WASHINGTON (AP) — The government is investigating after elected officials, business executives and other prominent figures in recent weeks received messages from someone impersonating Susie Wiles, President Donald Trump’s chief of staff.
A White House official confirmed the investigation Friday and said the White House takes cybersecurity of its staff seriously. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that senators, governors, business leaders and others began receiving text messages and phone calls from someone who seemed to have gained access to the contacts in Wiles’ personal cellphone. The messages and calls were not coming from Wiles number, the newspaper reported.
Some of those who received calls heard a voice that sounded like Wiles that may have been generated by artificial intelligence, according to the report. Some received text messages that they initially thought were official White House requests but some people reported the messages did not sound like Wiles.
The FBI warned in a public service announcement this month of a “malicious text and voice messaging campaign” in which unidentified “malicious actors” have been impersonating senior U.S. government officials.
The scheme, according to the FBI, has relied on text messages and AI-generated voice messages that purport to come from a senior U.S. official and that aim to dupe other government officials as well as the victim’s associates and contacts.
“Safeguarding our administration officials’ ability to securely communicate to accomplish the president’s mission is a top priority,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement Friday.
It is unclear how someone gained access to Wiles’ phone, but the intrusion is the latest security breach for Trump staffers. Last year, Iran hacked into Trump’s campaign and sensitive internal documents were stolen and distributed, including a dossier on Vice President JD Vance, created before he was selected as Trump’s running mate.
Wiles, who served as a co-manager of Trump’s campaign before taking on the lynchpin role in his new administration, has amassed a powerful network of contacts.
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
FILE – White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles listens during a cabinet meeting at the White House, April 30, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
What’s the deal with the Chelsea Chop? Are you gardeners familiar with it?
After hearing about it recently, I did a bit of research. The earliest reference I could find dates back to the early 2000s, so it might appear I’m late to the party, but I’m not — and you might not be, either.
After all, the pruning method, named for the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show, which is held every May in the U.K., is one I’ve been practicing and advocating for all along, without the garden show tie-in. But things with catchy names tend to take on a life of their own, as the Chelsea Chop has on social media.
And that’s a good thing because it popularizes a useful technique.
This Aug. 7, 2021, image provided by Jessica Damiano shows Joe Pye weed at the center of a garden bed surrounded by black-eyes Susans and purple coneflowers on Long Island, N.Y. (Jessica Damiano via AP)
This June 3, 2023, image provided by Jessica Damiano shows yarrow in bloom on Long Island, N.Y. (Jessica Damiano via AP)
This Sept. 9, 2024, image provided by Jessica Damiano shows asters in bloom on Long Island, N.Y. (Jessica Damiano via AP)
This June 3, 2023, image provided by Jessica Damiano shows salvia in bloom on Long Island, N.Y. (Jessica Damiano via AP)
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This Aug. 7, 2021, image provided by Jessica Damiano shows Joe Pye weed at the center of a garden bed surrounded by black-eyes Susans and purple coneflowers on Long Island, N.Y. (Jessica Damiano via AP)
The method involves pruning certain perennials — those with clumping roots, like coneflower (Echinacea), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia), goldenrod (Solidago), sneezeweed (Helenium), Salvia and yarrow (Achillea) — by cutting each stem back by one-third to one-half its height in spring. Cuts should be made on the diagonal, just above a leaf node.
The “chop” forces plants to produce bushier growth, resulting in sturdier, tighter and fuller plants that aren’t as likely to grow leggy, require staking or flop over by the end of the season. It also delays blooming, which can benefit the late-summer garden.
You might get creative and prune only alternate stems so that some bloom earlier and others later — or prune only half of your plants — to extend the blooming season.
Do not attempt this with one-time bloomers, single-stemmed plants or those with woody stems; the amputations would be homicidal to the current season’s flowers.
When should you chop?
Gardeners should consider their climate and prune when their plants have grown to half their expected seasonal height, whenever that may be. (The Chelsea Chop is done at different times in different places, depending on plant emergence and growth.)
A variation for late-summer and fall bloomers
To take things a step further, some late-summer and fall bloomers, like Joe Pye weed, chrysanthemum and aster, would benefit from three annual chops.
In my zone 7, suburban New York garden, that means cutting them back by one-third each in the beginning of June, middle of June and middle of July. Customize the schedule for your garden by shifting one or two weeks earlier per warmer zone and later per cooler zone, taking the season’s growth and size of your plants into account. Make the first cuts when plants reach half their expected size, the second two weeks later and the third about a month after that.
I’d like this fall-plant pruning tip to catch on as well as the Chelsea Chop has. Maybe I should call it the Damiano Downsize and see what happens.
Jessica Damiano writes weekly gardening columns for the AP and publishes the award-winning Weekly Dirt Newsletter. You can sign up here for weekly gardening tips and advice.
This May 20, 2025, image provided by Jessica Damiano shows the pruning of the top third of a chrysanthemum plant. Three such carefully timed prunings each year will result in fuller, sturdier plants. (Jessica Damiano via AP)
Chef Phila Lorn was not necessarily aiming for “quote-unquote authentic” Cambodian food when he opened Mawn in his native Philadelphia two years ago. So when he approached some Cambodian teen patrons, he braced himself for questioning.
“Someone’s going to say something like, ‘That’s not how my mom makes her oxtail soup,’” Lorn said. “So I walk up to the table. I’m like, ‘How is everything?’ And the kid looks up to me and he goes, ‘It doesn’t even matter, dude. So glad you’re here.’”
It was at that moment that Lorn realized Mawn — the phonetic spelling of the Khmer word for “chicken” — was more than a noodle shop. It meant representation.
In June, he will be representing his dual cultures — Cambodian and Philly — at his first James Beard Awards, as a nominee for Best Emerging Chef. In the food world, it’s akin to getting nominated for the Academy Awards.
