the longstanding alliance between academia and government
The University of California Student Association, which represents students across nine UC campuses, sued the Education Department in February saying it violated the Privacy Act of 1974 when it allowed Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to access financial aid databases.
The databases include Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, dates of birth and other personal information for millions of borrowers.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., rejected a request to temporarily block DOGE’s access to the data in February, saying there was no evidence DOGE would misuse the data.
On Wednesday, the association voluntarily dropped the case a week after the Education Department filed a motion to dismiss it.
He traveled to the Central American nation Wednesday to push for the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.
Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said at a news conference in San Salvador after the meeting that Vice President Félix Ulloa said his government couldn't return Abrego Garcia to the United States and declined to allow Van Hollen to visit him in the notorious gang prison where he’s being held.
“Why is the government of El Salvador continuing to imprison a man where they have no evidence that he’s committed any crime and they have not been provided any evidence from the United States that he has committed any crime?” Van Hollen told reporters after the meeting. “They should just let him go.”
▶ Read more about Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador
He promised Wednesday to conduct exhaustive studies to identify any environmental factors that may cause the developmental disorder.
His call comes the day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report that found an estimated 1 in 31 U.S. children have autism, a marked increase from 2020.
“Autism destroys families,” Kennedy said. “More importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which is our children. These are children who should not be suffering like this.”
Kennedy described autism as a “preventable disease,” although researchers and scientists have identified genetic factors that are associated with it. Autism isn’t considered a disease, but a complex disorder that affects the brain. Cases range widely in severity, with symptoms that can include delays in language, learning, and social or emotional skills. Some autistic traits can go unnoticed well into adulthood.
▶ Read more about RFK Jr.’s comments on autism
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Wednesday that he closed what had been known as the Global Engagement Center because it had taken actions to restrict freedom of speech in the U.S. and elsewhere.
The GEC has been a frequent target of criticism from conservatives for calling out media and online reports it said are biased or untruthful. At times, the GEC identified U.S. websites and social media accounts that it argued were amplifying misinformation, particularly related to the Russia-Ukraine war.
The program developed during Joe Biden’s presidency was credited by users with making tax filing easy, fast and economical. But Republican lawmakers and commercial tax preparation companies complained it was a waste of taxpayer money because free filing programs already exist, although they’re hard to use.
The program had been in limbo since the start of Trump’s administration as Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have slashed their way through the federal government. Musk posted in February on X that he’d “deleted” 18F, a government agency that worked on technology projects such as Direct File.
There was some hope that Musk, with his DOGE team of savvy computer programmers, could take over Direct File and improve it. But two people familiar with the decision to end Direct File said its future became clear when the IRS staff assigned to the program were told in mid-March to stop working on its development for the 2026 tax filing season.
The two people weren’t authorized to publicly discuss the plans and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
▶ Read more about the IRS’ Direct File program
— Fatima Hussein
The American Civil Liberties Union asserts that the removal of race- and gender-related books and curricula violated students’ First Amendment protections against government censorship.
The suit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in northeast Virginia says the Department of Defense Education Activity nixed educational materials in line with an executive order issued by Trump in January.
Trump’s order forbids the school system from “promoting, advancing, or otherwise inculcating ... un-American, divisive, discriminatory, radical, extremist, and irrational theories” connected to race and gender.
Books ranging from Harper Lee’s “ To Kill a Mockingbird ” and Khaled Hosseini’s “ The Kite Runner ” to “ Hillbilly Elegy ” by Vice President JD Vance have since been stripped from some schools’ library shelves, according to the ACLU.
▶ Read more about the lawsuit against the Defense Department’s school system
Young volunteers who respond to natural disasters and help with community projects across the U.S. have been discharged as a result of the Trump administration ’s campaign to shrink government workforce and services.
AmeriCorps’ National Civilian Community Corps informed volunteers Tuesday they would exit the program early “due to programmatic circumstances beyond your control,” according to an email obtained by The Associated Press.
More than 2,000 people, ages 18 to 26, serve for nearly a year, according to the program’s website, and get assigned to projects with nonprofits and community organizations or the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The volunteers are especially visible after natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Helene last year. The organization said on social media last month that teams have served 8 million service hours on nearly 3,400 disaster projects since 1999.
▶ Read more about DOGE cuts to AmeriCorps
That’s according to a person close to her who was granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Stefanik, R-N.Y., is a member of House Republican leadership and onetime nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
New York’s current governor, Democrat Kathy Hochul, was elected in 2022.
Stefanik, a close ally and fierce defender of the president, had been nominated to represent the U.S. at the United Nations. But her nomination was pulled last month amid concerns about leaving a Republican House seat vacant when the party has such a narrow majority in the chamber.
— Seung Min Kim
The U.S. Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on a Chinese refinery accused of purchasing more than $1 billion worth of Iranian oil, saying the proceeds help finance both Tehran’s government and Iran’s support for militant groups.
The sanctioned Chinese refinery received dozens of shipments of crude oil from Iran, the Trump administration said Wednesday. Some of the petroleum came from a front company for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, U.S. authorities said.
Several companies and vessels involved in the shipments also were added to the sanctions list.
The penalties follow earlier efforts by the Trump administration to disrupt the flow of Iranian oil.
A handful of preschools in Washington state have stopped providing Head Start services, saying the federal government hasn’t sent their funding.
Inspire Development Centers in Sunnyside, Washington, closed Wednesday with no plans to reopen until they receive federal money, a statement Tuesday said.
