By Christine Coleman
Edited by Elissa D. Hecker
Copyright and Artificial Intelligence
Since launching an initiative in early 2023, the Copyright Office has been examining the copyright law and policy issues raised by artificial intelligence (AI), including the scope of copyright in AI-generated works and the use of copyrighted materials in AI training.
The Office is issuing a Report in three Parts analyzing the issues, which will be published as they are completed. This is the second report.
Entertainment
Vimeo wins latest round of long-running music copyright case
The Second Circuit has ruled in Vimeo’s favor in its ongoing lawsuit against Universal and Sony, saying that it is protected by the DMCA because Vimeo removes infringing content when notified about it. The labels originally sued Vimeo over videos on the platform using their music without permission.
Spotify wins ‘bundling’ lawsuit, as court dismisses legal action brought by the MLC
Spotify has beaten a lawsuit brought by the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) over the streaming service’s decision to reclassify its Premium subscriptions as “bundles”. Judge Analisa Torres of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted Spotify’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit “with prejudice”. In her decision, Judge Torres explained that the “MLC suggests that Spotify’s launch of Audiobooks Access was ‘a pretext for Spotify to claim that it could reduce its royalty payments’ under Section 115 of the US Copyright Act. But even if Spotify’s decision were pretextual, that would not change the fact that Audiobooks Access ‘resulted in no change at all in Premium,’ and therefore had no impact on whether Premium constituted a Bundle.”
Spotify Wins Big Against the MLC. But Will They Win This War?
NMPA chief David Israelite, music publishers, and The MLC may appeal the District Court’s decision to grant Spotify’s motion to dismiss their lawsuit “with prejudice”, even if that means losing again. However, according to sources eyeing this chess match, the court system is only one battleground, with legislation another vital arena for publishers.
Spotify and Universal Music Group’s new deal pushes towards the future of streaming
The new deal between Spotify and Universal Music Group addresses royalty bundling, advances artist-centric principles, and propels the industry towards “Streaming 2.0”. The agreement marks a significant step in the evolution of the streaming landscape, laying the groundwork for the next era of music consumption.
82,150 Gallons of Paint Later, a Blue Man Group Farewell
After 17,800 shows and 82,150 gallons of paint, Blue Man Group is hanging up its bald caps at the Astor Place Theater for good. It started there in 1991 and in the generation since, the trio of hairless, earless, silent, blue-and-black clad performers, who spit paint and sculpt marshmallows, gobble Twinkies and drum in primary colors, unexpectedly became a culture-infiltrating sensation. However, Blue Man Group is not disappearing. Long-running shows remain open in Boston, Las Vegas and Berlin, and a return gig is planned for Orlando, Fla. The closing of the New York production, where it all began along with another decades-old production in Chicago, is the end of a chapter.
Arts
Trump Executive Order Prompts National Gallery to End Diversity Programs
The National Gallery of Art in Washington announced that it would end its programs that focused on DEI because of an executive order signed by President Trump that described such initiatives as “illegal and immoral.” The institution removed the words “diversity, equity, access and inclusion” from a list of its values online and replaced them with the words “welcoming and accessible.” Meanwhile, other museums and arts organizations are still considering how to respond to the executive order.
Trump Argues That His Immunity Extends to E. Jean Carroll’s Lawsuits
Trump and the writer E. Jean Carroll are arguing over whether a Supreme Court decision affording him substantial criminal immunity also shields him from having to pay tens of millions in damages for insulting her and saying she lied about his sexually assaulting her. Trump made his arguments last year in his appeal of the $83.3 million verdict by a jury that found him liable for defaming Carroll in 2019 after she accused him of a decades-old attack. Carroll pushed sharply back, with her lawyer Roberta A. Kaplan, arguing in a brief that Trump’s view of the Supreme Court’s ruling was too expansive. His statements calling Carroll’s accusation “a complete con job” and “a Hoax and a lie,” were strictly personal, she wrote. She said they fell far outside the boundaries of the official acts that presidential immunity protects.
Indie Bookstores Will Soon Be Able to Sell E-Books to Customers
Bookshop, a site that lets independent, bricks-and-mortar bookshops sell their books online, started selling e-books on their site and launched an app that allows customers to read digital books purchased from Bookshop or from independent stores. Bookstores will be able to sell digital books directly from their own websites, and when customers buy e-books through Bookshop and select a store to support, all profits from digital sales will go to those stores.