Cambodian restaurants may not be as commonplace in the U.S. as Chinese takeout or sushi spots. And Cambodian food is often lazily lumped in with the food of its Southeast Asian neighbors, despite its own distinctness. But in recent years, enterprising Cambodian American chefs have come into their own, introducing traditional dishes or putting their own twist on them.
Many of them were raised in families who fled the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror, which began 50 years ago and killed about 1.7 million people. Since then, the Cambodian community in the U.S. has grown and set down roots.
Through food, these chefs are putting the attention back on Cambodian heritage and culture, rather than that traumatic history.
Dr. Leakhena Nou, a sociology professor at California State University, Long Beach who has studied social anxiety among post-Khmer Rouge generations, says the Cambodian diaspora is often seen by others too narrowly through the lens of victimhood. In 2022, she publicly opposed California legislation that focused only on genocide for a K-12 curriculum on Cambodian culture.
“It’s a part of their history so they shouldn’t run away from it but at the same time they should force others to understand that that’s not the only part of their heritage, their historical identity,” she said.
What is Cambodian cuisine?
Cambodian food has sometimes been hastily labeled as a mild mix of Thai and Vietnamese with some Chinese and Indian influence. But, it has its own native spices and flavors that have been used throughout Southeast Asia. Khmer food emphasizes seafood and meats, vegetables, noodles, rice and fermentation. Salty and sour are prevalent tastes, Nou says.
Chef Phila Lorn holds a bowl of the The Mawn Noodle soup at his restaurant, Mawn, in Philadelphia, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
“It’s actually a very healthy diet for the most part in terms of fresh vegetables. Cambodians love to eat fresh vegetables dipped with some sauce,” Nou said.
Signature dishes include amok, a fish curry; lok lak, stir-fried marinated beef; and samlar koko, a soup made using seasonal produce. Nou recalls her father making it with pork bone broth, fish, fresh coconut milk, lemongrass, vegetables and even wildflowers.
Cambodian migration to the U.S.
It was a half-century ago, on April 15, 1975, that the communist Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia. For the next four years, an estimated one-quarter of the population was wiped out due to starvation, execution and illness.
Refugees came in waves to the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s. Most took on low-level entry jobs with few language barriers, Nou said. These included manufacturing, meatpacking and agricultural labor. Many worked in Chinese restaurants and doughnut shops.
The U.S. Cambodian population has jumped 50% in the last 20 years to an estimated 360,000 people, according to the Census 2023 American Community Survey.
Cooking Cambodian American
Lorn’s family settled in Philadelphia in 1985. The only child born in the U.S., he was named after the city (but pronounced pee-LAH’). Like a lot of Asian American kids, Lorn was “the smelly kid” teased for not-American food in his lunch. But, he said, defending his lunchbox made him stronger. And he got the last laugh.
“It’s cool now to be 38 and have that same lunchbox (food) but on plates and we’re selling it for $50 a plate,” said Lorn, who opened Mawn with wife Rachel after they both had worked at other restaurants.
Customers wait in line for the Mawn restaurant to open for lunch in Philadelphia, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Indeed, besides popular noodle soups, Mawn has plates like the $60 steak and prohok, a 20-ounce ribeye with Cambodian chimichurri. Prohok is Cambodian fermented fish paste. Lorn’s version has lime juice, kulantro, Thai eggplants and roasted mudfish.
It sounds unappetizing, Lorn admits, “but everyone who takes a piece of rare steak, dips and eats it is just like, ‘OK, so let me know more about this food.’”
May, which is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month and when Cambodia conducts a Day of Remembrance, is also when Long Beach has Cambodian Restaurant Week. The city is home to the largest concentration of Cambodians outside of Cambodia.
Chad Phuong, operator of Battambong BBQ pop-up, was a participant.
Phuong came to Long Beach as a child after fleeing the Khmer Rouge, which murdered his father. After high school, he worked at a Texas slaughterhouse and learned about cutting meats and barbecue. In 2020, he pivoted from working in the medical field to grilling.
Known as “Cambodian Cowboy,” he has been profiled locally and nationally for brisket, ribs and other meats using a dry rub with Cambodian Kampot pepper, “one of the most expensive black peppers in the world.” There’s also sausage with fermented rice and sides like coconut corn.
The pitmaster recently started mentoring younger vendors. Contributing to the community feels like building a legacy.
“It just gives me a lot of courage to present my food,” Phuong said. “We don’t need to talk about the past or the trauma. Yes, it happened, but we’re moving on. We want something better.”
More Cambodian-run establishments have flourished. In 2023, Lowell, Massachusetts, mayor Sokhary Chau, the country’s first Cambodian American mayor, awarded a citation to Red Rose restaurant for being a Beard semifinalist. This year, Koffeteria bakery in Houston, Sophon restaurant in Seattle and chef Nite Yun of San Francisco’s Lunette Cambodia earned semifinalist nods.
Chef Phila Lorn walks through his restaurant, Mawn, after opening for the day in Philadelphia, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Lorn, an admirer of San Francisco’s Yun, says he still feels imposter syndrome.
“I feel like I’m more Ray Liotta than Nite Yun,” said Lorn. “Whether we win or not, to me, honestly, I won already.”
Meanwhile, he is preparing to open a Southeast Asian oyster bar called Sao. It’s not intended to be Cambodian, just a reflection of him.
“I don’t want to be pigeonholed,” Lorn said. “And it’s not me turning from my people. It’s just me keeping it real for my people.”
Chef Phila Lorn speaks during an interview at his restaurant, Mawn, in Philadelphia, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — President Donald Trump is holding a rally in Pennsylvania on Friday to celebrate a details-to-come deal for Japan-based Nippon Steel to invest in U.S. Steel, which he says will keep the iconic American steelmaker under U.S.-control.
