Harvard University filed suit against the Trump administration on Monday in response to its multibillion-dollar cuts to the university — which came in part due to what the White House perceives as a failure to combat the rise of antisemitism that has roiled the Ivy League’s campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks. 

The filing, which argues that the funding freeze violates the First Amendment by “imposing viewpoint-based conditions on Harvard’s funding,” comes one day after the Trump administration reportedly planned to cut another $1 billion in federal grants and contracts from Harvard. The administration had already cut $2.2 billion last week and has put a total of $9 billion of its funding under review. 

After being let go from his post as executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review last week, Sewell Chan pinned the firing — which he called “hasty” and “ill-considered” — in part on a recent interaction he had with a staff member “passionately devoted” to activism in support of Gaza on Columbia’s campus. 

In a statement, Chan wrote that he was informed last Monday of complaints from staff regarding three separate interactions in the past weeks during which he gave what he described as “fair and critical feedback rooted in editorial rigor.” Among those communications, according to Chan, included a talk with a fellow who was “passionately devoted to the cause of the Gaza protests at Columbia.” The student journalist had written an article about the “recent detention of a Palestinian graduate student” for a publication that he had previously covered for CJR. Chan did not disclose the name of the student or the publication. 

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee conveyed a message to the growing isolationist camp on the American right as he submitted his diplomatic credentials on Monday: Maintaining close relations with Israel and countering the Iranian nuclear threat are beneficial to Americans.

“The Iranian regime and all the hostility it has inflicted on the world for 46 years continues to threaten not only the peace of Israel but the peace of the United States,” Huckabee said in the ceremony at the residence of Israeli President Isaac Herzog. “Iranians have always said, ‘Death to Israel,’ and chapter two is ‘Death to America’… Israel is the appetizer, and the United States is the entree.”

Israel is unhappy with the direction U.S.-Iran talks appear to be taking but continues to be in direct communication with the Trump administration, an Israeli official told Jewish Insider on Monday after a second round of talks between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic concluded over the weekend.

“It sure does look like the JCPOA,” the official said, comparing the details that have been made public from the negotiations to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. “Are we happy with it? I don’t think that’s come across in any of the statements the prime minister has made.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog called Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Sunday, a week after an arsonist motivated by anti-Israel animus set the governor’s mansion on fire. 

Herzog expressed solidarity with Shapiro after the attack, which took place hours after the governor hosted a Passover Seder. 

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is holding firm in his choice not to label the arson attack that targeted the governor’s mansion on Passover as antisemitic or a hate crime, saying in a Friday interview on ABC News’ “Good Morning America” that he will leave that question to the prosecutors. 

“I think that’s a question for the prosecutors to determine. They’re going to determine motive,” Shapiro said. “I recognize when you’re in these positions of power, there are people out there that want to do you harm, but I try not to be captive to the fear, and I try not to worry or think about why people want to do that harm.”

A group of pro-Israel Jewish House Democrats wrote to Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Thursday warning that Iran must restore International Atomic Energy Agency access to its nuclear sites before any deal can move forward in earnest.

Under a reported proposal put forward by Iran, Iran would not allow such inspections to resume until well into the implementation of a nuclear agreement.

Two House Republicans are traveling to Syria for meetings with new Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and other senior Syrian officials. Reps. Cory Mills (R-FL) and Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) are the first known American lawmakers to travel to the war-torn country and meet with al-Sharaa since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.

The two will also meet with Syrian Foreign Affairs Minister Asaad al-Shaibani during their visit, which was organized and funded by the Syrian American Alliance for Peace and Prosperity. The delegation is not sponsored by the U.S. government.