Sports
Julie Stewart-Binks On a Career Derailed by Alleged Sexual Assault: 'What could my life have been?'
Julie Stewart-Binks, 37, filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against Fox and Charlie Dixon, an executive vice president and head of content at Fox Sports and FS1, the company’s sports network. In that lawsuit, she alleges that about a week before her controversial Super Bowl segment with Rob Gronkowski, she was sexually assaulted by Dixon during a meeting at a hotel that he organized under the auspices of talking about her Super Bowl week duties. Days after the alleged assault, when producers in San Francisco told her that FS1 wanted a viral moment out of Gronkowski, she said she never considered the implications of the stunt, only what would happen if she refused with Dixon watching from the set. In her complaint, Stewart-Binks said she detailed the allegations against Dixon to a Fox human resources official in 2017 but that Fox “egregiously made the deliberate decision to protect Dixon and allow a sexual predator to remain an executive at Fox for nearly a decade.”
Wisconsin CB Nyzier Fourqurean sues NCAA, seeks additional years of eligibility
Wisconsin cornerback Nyzier Fourqurean filed a lawsuit against the NCAA seeking additional years of eligibility, claiming his two-year run at Division II Grand Valley State should not count because it unfairly limited his ability to make money from his name, image, and likeness. In the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Western District of Wisconsin, Fourqurean argues that certain NCAA rules related to eligibility and transfer limitations, specifically the “Five-Year Rule,” the “Intercollegiate Competition Rule”, and the “Three-Year Transfer Limitation Rule”, violate the Sherman Antitrust Act, to the extent that those bylaws “limit a student-athlete’s eligibility for Division I participation by their participation in a non-Division I school.”
Newsletter, Image, Likeness Vol. 117: Time For State Legislatures To Get Back On The NIL Bandwagon
The State of Connecticut is considering a bill that would allow athletes enrolled at institutions of higher education in the state to earn compensation through an endorsement contract or a revenue-sharing agreement directly with such institution, or an entity acting on behalf of such institution, provided the institution adopts one or more policies allowing endorsement contracts or revenue-sharing agreements with athletes and the athletes comply with such policy or policies. This article suggests that every state that currently has its legislature in session should consider similar legislation.
Game Developers Are Getting Fed Up With Their Bosses’ AI Initiatives
According to the “State of the Game Industry” report from the organizers of the Game Developers Conference, 52% of developers surveyed said they worked at companies that were using generative AI on their games. Of the 3,000 people surveyed, roughly half said they were concerned about the technology’s impact on the industry and an increasing number reported they felt negatively about AI overall.
The Skater Who Stuck a Triple Axel Before Boarding the Flight
Cory Haynos was among several budding figure-skating stars who died in the plane crash near Reagan National Airport. On Wednesday morning, he landed a triple axel one of skating’s hardest jumps. Like some of the other athletes on the American Airlines flight from Wichita that crashed as it neared the runway at Washington’s Reagan National Airport, Haynos was on track to make it to the highest levels of the sport, and maybe even the national team and the Olympics
Technology/Media
F.C.C. Chair Orders Investigation Into NPR and PBS Sponsorships
Brendan Carr, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has waded into the politicized debate over NPR and PBS, ordering up an investigation that he said could be relevant in lawmakers’ decision about whether to continue funding the public news organizations. Carr said in a letter to NPR and PBS that the inquiry would focus on whether the news organizations’ member stations violated government rules by recognizing financial sponsors on the air. The letter is the latest action from Trump’s allies to target NPR and PBS stations and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a taxpayer-funded organization that backs them. Executives at NPR and PBS stations have been bracing for a potential battle over government funding, gaming out financial worst-case scenarios.
Meta Agrees to Pay Trump $25 Million to Settle His Lawsuit
Meta said that it had agreed to pay President Trump $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit he filed over the suspension of his Facebook and Instagram accounts after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. The move was a significant concession by a major tech company and a victory for Trump, who had previously criticized social media platforms for censoring him but has lately wooed tech titan,s including Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive.