Though Trump initially vowed to block the Japanese steelmaker’s bid to buy Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel, he changed course and announced an agreement last week for what he described as “partial ownership” by Nippon. It’s not clear, though, if the deal his administration helped broker has been finalized or how ownership would be structured.
Trump stressed the deal would maintain American control of the storied company, which is seen as both a political symbol and an important matter for the country’s supply chain, industries like auto manufacturing and national security.
Trump, who has been eager to strike deals and announce new investments in the U.S. since retaking the White House, is also trying to satisfy voters, including blue-collar workers, who elected him as he called to protect U.S. manufacturing.
U.S. Steel has not publicly communicated any details of a revamped deal to investors. Nippon Steel issued a statement approving of the proposed “partnership” but also has not disclosed terms of the arrangement.
State and federal lawmakers who have been briefed on the matter describe a deal in which Nippon will buy U.S. Steel and spend billions on U.S. Steel facilities in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas and Minnesota. The company would be overseen by an executive suite and board made up mostly of Americans and protected by the U.S. government’s veto power in the form of a “golden share.”
In the absence of clear details or affirmation from the companies involved, the United Steelworkers union, which has long opposed the deal, this week questioned whether the new arrangement makes “any meaningful change” from the initial proposal.
FILE – A person walks past a Nippon Steel Corporation sign at the company headquarters on Jan. 7, 2025, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
“Nippon has maintained consistently that it would only invest in U.S. Steel’s facilities if it owned the company outright,” the union said in a statement. “We’ve seen nothing in the reporting over the past few days suggesting that Nippon has walked back from this position.”
The White House did not offer any new details Thursday. U.S. Steel did not respond to messages seeking information. Nippon Steel also declined to comment.
No matter the terms, the issue has outsized importance for Trump, who last year repeatedly said he would block the deal and foreign ownership of U.S. Steel, as did former President Joe Biden.
Trump promised during the campaign to make the revitalization of American manufacturing a priority of his second term in office. And the fate of U.S. Steel, once the world’s largest corporation, could become a political liability in the midterm elections for his Republican Party in the swing state of Pennsylvania and other battleground states dependent on industrial manufacturing.
Trump said Sunday he wouldn’t approve the deal if U.S. Steel did not remain under U.S. control and said it will keep its headquarters in Pittsburgh.
In an interview on Fox News Channel on Wednesday, Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Dan Meuser called the arrangement “strictly an investment, a strategic partnership where it’s American-owned, American run and remains in America.”
However, Meuser said he hadn’t seen the deal and added that “it’s still being structured.”
Pennsylvania Republican Sen. David McCormick came out in favor of the plan, calling it “great” for the domestic steel industry, Pennsylvania, national security and U.S. Steel’s employees. A bipartisan group of senators, joined by then-Senate candidate McCormick, had opposed Nippon Steel’s initial proposed purchase of U.S. Steel for $14.9 billion after it was announced in late 2023.
In recent days, Trump and other American officials began touting Nippon Steel’s new commitment to invest $14 billion on top of its $14.9 billion bid, including building a new electric arc furnace steel mill somewhere in the U.S.
Pennsylvania’s other senator, Democrat John Fetterman — who lives across the street from U.S. Steel’s Edgar Thomson Steel Works blast furnace — didn’t explicitly endorse the new proposal. But he said he had helped jam up Nippon Steel’s original bid until “Nippon coughed up an extra $14B.”
The planned “golden share” for the U.S. amounts to three board members approved by the U.S. government, which will essentially ensure that U.S. Steel can only make decisions that’ll be in the best interests of the United States, McCormick said Tuesday on Fox News.
Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who is seen as a potential presidential candidate, had largely refrained from publicly endorsing a deal but said at a news conference this week that he was “cautiously optimistic” about the arrangement.
Chris Kelly, the mayor of West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, where U.S. Steel’s Irvin finishing plant is located, said he was “ecstatic” about the deal, though he acknowledged some details were unknown. He said it will save thousands of jobs for his community.
“It’s like a reprieve from taking steel out of Pittsburgh,” he said.
Price reported from Washington. AP writer Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo contributed to this report.
FILE – The United States Steel logo is pictured outside the headquarters building in downtown Pittsburgh, April 26, 2010. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s top public health agency posted new recommendations that say healthy children may get COVID-19 vaccinations, removing language that said kids should get the shots.
The change comes days after U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that COVID-19 vaccines will no longer be recommended for healthy children and pregnant women.
But the updated guidance on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website does not appear to end recommendations for vaccination of pregnant women, a change that was heavily criticized by medical and public health experts.
CDC and HHS officials did not immediately respond to questions about the new guidance.
Kennedy announced the coming changes in a 58-second video posted on the social media site X on Tuesday. No one from the CDC was in the video, and CDC officials referred questions about the announcement to Kennedy and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
On Thursday, the CDC updated its website. The agency said that shots may be given to children ages 6 months to 17 years who do not have moderate or severe problems with their immune systems. Instead of recommending the shots, the CDC page now says parents may decide to get their children vaccinated in consultation with a doctor.
That kind of recommendation, known as shared decision-making, still means health insurers must pay for the vaccinations, according to the CDC. However, experts say vaccination rates tend to be lower when health authorities use that language and doctors are less emphatic with patients about getting shots.
Childhood vaccination rates for COVID-19 are already low — just 13% of children and 23% of adults have received the 2024-25 COVID-19 vaccine, according to CDC data.
Talk of changing the recommendations has been brewing. As the COVID-19 pandemic has waned, experts have discussed the possibility of focusing vaccination efforts on people 65 and older — who are among those most as risk for death and hospitalization.
A CDC advisory panel is set to meet in June to make recommendations about the fall shots. Among its options are suggesting shots for high-risk groups but still giving lower-risk people the choice to get vaccinated. A committee work group has endorsed the idea.
