Washington
Trump administration will appeal judge’s order reversing federal funding cuts at Harvard
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration will appeal a federal judge’s order reversing billions of dollars in funding cuts to Harvard University, extending a standoff over the White House’s demands for reforms at the Ivy League school.
The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal late on Thursday in a pair of consolidated lawsuits brought by Harvard and the American Association of University Professors. The case has tested the government’s power to sway the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, which has resisted a pressure campaign targeting elite colleges around the country.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled in September that the Trump administration’s sweeping funding cuts violated Harvard’s First Amendment rights. The judge said the government put unconstitutional conditions on Harvard’s federal funding and failed to follow federal procedures allowing the government to sanction universities for civil rights violations.
The Trump administration cut more than $2.6 billion from Harvard over allegations that it had been slow to deal with anti-Jewish bias on campus. Burroughs rejected that notion, saying the government was using antisemitism “as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.”
The notice of appeal is a first step in the government’s effort to have the ruling overturned. It does not provide legal arguments behind the appeal.
A statement from Harvard said university officials “remain confident in our legal position.”
“The federal district court ruled in Harvard’s favor in September, reinstating critical research funding that advances science and life-saving medical breakthroughs, strengthens national security, and enhances our nation’s competitiveness and economic priorities,” Harvard said.
The White House and the AAUP did not immediately comment.
Harvard has been Trump’s top target in a campaign to leverage federal control of research funding to push for reforms at elite colleges he has decried as overrun by “woke” ideology. Harvard has put up a fight against the government’s wide-reaching demands, even as others like Columbia, Brown and Cornell universities reach deals with the government.
Harvard and the White House have continued negotiations amid the legal battle, and Trump has multiple times indicated a resolution was imminent. In September, he said officials were close to a deal that would require a $500 million payment from Harvard to create a “giant trade school” to produce workers for American plants.
The deal never materialized and Trump has been quiet on the issue since then.
New York
Judge dismisses $800M lawsuit by Enhanced Games
A federal judge has dismissed an $800 million lawsuit filed by the Enhanced Games alleging that World Aquatics, the World Anti-Doping Agency and USA Swimming led an illegal effort to dissuade swimmers and other athletes from competing in its new series.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ruled against the sports startup in November, giving it 30 days to refile the case to address his objections. On Thursday, WADA sent out a news release announcing the deadline had passed.
“It vindicates the strong stance we have taken on this matter,” WADA said in a news release.
A person with knowledge Enhanced’s legal maneuverings told The Associated Press it did not refile because it has had recent success signing swimmers, and also because it does not want to complicate its recent filing for a public offering that it expects will raise around $200 million.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing public-offering process.
Earlier this month, Enhanced announced five more swimmers who planned to compete at its event next May, where athletes will compete for $250,000 first prizes.
They joined a field that now numbers around a dozen, including Olympic medalists James Magnussen, Ben Proud and Cody Miller. Fred Kerley is the top sprinting name set for the event, which will require strict medical observation of the athletes but will not ban drugs the way Olympics sports do.
The lawsuit centered on a rule adopted by Switzerland-based World Aquatics earlier this year that threatened to banish athletes who compete in “sporting events that embrace the use of scientific advancements or other practices that may include prohibited substances and/or prohibited methods.”
It added WADA and USA Swimming as defendants because they supported the rule.
The fatal flaw in the case, Furman wrote in response to the defendants’ motion to dismiss, was that “Enhanced fails to plead that World Aquatics has monopoly power” in the markets it is trying to compete in — namely, among elite athletes who want to test themselves under different drug-testing protocols than are used at the Olympics and other elite sports.
Furman acknowledged in his decision that Enhanced said it knew of facts that could answer the shortcomings he pointed out, but because Enhanced didn’t respond in the 30-day window, the case is closed.
California
Civilian police oversight director sues police chief over withheld records about homeless sweep
Hansel Aguilar, Berkeley’s director of police accountability, is suing the city’s police chief, Jen Louis, over her department’s refusal to release records from a June sweep of a longstanding homeless encampment.
It is the latest escalation in an increasingly testy relationship between the Berkeley Police Department and the city’s civilian oversight apparatus, with the lawsuit filed just a week after the City Council met to discuss Aguilar’s job performance.
A primary duty of Aguilar’s agency is to investigate civilian complaints of police misconduct. In June, shortly after Berkeley city workers cleared several people and some property from the area of Eighth and Harrison streets, someone complained to Aguilar’s office that several officers had improperly meddled with people recording the sweep. (A federal judge put a temporary halt on the sweep the same day.)