Trump Administration to Remove Four Major News Outlets From Pentagon Office Space
The Trump administration notified four major news organizations, The New York Times, NBC News, NPR and Politico, that they would have to give up their dedicated office space at the Pentagon to make way for other outlets, including the right-wing sites Breitbart News and One America News. In a memo, a Department of Defense spokesman, John Ullyot, said that the news organizations had to vacate their office space by February 14th to allow for “a new outlet from the same medium that has not had the unique opportunity to report as a resident member of the Pentagon press corps” for a year as part of a “new annual media rotation program.”
They Invested Billions. Then the AI Script Got Flipped.
DeepSeek has created a powerful AI model with far less money than most AI experts thought possible, upending many assumptions underlying the development of the fast-evolving technology. Giant tech companies have faced a barrage of questions about DeepSeek as the Chinese start-up toppled longstanding notions about AI. Its repercussions are being felt beyond the largest firms, reaching into the venture capital industry that has bet big on the technology by plowing billions of dollars into AI start-ups.
Exposed DeepSeek Database Revealed Chat Prompts and Internal Data
The Chinese generative artificial intelligence platform DeepSeek has had a meteoric rise this week, stoking rivalries and generating market pressure for United States based AI companies, which in turn has invited scrutiny of the service. Amid the hype, researchers from the cloud security firm Wiz published findings that show that DeepSeek left one of its critical databases exposed on the internet, leaking system logs, user prompt submissions, and even users’ API authentication tokens, totaling more than one million records, to anyone who came across the database.
OpenAI Says DeepSeek May Have Improperly Harvested Its Data
OpenAI says it is reviewing evidence that the Chinese start-up DeepSeek broke its terms of service by harvesting large amounts of data from its AI technologies. The San Francisco-based start-up said that DeepSeek may have used data generated by OpenAI technologies to teach similar skills to its own systems. This process, called distillation, is common across the AI field. However, OpenAI’s terms of service say that the company does not allow anyone to use data generated by its systems to build technologies that compete in the same market.
TikTok Deal Derby Goes Into Overdrive With Oracle, Perplexity, Musk, Kevin O’Leary, Steven Mnuchin, and MrBeast In the Running—Here’s The Latest
The Trump administration is in talks with multiple parties interested in buying the app’s U.S. operations, with software company Oracle appearing as the frontrunner. Trump signed an executive order after being sworn in that grants TikTok a 75-day extension to comply with the law that requires a sale to a U.S. company or face a ban. Since then, several parties have come forward with an interest in purchasing TikTok, including Elon Musk, YouTuber MrBeast, Kevin O’Leary, and Steven Mnuchin.
Meta Is Paying TikTok Influencers Big Bucks to Switch to Instagram Reels—A Look at the Contracts
Meta is courting TikTok influencers hard, hoping to turn Instagram Reels into the go-to place for short-form video in the United States. The contracts range from $2,500 to $50,000 a month and required content posted to Instagram Reels to be exclusive for three months.
Paramount in Settlement Talks With Trump Over ‘60 Minutes’ Lawsuit
Settlement discussions between representatives of Paramount and Trump are now underway. There is no assurance, though, that they will result in a deal, and it is unclear what the terms of any such deal might include. A settlement would be an extraordinary concession by a major U.S. media company to a sitting president, especially in a case in which there is no evidence that the network expressed incorrect facts or damaged the plaintiff’s reputation.
Student Whose Racy Social Media Posts Riled a College Gets $250,000 Settlement
A month after Kimberly Diei enrolled as a Doctor of Pharmacy Student at the University of Tennessee, the college’s professional conduct committee received an anonymous complaint about her posts on social media. The college reviewed her posts, concluded that they were vulgar and unprofessional, and threatened to expel her. For the last four years, Diei has been fighting her school in court, arguing that her posts were fun and sex-positive, and unconnected to her status as a student. Now she has won a settlement and she expects to receive a check for $250,000 Her lawsuit against the university tested the boundaries of free expression for students in the age of social media.
Kremlin Chokes YouTube Service, but Russians Find Ways Around It
The Kremlin is trying to cripple YouTube in Russia, internet experts say, pushing some people to state-controlled domestic alternatives. However, many Russians have found workarounds through the use of VPNs.