But Kennedy, a leading anti-vaccine advocate before becoming health secretary, decided not to wait for the scientific panel’s review.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE – A sign marks the entrance to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, on Oct. 8, 2013. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal court on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs on imports under an emergency-powers law, swiftly throwing into doubt Trump’s signature set of economic policies that have rattled global financial markets, frustrated trade partners and raised broader fears about inflation intensifying and the economy slumping.
The ruling from a three-judge panel at the New York-based U.S. Court of International Trade came after several lawsuits arguing Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs exceeded his authority and left the country’s trade policy dependent on his whims.
Trump has repeatedly said the tariffs would force manufacturers to bring back factory jobs to the U.S. and generate enough revenue to reduce federal budget deficits. He used the tariffs as a negotiating cudgel in hopes of forcing other nations to negotiate agreements that favored the U.S., suggesting he would simply set the rates himself if the terms were unsatisfactory.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai said that trade deficits amount to a national emergency “that has decimated American communities, left our workers behind, and weakened our defense industrial base — facts that the court did not dispute.”
The administration, he said, remains “committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness.”
But for now, Trump might not have the threat of import taxes to exact his will on the world economy as he had intended, since doing so would require congressional approval. What remains unclear is whether the White House will respond to the ruling by pausing all of its emergency power tariffs in the interim.
Trump might still be able to temporarily launch import taxes of 15% for 150 days on nations with which the U.S. runs a substantial trade deficit. The ruling notes that a president has this authority under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.
The ruling amounted to a categorical rejection of the legal underpinnings of some of Trump’s signature and most controversial actions of his four-month-old second term. The administration swiftly filed notice of appeal — and the Supreme Court will almost certainly be called upon to lend a final answer — but it casts a sharp blow.
The case was heard by three judges: Timothy Reif, who was appointed by Trump, Jane Restani, named to the bench by President Ronald Reagan and Gary Katzmann, an appointee of President Barack Obama.
“The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs,” the court wrote, referring to the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The ruling left in place any tariffs that Trump put in place using his Section 232 powers from the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. He put a 25% tax on most imported autos and parts, as well as on all foreign-made steel and aluminum. Those tariffs depend on a Commerce Department investigation that reveals national security risks from imported products.
It was filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade, a federal court that deals specifically with civil lawsuits involving international trade law.
While tariffs must typically be approved by Congress, Trump has said he has the power to act to address the trade deficits he calls a national emergency.
He is facing at least seven lawsuits challenging the levies. The plaintiffs argued that the emergency powers law does not authorize the use of tariffs, and even if it did, the trade deficit is not an emergency because the U.S. has run a trade deficit with the rest of the world for 49 consecutive years.
Trump imposed tariffs on most of the countries in the world in an effort to reverse America’s massive and long-standing trade deficits. He earlier plastered levies on imports from Canada, China and Mexico to combat the illegal flow of immigrants and the synthetic opioids across the U.S. border.
His administration argues that courts approved then-President Richard Nixon’s emergency use of tariffs in 1971, and that only Congress, and not the courts, can determine the “political” question of whether the president’s rationale for declaring an emergency complies with the law.
Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs shook global financial markets and led many economists to downgrade the outlook for U.S. economic growth. So far, though, the tariffs appear to have had little impact on the world’s largest economy.
The lawsuit was filed by a group of small businesses, including a wine importer, V.O.S. Selections, whose owner has said the tariffs are having a major impact and his company may not survive.
A dozen states also filed suit, led by Oregon. “This ruling reaffirms that our laws matter, and that trade decisions can’t be made on the president’s whim,” Attorney General Dan Rayfield said.
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said the tariffs had “jacked up prices on groceries and cars, threatened shortages of essential goods and wrecked supply chains for American businesses large and small.″
Reporting by Lindsay Whitehurst and Josh Boak, Associated Press. AP writers Zeke Miller and Paul Wiseman contributed.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of the last name of Judge Gary Katzmann, from Katzman in earlier versions of the story.
Det. Sgt. Brian Keely struck a fleeing man with his unmarked SUV in 2024. The judge says the officer's role with a federal task force gives him immunity from state prosecution.
The Michigan Supreme Court had dismissed appeals by families of students killed or wounded at Oxford High School in 2021. The order ends efforts to hold employees partly responsible for the mass shooting.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Sunday that the U.S. will delay implementation of a 50% tariff on goods from the European Union from June 1 until July 9 to buy time for negotiations with the bloc.
That agreement came after a call Sunday with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, who had told Trump that she “wants to get down to serious negotiations,” according to the U.S. president’s retelling.
“I told anybody that would listen, they have to do that,” Trump told reporters on Sunday in Morristown, New Jersey, as he prepared to return to Washington. Von der Leyen, Trump said, vowed to “rapidly get together and see if we can work something out.”
In a social media post Friday, Trump had threatened to impose the 50% tariff on EU goods, complaining that the 27-member bloc had been “very difficult to deal with” on trade and that negotiations were “going nowhere.” Those tariffs would have kicked in starting June 1.
But the call with von der Leyen appeared to smooth over tensions, at least for now.
“I agreed to the extension — July 9, 2025 — It was my privilege to do so,” Trump said on Truth Social shortly after he spoke with reporters on Sunday evening.
For her part, von der Leyen said the EU and the U.S. “share the world’s most consequential and close trade relationship.”
“Europe is ready to advance talks swiftly and decisively,” she said. “To reach a good deal, we would need the time until July 9.”
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, N.J., Sunday, May 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday indicated there was progress with Iran on its nuclear program and hinted that an announcement could come in the “next two days.”
He was notably more upbeat than the Omani mediator of the talks between the United States and Iran, who said Friday that the two nations made “some but not conclusive” progress in the fifth round of negotiations in Rome.