Aguilar asked BPD for records in July, and BPD turned over some, including some body cam recordings; Aguilar upped the ante with a subpoena in August, according to a petition filed Dec. 8 in Alameda County Superior Court by his attorneys, Jason M. McEwen and Addison G. Kahn of Costa Mesa-based Woodruff & Smart.
Several councilmembers gave Aguilar a public dressing-down in late September after he forced two agenda items onto their calendar. Aguilar requested, but was not allowed, to join the closed-door council session where the members discussed his performance.
Aguilar’s office, and the Police Accountability Board, were created in 2020 with the support of 85% of city voters, but since then many of their policy recommendations have been ignored by the council and they have regularly relied on subpoenas to get records from BPD, all while negotiating on two fronts — with the city administration and police officers union — in order to finally set their own operating regulations.
BPD has already turned over some of what Aguilar subpoenaed, including an operations plan and a computer-assisted dispatch (CAD) log, as well as body camera recordings from officers at the scene. But Louis wrote back in September that the rest of what he asked for, which included radio transcripts and other investigative reports, either did not exist or was not his place to demand.
The records BPD withheld “are not relevant to this specific misconduct complaint investigation,” and giving them to BPD’s civilian overseers could undermine ongoing investigations and compromise the privacy rights of people involved, Louis wrote to Aguilar Sept. 12.
Aguilar’s attorneys countered that the charter doesn’t give a police chief the discretion to determine what is or is not within the scope of a police accountability director’s authority, since that director is specifically meant to be independent of other city agencies. As for privacy and security, the director and all PAB members are required to keep those sorts of records confidential.
Without the as-yet unspecified records, Aguilar cannot meet his duty under the charter to “ensure a timely, thorough, complete, objective and fair investigation” of the underlying civilian complaint, his attorneys wrote.
Aguilar has asked the court to order Louis to turn over whatever records she has withheld, or to hold a hearing as soon as possible to hear arguments on whether Louis should or should not turn the records over.
Aguilar has also asked for a judicial declaration that Louis “has failed to comply with her duties” and that she must turn over the records Aguilar asked for unless prohibited by state or federal law.
BPD’s policy manual includes several pages of instructions for how and whether officers should act when members of the public record police activity. It is unclear what policy precisely the officers involved are accused of having violated.
City Attorney Farimah Brown said her office would “defend the city against the lawsuit.”
California
Teen gang members plead guilty to acting as hired hitmen for Sinaloa cartel
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two Los Angeles-area 15-year-old gang members pleaded guilty Thursday to murder and attempted murder charges, admitting they were acting as hired hitmen for Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, officials said.
During two attempts to kill the cartel’s target, they wounded two people and killed one, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Each gang member expected to be paid approximately $50,000, prosecutors said.
According to their plea agreements, the two teenagers are members of the Mexican Mafia-affiliated Westside Wilmas gang from the greater Los Angeles area.
On March 27, 2024, they drove from their homes in Wilmington to find their target at a Chili’s restaurant in Chula Vista, a suburb of San Diego. When the target was leaving the restaurant with his family, they shot at him in the parking lot and struck his legs, prosecutors said. They also attempted unsuccessfully to hit him with their car when their firearm jammed and they fled the scene.
Later that night, the two teenagers showed up at the intended victim’s home joined by an older accomplice. After the two shot indiscriminately at the people in the apartment, hitting one of them in the hand, arm and face, one of the people shot and killed the teenagers’ accomplice in self-defense, prosecutors said.
The two teenagers pleaded guilty in federal court to two attempted murder charges and the murder of their accomplice, which prosecutors called a “provocative-act murder,” meaning their actions were responsible for their accomplice’s death.
They were charged with attempted murder in aid of racketeering and murder in aid of racketeering — which can carry a punishment of life in prison or the death penalty — because their actions were to promote the Westside Wilmas gang, which also engages in drug trafficking, weapons distribution and more, prosecutors said.
They admitted they were tapped to kill the target because they were under the age of 16 at the time, which made them ineligible to be prosecuted as adults in California under a law passed in 2018.
“The disgraceful tactic of cartels, street gangs, and the Mexican Mafia using underage children for murderous acts to evade enhanced punishments will not be tolerated,” said Mark Dargis, special agent in charge of the FBI San Diego Field Office.