General News
National Science Foundation Freezes Grant Review in Response to Trump Executive Orders
The National Science Foundation (NSF) abruptly canceled all its grant review panels last week, as the organization works to align its grantmaking process with new executive orders from the Trump administration. The move sparked confusion among panelists as to the extent of the pause. Delays in grant approval inevitably mean delays in funding research. Those delays could threaten the scientists, who include tenured faculty, post-doctoral researchers, and graduate students who often depend on grants for financial support.
Trump Hits National Institutes of Health With ‘Devastating’ Freezes on Meetings, Travel, Communications, and Hiring
Trump’s return to the White House is already having a big impact at the $47.4 billion U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), with the new administration imposing a wide range of restrictions, including the abrupt cancellation of meetings, such as grant review panels. Officials have also ordered a communications pause, a freeze on hiring, and an indefinite ban on travel. The moves have generated extensive confusion and uncertainty at the nation’s largest research agency, which has become a target for Trump’s political allies.
White House Says Trump Funding Freeze Remains in Effect Despite Rescinding Memo
The White House formally rescinded a controversial memo that had ordered a freeze on federal grants and loans, but it also said that a “federal funding freeze” remains in “full force and effect” to give agencies time to review programs for their compliance with Trump’s agenda. The freeze was paused Tuesday by a federal judge to give her time to consider arguments challenging its legality. The memo ordering the freeze had been issued by the Office of Management and Budget.
Corporate Transparency Act Receives Support From SCOTUS, but It’s Not Enough To Lift Nationwide Injunction
As of Jan. 29th, the requirement to report beneficial ownership information to the United States Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) pursuant to the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) is on hold and enforcement is stayed. SCOTUS issued an order granting the government’s motion to stay the temporary nationwide injunction. The ruling appeared to reinstate the reporting requirements and deadlines of the CTA. However, because of a separate nationwide injunction issued on Jan. 7th, by a different federal district judge in Texas in the case of Smith v. U.S. Department of the Treasury, the nationwide stay on CTA enforcement remains in effect.
Democrats Choose a Political Operator From Minnesota as Their New Leader
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) elected Ken Martin as its chairman, tapping a low-profile political insider from Minnesota to guide the party forward after its crushing defeats last fall. Martin, 51, triumphed in a 75-day contest that turned less on why Democrats lost to Trump for a second time than on internal relationships and mechanics in the 448-member DNC. Martin captured the chairmanship on the strength of his yearslong relationships with party members, whose affection he won by promising to focus more on their concerns.
U.S. Sues to Block Tech Deal in First Antitrust Action of Trump Term
The Justice Department moved to block Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks, the first deal to be challenged by antitrust enforcers during Trump’s second term. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the government said the deal “risks substantially lessening competition in a critically important technology market.” The agency said that the deal would end a corporate rivalry in the wireless networking industry that resulted in lower prices for big companies, universities, hospitals and other buyers of complex technology systems. The suit came as many in corporate America had expected that a lighter touch under Trump would unleash a wave of deal making after four years of tough scrutiny by regulators under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. However, the attempt this week to stop the tech deal suggests there may be more consistency between the Biden and Trump administrations on antitrust enforcement than some had thought.
Justice Dept. Fires Prosecutors Who Worked on Trump Investigations
Acting attorney general James McHenry fired more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on the two criminal investigations into Trump for the special counsel Jack Smith, saying they could not be trusted to “faithfully implement” the president’s agenda. Justice Department veterans called the firings an egregious violation of well-established laws meant to preserve the integrity and professionalism of government agencies.
Trump Administration Moves Swiftly to Shake Up Top Career Justice Dept. Ranks
The frenetic speed and scale of leadership changes that the Trump administration has made at the Justice Department in its first eight days indicate the degree to which it intends to remake not just the political direction of the department, but also the makeup of its senior career ranks. Collectively, the early moves suggest a deep distrust of the career, nonpartisan staff that typically makes recommendations to the political appointees on whether to charge cases, negotiate settlements or close cases without taking action.
Senate Confirms Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary
The Senate voted to confirm Scott Bessent to be Trump’s Treasury secretary. Bessent, a billionaire hedge fund manager with deep experience in financial markets, is taking over the job as Trump is sprinting to remake the U.S. economy in line with his “America First” vision. The new Treasury Secretary will be responsible for helping to develop the Trump administration’s tax policies, plot the path for more tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China, and craft the administration’s first budget. The job will be Bessent’s first time overseeing a sprawling organization or working in government.