“We’ve had some very, very good talks with Iran,” Trump told reporters in northern New Jersey after leaving his golf club, where he spent most of the weekend. “And I don’t know if I’ll be telling you anything good or bad over the next two days, but I have a feeling I might be telling you something good.”
He emphasized that “we’ve had some real progress, serious progress” in talks that took place on Saturday and Sunday.
“Let’s see what happens, but I think we could have some good news on the Iran front,” Trump said.
Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Michael Anton, the State Department’s policy planning director, represented the U.S. at the talks at the Omani Embassy in Rome.
The two countries are discussing how to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting some economic sanctions that the U.S. has imposed on the Islamic Republic.
President Donald Trump walks down the stairs of Air Force One upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, May 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Alex Palou has become the first driver from Spain to win the Indianapolis 500 by holding off former Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Marcus Ericsson over the closing laps Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Palou, who has won three IndyCar titles in four years — including the last two, came to the speedway with four wins through the first five races this season. But it was No. 6, “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” that he had circled on his calendar.
Without an Indy 500 win, Palou said his career resume would never be complete.
Palou stopped the car just beyond the Yard of Bricks, climbing out of it and nearly losing his balance as he raised his arms in triumph. He jumped down and took off in a run down the front stretch, pulling off his gloves and tossing them behind him, and ultimately was engulfed by his father, Ramon, and his Chip Ganassi Racing team in a jubilant celebration.
Scott Dixon gave him a big hug, so did Dario Franchitti, with both Ganassi Indy 500 winners welcoming Palou into the exclusive club.
“I cannot believe it. What an amazing day. What an amazing race,” Palou said. “I cannot believe it. It was tough. Tough conditions out there, especially if you were like, third or fourth in the pack. Even leading, the fuel consumption was super high, so they didn’t want me to lead. I wanted to lead, honestly, so yeah, made it happen.”
Meanwhile, Ericsson climbed from his car and pressed his hands to his face at the disappointment of coming oh-so close to a second Indianapolis 500 victory.
Ericsson, the 2022 Indy 500 winner, finished second for Andretti Global in a 1-2 finish for Honda. David Malukas was third for A.J. Foyt Racing and the highest-finishing Chevrolet.
Josef Newgarden’s bid to win three consecutive Indy 500s ended with a fuel pump issue. He was trying to become the first driver to come from the back row to win because he and Team Penske teammate Will Power were dropped to the back of the field for failing inspection before qualifying.
Power wound up 19th, the highest-finishing Penske driver on a miserable day for the organization owned by Roger Penske. He earlier this week fired his top three IndyCar executives for a second technical infraction in just over a year, and has had to defend the optics of his teams failing inspections when he also owns IndyCar, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy500.
Penske has won the Indy 500 a record 20 times.
It was Indy 500 win number six for Ganassi, who has been on a dominating wave since hiring Palou ahead of the 2021 season. Palou then won the championship that year, has added two more titles and now seems on pace for a fourth one.
“The guy is just unbelievable — I don’t know what else to say,” Ganassi said. “It is an incredible thing — it’s going to make Alex Palou’s career, it is going to make his life, and it has certainly made mine.”
Palou started the race tied with Pato O’Ward as the co-favorites, listed at +500 by BetMGM. O’Ward finished fourth — the fifth time in six career starts the Mexican has finished sixth or higher.
Kyle Larson won’t complete “the double” after crashing out of the Indianapolis 500 before he headed to North Carolina to compete in the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race.
Alex Palou, of Spain, celebrates after winning the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Sunday, May 25, 2025. (MICHAEL CONROY — AP Photo)
NEW YORK (AP) — Marian Rivman is pushing 80. Harriet Luria is a proud 83. In this trio, Carol Leister is the baby at 62. Together, they have decades of experience with yoga. Only now, it involves a chair.
Chair yoga adapts traditional yoga poses for older people and others with physical challenges, but the three devotees said after a recent class that doesn’t mean it’s not a quality workout. As older adults have become more active, chair yoga has grown in popularity.
“You’re stretching your whole body,” Rivman offered. “What you can do in the chair is a little bit more forgiving on the knees and on the hips. So as you age, it allows you to get into positions that you were doing before without hurting yourself.”
Whitney Chapman, right, conducts a chair yoga class at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, in New York, March 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Sitting down to exercise, or standing while holding onto a chair to perform some poses, may not sound like a workout, but Rivman, Luria, Leister and practitioners everywhere see a world of benefits.
“I took it up because I have osteoporosis and the chair yoga is much easier,” Luria said. “You don’t have to worry as much about falling and breaking anything. It’s not as difficult as I thought it would be, but it’s not easy. And you really do use your muscles. It’s an excellent workout.”
Yoga with a chair isn’t just for older people
Chair yoga is clearly marketed to older women, who made up the class where the three yoga friends got together at the Marlene Meyerson JCC on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But the practice also has a lot to offer others, said their instructor, Whitney Chapman.
Desk workers can squeeze in 15 minutes of chair yoga, for instance. Many companies offer it as a way to cut down on stress and improve overall health. And people recovering from surgery or injuries may not be ready to get down on a yoga mat, but they can stretch in a chair.
“I’ve known these ladies probably 18 to 20 years. And the very first time in a yoga class that I brought in the chair, all of my students said I don’t want geriatric yoga. I’m not an old person,” Chapman said.
Instructor Whitney Chapman talks about her chair yoga class at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, in New York, March 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
“And then they saw that having a chair is just as good as a yoga strap, a yoga block. It’s another prop that’s going to help you do what you want to do. So it’s not necessarily because you’re older, but that it can be helpful. And it doesn’t mean you’re geriatric just because you’re sitting in a chair.”