Trump administration will appeal judge’s order reversing federal funding cuts at Harvard
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration will appeal a federal judge’s order reversing billions of dollars in funding cuts to Harvard University, extending a standoff over the White House’s demands for reforms at the Ivy League school.
The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal late on Thursday in a pair of consolidated lawsuits brought by Harvard and the American Association of University Professors. The case has tested the government’s power to sway the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, which has resisted a pressure campaign targeting elite colleges around the country.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled in September that the Trump administration’s sweeping funding cuts violated Harvard’s First Amendment rights. The judge said the government put unconstitutional conditions on Harvard’s federal funding and failed to follow federal procedures allowing the government to sanction universities for civil rights violations.
The Trump administration cut more than $2.6 billion from Harvard over allegations that it had been slow to deal with anti-Jewish bias on campus. Burroughs rejected that notion, saying the government was using antisemitism “as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.”
The notice of appeal is a first step in the government’s effort to have the ruling overturned. It does not provide legal arguments behind the appeal.
A statement from Harvard said university officials “remain confident in our legal position.”
“The federal district court ruled in Harvard’s favor in September, reinstating critical research funding that advances science and life-saving medical breakthroughs, strengthens national security, and enhances our nation’s competitiveness and economic priorities,” Harvard said.
The White House and the AAUP did not immediately comment.
Harvard has been Trump’s top target in a campaign to leverage federal control of research funding to push for reforms at elite colleges he has decried as overrun by “woke” ideology. Harvard has put up a fight against the government’s wide-reaching demands, even as others like Columbia, Brown and Cornell universities reach deals with the government.
Harvard and the White House have continued negotiations amid the legal battle, and Trump has multiple times indicated a resolution was imminent. In September, he said officials were close to a deal that would require a $500 million payment from Harvard to create a “giant trade school” to produce workers for American plants.
The deal never materialized and Trump has been quiet on the issue since then.
New York
Judge dismisses $800M lawsuit by Enhanced Games
A federal judge has dismissed an $800 million lawsuit filed by the Enhanced Games alleging that World Aquatics, the World Anti-Doping Agency and USA Swimming led an illegal effort to dissuade swimmers and other athletes from competing in its new series.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ruled against the sports startup in November, giving it 30 days to refile the case to address his objections. On Thursday, WADA sent out a news release announcing the deadline had passed.
“It vindicates the strong stance we have taken on this matter,” WADA said in a news release.
A person with knowledge Enhanced’s legal maneuverings told The Associated Press it did not refile because it has had recent success signing swimmers, and also because it does not want to complicate its recent filing for a public offering that it expects will raise around $200 million.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing public-offering process.
Earlier this month, Enhanced announced five more swimmers who planned to compete at its event next May, where athletes will compete for $250,000 first prizes.
They joined a field that now numbers around a dozen, including Olympic medalists James Magnussen, Ben Proud and Cody Miller. Fred Kerley is the top sprinting name set for the event, which will require strict medical observation of the athletes but will not ban drugs the way Olympics sports do.
The lawsuit centered on a rule adopted by Switzerland-based World Aquatics earlier this year that threatened to banish athletes who compete in “sporting events that embrace the use of scientific advancements or other practices that may include prohibited substances and/or prohibited methods.”
It added WADA and USA Swimming as defendants because they supported the rule.
The fatal flaw in the case, Furman wrote in response to the defendants’ motion to dismiss, was that “Enhanced fails to plead that World Aquatics has monopoly power” in the markets it is trying to compete in — namely, among elite athletes who want to test themselves under different drug-testing protocols than are used at the Olympics and other elite sports.
Furman acknowledged in his decision that Enhanced said it knew of facts that could answer the shortcomings he pointed out, but because Enhanced didn’t respond in the 30-day window, the case is closed.
California
Civilian police oversight director sues police chief over withheld records about homeless sweep
Hansel Aguilar, Berkeley’s director of police accountability, is suing the city’s police chief, Jen Louis, over her department’s refusal to release records from a June sweep of a longstanding homeless encampment.
It is the latest escalation in an increasingly testy relationship between the Berkeley Police Department and the city’s civilian oversight apparatus, with the lawsuit filed just a week after the City Council met to discuss Aguilar’s job performance.
A primary duty of Aguilar’s agency is to investigate civilian complaints of police misconduct. In June, shortly after Berkeley city workers cleared several people and some property from the area of Eighth and Harrison streets, someone complained to Aguilar’s office that several officers had improperly meddled with people recording the sweep. (A federal judge put a temporary halt on the sweep the same day.)