Inmate Sues the Trump Administration Over Transgender Executive OrderA federal inmate sued the Trump administration, challenging an executive order that requires the Bureau of Prisons to house transgender women in U.S. prisons designated for men and to stop providing prisoners with gender-transition medical treatments. The prisoner is described as a transgender woman who has been housed in a facility designated for women since she was taken into custody. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, seeks a temporary restraining order to block the new regulations for all transgender prisoners. It comes a week after Trump ordered all government agencies to ensure that federally funded institutions recognize people as girls, boys, men or women based solely on their reproductive biology, rather than their gender identity.
U.S. Attorney Opens Investigation Into Justice Dept.’s Jan. 6 Cases
Trump’s new U.S. attorney Ed Martin opened an internal investigation into the use of an obstruction statute brought against scores of people charged with taking part in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The move by Martin was the latest example of how he has sought in recent days to wind down, even discredit, the office’s sprawling investigation of the Capitol attack. It came on the same day that top Justice Department officials fired several prosecutors who worked for the special counsel Jack Smith on two separate criminal cases brought against Trump.
Trump’s Order on Transgender Troops Will Likely Ban Their Service, Again
Hours after Trump signed a darkly worded executive order targeting transgender service members, rights groups filed a lawsuit saying that the ban violates the Constitution. The order framed transgender service members in harsh terms, saying the military had been “afflicted with radical gender ideology” that had crippled its effectiveness. The statement does not use the word “transgender”, but appears to call for a ban on transgender people serving, saying that “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. “The order authorizes the Defense Department to make rules that would effectively bar transgender troops by considering identifying as a gender other than the one assigned at birth as disqualifying for military service.”
Prosecutors Move to Drop Classified Documents Case Against Trump’s Co-Defendants
Federal prosecutors moved to drop their last remaining efforts to prosecute Trump’s two co-defendants in the classified documents case brought by the former special counsel Jack Smith. In a single-page filing, prosecutors asked a federal appeals court in Atlanta to dismiss an appeal that had been filed before Trump took office seeking to reinstate criminal charges against the two men, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira. If the appeals court agrees to drop the government’s challenge, it would be the formal end of the case in which Trump was accused of illegally holding onto classified materials after he left office in 2021.
Defying Legal Limits, Trump Firings Set Up Tests That Could Expand His Power
Trump abruptly fired dozens of officials in the past few days in ways that apparently violated federal laws, setting up the possibility of lawsuits. However, the prospect of getting dragged into court may be exactly what Trump’s lawyers are hoping for. There is a risk that judges may determine that some of the dismissals were illegal, but any rulings in the president’s favor would establish precedents that would expand presidential power to control the federal government. Some legal experts say the purges underway appear to be custom-made opportunities for the Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed majority to strike down the statutes any legal challenges would be based on, furthering its trend in recent years of expanding presidential authority.
Fired Inspectors General Raise Alarms as Trump Administration Moves to Finalize Purge
The Trump administration ordered former staff members for as many as 17 fired inspectors general to immediately arrange for the return of work laptops, phones, parking decals and ID cards, even as questions remained over whether Trump broke the law in dismissing independent watchdogs. Some of the fired officials were seeking to raise alarms about what had happened, including Mark Greenblatt, whom Trump had appointed as the inspector general of the Interior Department five years ago and who had led an interagency council of the watchdog officials until the new year.
Elon Musk’s Team Now Has Access to Treasury’s Payments System
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave representatives of the Department of Government Efficiency access to the federal payment system, handing Elon Musk and the team he is leading a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending. The new authority follows a standoff this week with a top Treasury official who had resisted allowing Musk’s lieutenants into the department’s payment system, which sends out money on behalf of the entire federal government. The system could give the Trump administration another mechanism to attempt to unilaterally restrict disbursement of money approved for specific purposes by Congress, a push that has faced legal roadblocks.