The benefits are many, Chapman said: improved flexibility, strength, balance. And there’s the overall emotional well-being that yoga practitioners in general report. It’s particularly useful for people with mobility issues or chronic ailments like arthritis or back pain. Chapman also teaches yoga to cancer and Parkinson’s disease patients.
In addition to restorative and other benefits, the practice of chair yoga can help improve posture for people of all ages and abilities, and help older people prevent falls.
A physical practice that can last a lifetime
Leister recently retired.
“I’ve been looking for all different kinds of exercises to do and this is one of them,” she said. “This is the one that I could see doing for the rest of my life, where some that are a little more strenuous I may not be able to do in the future.”
Whitney Chapman, left, conducts a chair yoga class at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, in New York, March 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Traditional yoga originated more than 5,000 years ago in India. Many of the poses used today are also that old. It can be as much spiritual as physical, and that also goes for its chair descendant. The precise movements are tied to deliberate, cleansing breathwork.
Rivman has been doing yoga for about 50 years.
“Once you start and you get what it does for your body, you don’t want to give it up. And if there’s a way that you can keep doing it and keep doing it safely, that’s a choice you’re going to make,” she said.
Yoga by the numbers, including chair yoga
The practice of yoga, including chair yoga, has been on the rise in the U.S. over the last 20 years. In 2022, the percentage of adults age 18 and older who practiced yoga in the past 12 months was 16.9%, with percentages highest among women ages 18–44, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Women are more than twice as likely as men to practice yoga, the data showed. The percentage of adults who practiced yoga to treat or manage pain decreased with increasing family income.
Whitney Chapman, right, conducts a chair yoga class at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, in New York, March 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
The CDC, didn’t break out chair yoga for analysis but recommends that adults 65 and older focus on activities that improve balance and strength. That, the health agency said, can be achieved through various exercises, including chair yoga.
Why don’t more men do yoga?
Chapman and her students have thoughts on why more men don’t practice yoga. Traditionally, Chapman said, the practice was reserved for men, but as yoga became more westernized, women took over.
“Women tend to be more group-oriented. I would love to see more men in class. I do have a few. I don’t know if they’re intimidated, but you know, it’s a great way to meet women if everybody’s single,” Chapman said with a chuckle.
Luria theorizes that fewer men are drawn to yoga because it’s not a competitive sport.
“You’re really working at your own level,” she said. “Take out the competition and it’s not their thing.”
These chair yoga practitioners have lots of advice. Rivman summed it up best: “Get into a chair and do some yoga. You don’t have to stand on your head, but you have to move. You’re never too old to start.”
Whitney Chapman, right, conducts a chair yoga class at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, in New York, March 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Today is Sunday, May 25, the 145th day of 2025. There are 220 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a Black man, was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and pleading that he couldn’t breathe; Floyd’s death, captured on video by a bystander, would lead to worldwide protests, some of which turned violent, and a reexamination of racism and policing in the U.S.
Also on this date:
In 1787, the Constitutional Convention began at the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia after enough delegates had shown up for a quorum.
In 1946, Transjordan (now Jordan) became a kingdom as it proclaimed its new monarch, Abdullah I.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy told Congress: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”
In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, ordered the Virginia county to reopen its public schools, which officials had closed in an attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka desegregation ruling.
In 1977, “Star Wars” was released by 20th Century Fox; it would become the highest-grossing film in history at the time.
In 1979, 273 people died when an American Airlines DC-10 crashed just after takeoff from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.
In 2008, NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander arrived on the Red Planet to begin searching for evidence of water; the spacecraft confirmed the presence of water ice at its landing site.
In 2012, the private company SpaceX made history as its Dragon capsule became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station.
In 2018, Harvey Weinstein was arrested and charged in New York with rape and another sex felony in the first prosecution to result from the wave of allegations against him. (Weinstein would be convicted of two felony counts in 2020, but an appeals court would overturn the conviction in 2024. A retrial on the charges began in April 2025.)
Today’s Birthdays:
Actor Ian McKellen is 86.
Country singer Jessi Colter is 82.
Actor-singer Leslie Uggams is 82.
Filmmaker and puppeteer Frank Oz is 81.
Actor Karen Valentine is 78.
Actor Jacki Weaver is 78.
Rock singer Klaus Meine (Scorpions) is 77.
Actor Patti D’Arbanville is 74.
Playwright Eve Ensler is 72.
Actor Connie Sellecca is 70.
Musician Paul Weller is 67.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., is 65.
Actor-comedian Mike Myers is 62.
Actor Octavia Spencer is 55.
Actor Cillian Murphy is 49.
Football Hall of Famer Brian Urlacher is 47.
Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Aly Raisman is 31.
A chain portrait of George Floyd is part of the memorial for him, Wednesday, May 27, 2020, near the site of the arrest of Floyd who died in police custody Monday night in Minneapolis after video shared online by a bystander showed a white officer kneeling on his neck during his arrest as he pleaded that he couldn’t breathe. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
DETROIT (AP) — Kyle Manzardo and Angel Martínez hit RBI doubles in Cleveland’s four-run 10th inning, helping the Guardians beat the Detroit Tigers for the third straight game, 7-5 on Saturday night.
Bo Naylor homered and drove in two runs, including a sacrifice fly that was part of the Guardians’ big inning. Nolan Jones added an RBI single in the 10th.
With the game tied at 3, Manzardo led off the 10th with an RBI double off Brenan Hanifee (2-2). After Carlos Santana walked, Martínez’s RBI double made it 5-3.
Gleyber Torres made it 7-5 with a two-run double in the bottom of the inning, but Emmanuel Clase got two outs to seal the victory for Cleveland.
Tim Herrin (4-1) got the win after pitching a scoreless ninth.
Detroit, which hadn’t lost three straight since the opening series of the season, led 3-0 after one inning, but Torres got their only two hits in the rest of the game.