Aguilar asked BPD for records in July, and BPD turned over some, including some body cam recordings; Aguilar upped the ante with a subpoena in August, according to a petition filed Dec. 8 in Alameda County Superior Court by his attorneys, Jason M. McEwen and Addison G. Kahn of Costa Mesa-based Woodruff & Smart.
Several councilmembers gave Aguilar a public dressing-down in late September after he forced two agenda items onto their calendar. Aguilar requested, but was not allowed, to join the closed-door council session where the members discussed his performance.
Aguilar’s office, and the Police Accountability Board, were created in 2020 with the support of 85% of city voters, but since then many of their policy recommendations have been ignored by the council and they have regularly relied on subpoenas to get records from BPD, all while negotiating on two fronts — with the city administration and police officers union — in order to finally set their own operating regulations.
BPD has already turned over some of what Aguilar subpoenaed, including an operations plan and a computer-assisted dispatch (CAD) log, as well as body camera recordings from officers at the scene. But Louis wrote back in September that the rest of what he asked for, which included radio transcripts and other investigative reports, either did not exist or was not his place to demand.
The records BPD withheld “are not relevant to this specific misconduct complaint investigation,” and giving them to BPD’s civilian overseers could undermine ongoing investigations and compromise the privacy rights of people involved, Louis wrote to Aguilar Sept. 12.
Aguilar’s attorneys countered that the charter doesn’t give a police chief the discretion to determine what is or is not within the scope of a police accountability director’s authority, since that director is specifically meant to be independent of other city agencies. As for privacy and security, the director and all PAB members are required to keep those sorts of records confidential.
Without the as-yet unspecified records, Aguilar cannot meet his duty under the charter to “ensure a timely, thorough, complete, objective and fair investigation” of the underlying civilian complaint, his attorneys wrote.
Aguilar has asked the court to order Louis to turn over whatever records she has withheld, or to hold a hearing as soon as possible to hear arguments on whether Louis should or should not turn the records over.
Aguilar has also asked for a judicial declaration that Louis “has failed to comply with her duties” and that she must turn over the records Aguilar asked for unless prohibited by state or federal law.
BPD’s policy manual includes several pages of instructions for how and whether officers should act when members of the public record police activity. It is unclear what policy precisely the officers involved are accused of having violated.
City Attorney Farimah Brown said her office would “defend the city against the lawsuit.”
California
Teen gang members plead guilty to acting as hired hitmen for Sinaloa cartel
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two Los Angeles-area 15-year-old gang members pleaded guilty Thursday to murder and attempted murder charges, admitting they were acting as hired hitmen for Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, officials said.
During two attempts to kill the cartel’s target, they wounded two people and killed one, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Each gang member expected to be paid approximately $50,000, prosecutors said.
According to their plea agreements, the two teenagers are members of the Mexican Mafia-affiliated Westside Wilmas gang from the greater Los Angeles area.
On March 27, 2024, they drove from their homes in Wilmington to find their target at a Chili’s restaurant in Chula Vista, a suburb of San Diego. When the target was leaving the restaurant with his family, they shot at him in the parking lot and struck his legs, prosecutors said. They also attempted unsuccessfully to hit him with their car when their firearm jammed and they fled the scene.
Later that night, the two teenagers showed up at the intended victim’s home joined by an older accomplice. After the two shot indiscriminately at the people in the apartment, hitting one of them in the hand, arm and face, one of the people shot and killed the teenagers’ accomplice in self-defense, prosecutors said.
The two teenagers pleaded guilty in federal court to two attempted murder charges and the murder of their accomplice, which prosecutors called a “provocative-act murder,” meaning their actions were responsible for their accomplice’s death.
They were charged with attempted murder in aid of racketeering and murder in aid of racketeering — which can carry a punishment of life in prison or the death penalty — because their actions were to promote the Westside Wilmas gang, which also engages in drug trafficking, weapons distribution and more, prosecutors said.
They admitted they were tapped to kill the target because they were under the age of 16 at the time, which made them ineligible to be prosecuted as adults in California under a law passed in 2018.
“The disgraceful tactic of cartels, street gangs, and the Mexican Mafia using underage children for murderous acts to evade enhanced punishments will not be tolerated,” said Mark Dargis, special agent in charge of the FBI San Diego Field Office.