Appeals Court Strikes Down Federal Ban on Handgun Sales to Teenagers
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that a longstanding federal ban on handgun sales to people between the ages of 18 and 20 violates the Second Amendment, pushing the question of age limits for handguns one step closer to the Supreme Court. In a 29-page opinion written by Judge Edith H. Jones, who was nominated by President Ronald Reagan, the court concluded that the Constitution “includes 18- to 20-year-old individuals among ‘the people’ whose right to keep and bear arms is protected,” and that a federal law criminalizing the sale of handguns to 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds was therefore unconstitutional. The ruling overturned gun control laws and regulations that date back to 1968.
Trump Signs Order to Promote ‘Patriotic Education’ in the Classroom
Trump signed several executive orders aimed at reshaping American schools, including restricting how racism is taught in classrooms, curbing antisemitism, and allowing taxpayer dollars to fund private schools. The orders are designed to advance the Trump administration’s goal of shaking up the nation’s education system, which Trump has long derided as fostering left-leaning ideologies. One of the orders, titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” sought to withhold funding from any schools that teach that the United States is “fundamentally racist, sexist or otherwise discriminatory.” It directed agencies to produce an “ending indoctrination strategy” that would focus on uprooting instruction about transgender issues, “white privilege” or “unconscious bias” in schools, and to “prioritize federal resources, consistent with applicable law, to promote patriotic education.”
Education Dept. Tells Schools to Change Sexual Misconduct Rules
The Education Department sent notice to K-12 schools and colleges that it would revert to policies put out during Trump’s first term that limited schools’ liability in sexual misconduct cases and afforded stronger rights to students accused of sexual harassment and assault. The letter also instructed schools not to expect the department to enforce a revised interpretation of Title IX. That change, announced during the Biden administration, broadened the law’s scope to recognize harassment or exclusion based on sexual orientation and gender identity to be a form of discrimination. The revised guidance issued Friday instructed educators to once again adopt new standards for enforcing codes against sexual violence and harassment on campus, a process they have had to undertake every four years as rules have whipsawed back and forth under the last four administrations.
Washington Crash Renews Concerns About Air Safety Lapses
Clues emerging from the moments before the deadly collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet suggest that multiple layers of the country’s aviation safety apparatus failed, according to flight recordings, a preliminary internal report from the Federal Aviation Administration, interviews with current and former air traffic controllers and others briefed on the matter. Crash investigators will spend the next several months reviewing flight data, recordings from inside the cockpits, weather patterns, as well as interviewing controllers and others involved to try to figure out what went wrong. The catastrophe already appeared to confirm what pilots, air traffic controllers, and safety experts had been warning for years: Growing holes in the aviation system could lead to the kind of crash that left 67 people dead in the Potomac River in Washington.
Oklahoma Moves to Require Schools to Ask Students’ Immigration Status
Oklahoma education leaders approved a plan to request proof of citizenship or immigration status from families when they enroll their children in public schools. The new rule would not prevent students who are not citizens or legal immigrants from enrolling, a practice that was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1982, however, it would require districts to track and report the number of students whose families have not provided proof of citizenship or legal status. The rule is a remarkable departure from the noncooperative approach that many large school districts across the nation have taken in response to the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
Trump Administration Begins Immigration Arrests in Chicago
The Justice Department announced it had begun a multiagency immigration enforcement operation in Chicago, as the Trump administration sought to show it is quickly fulfilling a campaign promise to ramp up arrests and deportations. The Justice Department also announced that its acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, had traveled to Chicago to oversee the effort to address what he called a “national emergency.” The Trump administration has enlisted various law enforcement agencies within the Justice Department to assist operations in Chicago and elsewhere.
Immigrant Communities in Hiding: ‘People Think ICE Is Everywhere’
After taking office, the Trump administration began highlighting what it has characterized as a new and more aggressive effort to target illegal immigration and deliver on a key campaign pledge to carry out mass deportations. So far, the enforcement efforts have been primarily individual arrests, rather than sweeps of factories, farms or other large-scale sites. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has reported on social media more than 5,000 arrests in around a week’s time. Schools, churches, and hospitals, places long considered insulated from immigration enforcement, have become fair game after the Department of Homeland Security’s recent announcement that such locations were not off limits to agents. As a result, these places are feeling the chilling effect of the fear of deportation.