After scoring one run in the first 18 innings of the series, the Tigers scored three in Saturday’s first inning. Kerry Carpenter doubled, Torres walked and Colt Keith hit an RBI double.
Ortiz almost escaped the inning, retiring Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson, but Zach McKinstry walked and Matt Vierling hit a two-run single.
Cleveland scored twice in the third on Naylor’s homer and an RBI single by Jose Ramírez, and Ortiz escaped a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the inning.
Cleveland tied it in the eighth when Ramírez singled, took third on Manzardo’s base hit and beat Torkelson’s throw to the plate on Martínez’s grounder to first.
The Guardians called up RHP Nic Enright and placed RHP Hunter Gaddis on the bereavement list. Enright was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in December 2022, but has continued to pitch while undergoing treatment.
Key moment
After Ramírez tied it in the eighth, Cleveland loaded the bases with one out. Tommy Kahnle got Naylor to pop out and Will Vest came in to retire pinch-hitter Jones on a grounder to second.
Key stat
Ramírez’s third-inning single extended his hitting streak to 17 games.
Up next
The Tigers and Guardians finish their four-game series on Sunday morning, with the first pitch scheduled for 11:35 a,m. EDT. Detroit ace LHP Tarik Skubal (4-2, 2.87) will face LHP Logan Allen (2-2, 3.86).
— By DAVE HOGG, Associated Press
Cleveland Guardians Jose Ramirez (11) slides safely into home plate ahead of the tag from Detroit Tigers catcher Jake Rogers (34) to tie the game in the eighth inning during a baseball game, Saturday, May 24, 2025, in Detroit. (LON HORWEDEL — AP Photo)
Today is Saturday, May 24, the 144th day of 2025. There are 221 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On May 24,1883, New York’s Brooklyn Bridge, at the time the world’s longest suspension bridge, opened to traffic.
Also on this date:
In 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse transmitted the message “What hath God wrought” from Washington to Baltimore as he formally opened America’s first telegraph line.
In 1935, the first Major League Baseball game to be played at night took place at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field as the Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1.
In 1937, in a pair of rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Social Security Act of 1935.
In 1941, during World War II, the German battleship Bismarck sank the British battle cruiser HMS Hood in the North Atlantic, killing all but three of the 1,418 men on board. (The Bismarck would be sunk by British battleships three days later.)
In 1962, astronaut Scott Carpenter became the second American to orbit the Earth as he flew aboard the Aurora 7 spacecraft.
In 1974, American jazz composer and bandleader Duke Ellington, 75, died in New York.
In 1994, four Islamic extremists convicted of bombing New York’s World Trade Center in 1993 were each sentenced to 240 years in prison.
In 2022, an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 children and two teachers. The gunman, Salvador Ramos, a former student at the school, was also killed. It was the deadliest shooting at a U.S. elementary school since the 2012 attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
Today’s Birthdays:
Comedian Tommy Chong is 87.
Musician Bob Dylan is 84.
Actor Gary Burghoff (M*A*S*H) is 82.
Singer Patti LaBelle is 81.
Actor Priscilla Presley is 80.
Actor Jim Broadbent is 76.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins is 76.
Actor Alfred Molina is 72.
Musician Rosanne Cash is 70.
Actor Kristin Scott Thomas is 65.
Author Michael Chabon is 62.
Basketball Hall of Famer Joe Dumars is 62.
Actor John C. Reilly is 60.
Basketball Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady is 46.
Dancer-choreographer Mark Ballas is 39.
Country singer Billy Gilman is 37.
Rapper G-Eazy is 36.
Actor Brianne Howey is 36.
Actor Daisy Edgar-Jones is 27.
Pedestrians stroll along the promenade of the Brooklyn Bridge, connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn, New York City, 1891. The suspension bridge was opened to traffic on May 24, 1883. When bridge designer John A. Roebling incorporated the promenade into the design of the bridge, he said it was important that the people take part in the leisures afforded by the bridge. (AP Photo)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is ordering a massive overhaul of the National Security Council that will shrink its size and return many career appointees back to their home agencies, according to two U.S. officials and one person familiar with the reorganization.
The move is expected to significantly reduce the number of staff at the NSC, according to the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive personnel matter. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been serving as national security adviser since early this month following the ouster of Mike Waltz, who was nominated to serve as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations.
The NSC has been in a continual state of tumult for much of the early going of Trump’s second go-around in the White House.
Waltz was ousted weeks after Trump said that he’d fired several NSC officials, just a day after far-right activist Laura Loomer raised concerns directly to him about staff loyalty.
The White House days into the administration sidelined about 160 NSC aides, sending them home while the administration reviewed staffing and tried to align it with Trump’s agenda. The aides were career government employees, commonly referred to as detailees.
This latest shakeup amounts to a “liquidation” of NSC staffing with both career government detailees on assignment to the NSC being sent back to their home agencies and several political appointees being fired from their positions, according to the person familiar with the decision.
A White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed that the overhaul, first reported by Axios, was underway but declined further comment.
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, N.J., Friday, May 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Military air traffic controllers lost contact with an Army helicopter for about 20 seconds as it neared the Pentagon on the flight that caused two commercial jets to abort their landings this month at a Washington airport, the Army told The Associated Press on Friday.
The aborted landings on May 1 added to general unease about continued close calls between government helicopters and commercial airplanes near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport following a deadly midair collision in January between a passenger jet and an Army helicopter that killed 67 people.
In March, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that helicopters would be permanently restricted from flying on the same route where the collision occurred. After the May 1 incident, the Army paused all flights into and out of the Pentagon as it works with the FAA to address safety issues.
Brig. Gen. Matthew Braman, the head of Army aviation, told the AP in an exclusive interview that the controllers lost contact with the Black Hawk because a temporary control tower antenna was not set up in a location where it would be able to maintain contact with the helicopter as it flew low and rounded the Pentagon to land. He said the antenna was set up during construction of a new control tower and has now been moved to the roof of the Pentagon.