The closure affects more than 300 low-income preschoolers and more than 100 babies and toddlers. More than 50 staff members will be laid off this week, Inspire said.
Head Start, a federal child development program for the nation’s neediest kids, runs through private and public schools, which receive federal money to operate. Inspire said it typically receives annualnotice of its funding amount in February, with a finalized award by May 1. But this year, the centers haven’t heard from the Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the Office of Head Start.
It regards his orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador.
U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg said he the administration must try to “purge” itself of a contempt finding or he’ll launch hearings and potentially refer the matter for prosecution.
“The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory,” the judge wrote.
The move by Judge Boasberg marks an escalation in a battle between the judicial and executives branches of government over a president’s powers to carry out key White House priorities. The Republican president has called for Boasberg’s impeachment while the Justice Department has accused the judge of overstepping his authority.
▶ Read more about the deportation flights case
Xi’s remarks were made at a dinner with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim while Xi was on a state visit as part of his Southeast Asia tour.
“In the face of shocks to global order and economic globalization, China and Malaysia will stand with countries in the region to combat the undercurrents of geopolitical ... confrontation, as well as the counter-currents of unilateralism and protectionism,” Xi said.
Xi is visiting Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia this week, days after Trump’s tariff announcements disrupted the global economy, and he’s used the trip to promote Beijing as a source of stability in the region. Although the trip was likely planned before the tariffs uncertainty, it was a chance for Beijing to shore up its own relationships in the region and look for ways to mitigate the 145% tariffs Trump has kept on China, even as he paused tariffs for other countries.
▶ Read more about Chinese leader Xi Jinping
The federal judge says some nonprofits awarded billions for a so-called green bank to finance clean energy and climate-friendly projects cannot have their contracts scrapped and must have access to some of the frozen money.
The ruling is a defeat for Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, which argues the program is rife with financial mismanagement.
The order late Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan “gives us a chance to breathe after the EPA unlawfully — and without due process — terminated our awards and blocked access to funds that were appropriated by Congress and legally obligated,” said Climate United CEO Beth Bafford.
The lawsuit by Climate United Fund and other groups contends that the EPA, Administrator Lee Zeldin and Citibank, which held the grant money, illegally blocked the funds awarded last year and had jeopardized the organizations’ operations.
▶ Read more about the EPA grants
That comes after earlier confusion over where the negotiations would be held.
The talks will be mediated by Oman, as they were last weekend in the sultanate’s capital of Muscat, the state TV report said.
On Monday, multiple officials said they would be held in Rome. However, Iran’s Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson said early Tuesday they’d be held in Oman.
The stakes of the negotiations couldn’t be higher for the two nations closing in on half a century of enmity. Trump repeatedly has threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear program if a deal isn’t reached. Iranian officials increasingly warn they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.
▶ Read more about nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran
The Associated Press says the new White House media policy violates a court order by giving the administration sole discretion over who gets to question Trump, and the news agency asked a federal judge Wednesday to enforce that order.
The swift move was in response to a policy issued late Tuesday by the White House, which suffered a courtroom loss last week over The Associated Press’ ability to cover Trump. The plans, the latest attempt by the new administration to control coverage of its activities, sharply curtail the access of three news agencies that serve billions of readers around the world.
The AP filed Wednesday’s motion with U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, asking for relief “given defendant’s refusal to obey” his order last week. McFadden said the White House had violated the AP’s free speech by banning it from certain presidential events because Trump disagreed with the outlet’s decision not to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
▶ Read more about news media access at the White House
The Trump administration said Wednesday it’s suing Maine’s education department for not complying with the government’s push to ban transgender athletes in girls and women’s sports, escalating a dispute over whether the state is abiding by a federal law that bars discrimination in education based on sex.
Mills, a Democrat, said the lawsuit is really about the federal government imposing its will on Maine and that other states should be concerned.
“Today is the latest, expected salvo in an unprecedented campaign to pressure the State of Maine to ignore the Constitution and abandon the rule of law,” Mills said in a statement. “This matter has never been about school sports or the protection of women and girls, as has been claimed, it is about states rights and defending the rule of law against a federal government bent on imposing its will, instead of upholding the law.”
As measles outbreaks popped up across the U.S. this winter, pediatricians waited for the nation’s public health agency to send a routine, but important, letter that outlines how they could help stop the spread of the illness.
It wasn’t until last week — after the number of cases grew to more than 700, and a second young child in Texas had died from a measles infection — that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finally issued its correspondence.
The delay of that letter may seem minor. But it’s one in a string of missteps that more than a dozen doctors, nurses and public health officials interviewed by The Associated Press identified in the Trump administration’s response to the outbreak.
Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s efforts to contain an epidemic in a tight-knit, religious community in West Texas have run counter to established public health strategies deployed to end past epidemics.
▶ Read more about the response to the measles outbreak
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen arrived in the Central American nation Wednesday morning as part of a trip meant to assess the condition of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, according to a person familiar with his trip who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
In a video posted to social media prior to his flight, Van Hollen, a Democrat, said the trip was meant to highlight the importance of “due process” and “the rule of law” for all Americans.
The Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia to a Salvadoran prison, a move administration officials have said was erroneous.
Rep. Riley Moore, a West Virginia Republican, posted Tuesday evening that he’d visited the prison.
“I leave now even more determined to support President Trump’s efforts to secure our homeland,” Moore wrote on social media.
— Mary Clare Jalonick and Matt Brown
An earlier version of this item incorrectly said Rep. Riley Moore is from Virginia instead of West Virginia.
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 mistakenly 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.
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)