Former Senator Robert Menendez Is Sentenced to 11 Years in Prison
Robert Menendez, New Jersey’s disgraced former senator who was once one of the most powerful Democrats in Washington, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for his central role in an audacious international bribery scheme. This is one of the longest sentences ever issued for a federal official in the United States. Before the sentence was announced, Menendez said aid that he planned to appeal the conviction, but told District Court Judge Sidney H. Stein that he stood before him a “chastened man” who had suffered the ignominy of a guilty verdict and the resignation of his Senate seat.
New York Doctor Indicted in Louisiana for Sending Abortion Pills There
A state grand jury in Louisiana has indicted New York doctor Margaret Carpenter for providing abortion pills to a Louisiana resident. The case appears to be the first time that criminal charges have been filed against an abortion provider for sending pills into a state with an abortion ban. The charges mark a new chapter in an escalating showdown between states that ban abortion and those that want to protect and expand access to it. It is challenging one of the foremost strategies used by states that support abortion rights: shield laws intended to provide legal protection to doctors who prescribe and send abortion pills to states with bans. Dr. Carpenter was operating under New York’s telemedicine abortion shield law, which stipulates that New York authorities will not cooperate with prosecutions or other legal actions filed against New York abortion providers by other states.
Justice Dept. Is Said to Discuss Dropping Case Against Eric Adams
Senior Justice Department officials have held discussions with federal prosecutors in Manhattan about the possibility of dropping their corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams of New York. The officials have also spoken to Adams’s defense team. Trump has the power to pardon Adams, who as New York City’s mayor could aid his plans for mass deportations. In December, Trump said that the mayor had been treated “pretty unfairly” by prosecutors and suggested he was considering issuing a pardon. If prosecutors were to dismiss the case entirely, it could instead allow Adams to insist on his innocence to voters as he seeks another term as mayor, while allowing Trump to avoid the appearance of a pardon that many might view as unwarranted.
At Auschwitz, a Solemn Ceremony at a Time of Rising Nationalism
Dozens of world leaders joined a group of Nazi death camp survivors in southern Poland to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Red Army’s liberation of Auschwitz. A day of solemn ceremony held near former gas chambers and crematories in the Polish town of Oswiecim was shadowed throughout by a resurgence of nationalism in Germany and other European countries.
Behind the Colombia Blowup: Mapping Trump’s Rapid-Escalation Tactics
It took only about 12 hours for Trump’s first head-to-head confrontation with one of the United States’ closest allies in Latin America, a blowup over Colombia’s rejection of U.S. military flights to return illegal immigrants, to result in a complete retreat by the target of Trump’s threats. While the specifics of the dispute will probably be quickly forgotten, the rapid-fire threat by Trump to impose crushing tariffs, and the quick surrender by President Gustavo Petro, are likely to encourage Trump as he contemplates how to make use of the same weapon against new targets.
How the World Is Reeling From Trump’s Aid Freeze
Some of the world’s most vulnerable populations are already feeling Trump’s sudden cutoff of billions of dollars in American aid that helps fend off starvation, treats diseases and provides shelter for the displaced. In a matter of days, Trump’s order to freeze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has intensified humanitarian crises and raised profound questions about America’s reliability and global standing.
‘A Good Chance People Are Going to Die’ After U.S. Halts Funding for Mine Clearing
Large swaths of land in Southeast Asia are littered with unexploded bombs dropped by American forces during the Vietnam War. The United States is a big part of the cleanup effort and has given out more than $750 million over the past three decades to clear out the unexploded ammunition. However, the State Department said it was suspending its global mine-clearing programs for at least three months. This followed a Trump administration announcement of sweeping pauses of U.S. foreign aid. Even though the long-term effects of the funding pause are unclear, some experts warned of deadly consequences.
Syria’s New President Pledges Unity in First Address
The newly appointed president of Syria, Ahmed al-Shara, pledged in a speech to create an inclusive transitional government that reflects Syria’s diversity and that will lead the country until it can hold “free and fair elections.” The speech was Mr. al-Shara’s first public address since his rebel coalition toppled the country’s longtime dictator, Bashar al-Assad, last month and came amid growing unease among some Syrians over his coalition’s plans for leading the country. The speech came a day after his rebel coalition declared Mr. al-Shara president of Syria for a transitional period and announced a series of other critically important decisions, including nullifying the Constitution and dissolving the legislature and army that were formed under the ousted dictatorship.
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