Federal courts might be the last guard against Trump
More than 40 lawsuits have been filed in recent days by state attorneys general, unions and nonprofits seeking to erect a barrier against President Trump’s blitzkrieg of executive orders. Vice President JD Vance yesterday accused any judges who might block the president’s orders of acting illegally.
With a compliant Congress, and little significant resistance in either the streets or within the president’s own party, the judicial branch of the government may be the only check on his power. But while the executive branch is entrusted with the capacity for swift, decisive action, the judiciary is slow by design. Any legal opposition may struggle to keep up with Trump’s fire hose of legal disruption. There have been some measurable results: Judicial orders in nine federal court cases will, for a time, partly bind the administration’s hands.
Foreign aid: On Friday, hours before workers for the government’s main foreign aid agency were set to be suspended with pay or laid off, a court issued a limited, temporary order blocking the move. Thousands of workers were left in limbo, while millions around the world who rely on the agency watched in disbelief.
Immigration: The Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration — both legal and illegal — has resulted in at least 10 lawsuits. Here’s a rundown of those and other challenges.
Israeli troops left a key zone that bisects Gaza
Israel’s military yesterday withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor, leaving nearly all of Gaza’s northern territory. The move was required by the tenuous cease-fire with Hamas ahead of any talks for a longer-lasting truce.
Israel’s military presence is now mostly limited to a small sliver of southern Gaza, near the Egyptian border, and a buffer zone along the Israeli border.
Returning home: Hamas released three Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for 183 Palestinians jailed by Israel. Rifle-toting Hamas fighters prodded the emaciated captives to give short speeches in which the hostages thanked the militants. Five Thai citizens who had also been kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, also returned home.
Now that they are at home, previously freed hostages are expressing their relief and joy on social media, as descriptions of the torment they endured trickle out.
Dozens of Maoist rebels were killed in India, officials said
A government operation yesterday in the state of Chhattisgarh in central India left 31 Maoist guerrillas and two members of the police forces dead, police officials said. It was one of the deadliest operations in recent years against the so-called Naxalite movement, leftist rebels who have waged an insurgency over several decades.
Context: The insurgency began in eastern India in the 1960s, with violence peaking in 2010, when hundreds of civilians and security force members were killed.
Politics: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s national governing party swept to victory in an important regional election in New Delhi.
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With social media, are we all documentarians?
Scrolling Instagram Reels may seem to offer infinite variety, but it’s actually tremendously banal: brief windows into what people do with themselves all day, on repeat. We watch because we love watching humans being humans, the movie critic Alissa Wilkinson writes. That also applies to the work of the celebrated documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, whose films have been recently restored for retrospectives in New York, Los Angeles and Paris.
With Reels, we’re effectively watching little documentaries about human behavior. Still, Alissa writes, though we might feel like the directors of what we see, we aren’t: Ultimately, the platform is calling the shots. Read more here.