Braman said federal air traffic controllers inside the Washington airport also didn’t have a good fix on the location of the helicopter. The Black Hawk was transmitting data that should have given controllers its precise location, but Braman said FAA officials told him in meetings last week that the data the controllers were getting from multiple feeds and sensors was inconclusive, with some of it deviating by as much as three-quarters of a mile.
“It certainly led to confusion of air traffic control of where they were,” Braman said.
Former FAA and NTSB crash investigator Jeff Guzzetti said he thinks the air traffic controller did the right thing by ordering the two planes to go around that day.
“The Army, to me, seems to be attempting to sidestep some of their responsibility here. And it just sounds like excuses to say ‘Hey, we had our ADS-B on and that should have been enough for them to see where we were.’ That sounds too simplistic to me,” Guzzetti said.
The FAA declined to comment on whether its controllers could not get a good fix on the Black Hawk’s location due to their own equipment issues, citing the ongoing investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is pushing to have the agency modernize its air traffic control systems and equipment, which has failed controllers responsible for Newark Liberty Internal Airport’s airspace at critical moments in recent weeks.
In the initial reporting on the aborted landings, an FAA official suggested the Army helicopter was on a “scenic route.”
But the ADS-B-Out data, which the Army shared with the AP on Friday, shows the crew hewed closely to its approved flight path — directly up the I-395 highway corridor, which is called Route 5, then rounding the Pentagon.
FAA air traffic controllers at the airport aborted the landing of a Delta Air Lines Airbus A319 during the Black Hawk’s initial flight toward the Pentagon because they realized both aircraft would be nearing the Pentagon around the same time, Braman said.
Because of the 20-second loss of contact, the Pentagon’s tower did not clear the Black Hawk to land, so the helicopter circled the Pentagon a second time. That’s when air traffic controllers at the airport decided to abort the landing of a second jet, a Republic Airways Embraer E170, because they did not have a confident fix on the Black Hawk’s location, Braman said.
Josh Funk contributed from Omaha, Nebraska.
This image provided by the U.S. Army shows a screenshot of data from the Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast, or ADS-B, of the flight path of Army Black Hawk “PAT23” on a May 1, 2025, flight that led to air traffic controllers aborting the landings of two commercial jets. (U.S. Army via AP)
Privacy and hunger relief groups and a handful of people receiving food assistance benefits are suing the federal government over the Trump administration’s attempts to collect the personal information of millions of U.S. residents who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., on Thursday says the U.S. Department of Agriculture violated federal privacy laws when it ordered states and vendors to turn over five years of data about food assistance program applicants and enrollees, including their names, birth dates, personal addresses and social security numbers.
The lawsuit “seeks to ensure that the government is not exploiting our most vulnerable citizens by disregarding longstanding privacy protections,” National Student Legal Defense Network attorney Daniel Zibel wrote in the complaint. The Electronic Privacy Information Center and Mazon Inc.: A Jewish Response to Hunger joined the four food assistance recipients in bringing the lawsuit.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is a social safety net that serves more than 42 million people nationwide. Under the program formerly known as food stamps, the federal government pays for 100% of the food benefits but the states help cover the administrative costs. States also are responsible for determining whether people are eligible for the benefits, and for issuing the benefits to enrollees.
As a result, states have lots of highly personal financial, medical, housing, tax and other information about SNAP applicants and their dependents, according to the lawsuit.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order March 20 directing agencies to ensure “unfettered access to comprehensive data from all state programs” as part of the administration’s effort to stop “waste, fraud and abuse by eliminating information silos.”
That order prompted Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and the USDA to ask states and electronic benefit vendors to turn over the info earlier this month. Failing to do so may “trigger noncompliance procedures,” the USDA warned in a letter to states.
Some states have already turned over the data, including Alaska, which shared the personal info of more than 70,000 residents, according to the lawsuit. Other states like Iowa plan to turn over the information, the plaintiffs say.
They want a judge to declare the data collection unlawful, to order the USDA to destroy any personal information it already has, and to bar the agency from punishing states that fail to turn over the data.
A banner with a photograph of President Donald Trump hangs near the entrance of the U.S. Department of Agriculture building in Washington, Friday, May 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The ruling from U.S. District Judge John Bates marks the second time this month that a judge has struck down a Trump executive order against a prominent firm. The decision in favor of Jenner & Block follows a similar opinion that blocked the enforcement of a decree against a different firm, Perkins Coie.
“Like the others in the series, this order — which takes aim at the global law firm Jenner & Block — makes no bones about why it chose its target: it picked Jenner because of the causes Jenner champions, the clients Jenner represents, and a lawyer Jenner once employed,” Bates wrote.
The spate of executive orders announced by Trump sought to impose the same consequences against the targeted firms, including suspending security clearances of attorneys and barring employees from federal buildings. The orders have been part of a broader effort by the president to reshape American civil society by targeting perceived adversaries in hopes of extracting concessions from them and bending them to his will.
Several of the firms singled out for sanctions have either done legal work that Trump has opposed, or currently have or previously had associations with prosecutors who at one point investigated the president.
In the case of Jenner & Block, the firm previously employed Andrew Weissmann, who served as a prosecutor on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team that investigated ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.
Bates had previously halted enforcement of multiple provisions of the executive order against Jenner & Block and appeared deeply skeptical of its legality during a hearing last month.
In his ruling Friday, he said he was troubled that the orders retaliated against the firms for the “views embodied in their legal work” and seek “to chill legal representation the administration doesn’t like, thereby insulating the Executive Branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers.”
Two other firms, WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey, have also asked judges to permanently halt orders against them.
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, N.J., Friday, May 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)