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The decision from a divided three-judge panel based in the nation’s capital vacates a finding from U.S District Judge James E. Boasberg.

Boasberg found in April there was probable cause to hold President Donald Trump's administration in criminal contempt of court.

Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, both of whom were nominated by Trump in his first term in the White House, concurred with the unsigned majority opinion. Judge Cornelia Pillard, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, dissented.

Boasberg had accused Trump administration officials of rushing deportees out of the country under the Alien Enemies Act before they could challenge their removal in court and then willfully disregarding his order that planes already in the air should return to the United States.

The Republican administration denied violating his order.

Trump ousts IRS chief

President Donald Trump has removed former U.S. Rep. Billy Long as IRS commissioner less than two months after his confirmation, a White House official said Friday.

The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, spoke on condition of anonymity. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will serve as acting commissioner, the official said. Long will instead serve as ambassador to Iceland, Long said in a statement on the social media site X.

“It is a honor to serve my friend President Trump and I am excited to take on my new role as the ambassador to Iceland. I am thrilled to answer his call to service and deeply committed to advancing his bold agenda. Exciting times ahead!" Long said.

The Senate confirmed Long on a 53-44 vote despite Democrats’ concerns about the Republican’s past work for a firm that pitched a fraud-ridden coronavirus pandemic-era tax break and about campaign contributions he received after Trump nominated him.

Before Long's confirmation, the IRS shuffled through four acting leaders, including one who resigned over a deal between the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security to share immigrants’ tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and another whose appointment led to a fight between former Trump adviser Elon Musk and Bessent.

Long will be the the shortest-tenured IRS commissioner confirmed by the Senate since the position was created in 1862.

His departure also comes after the agency underwent a series of massive job cuts this year, ushered in by Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reports that the agency has been cut down from 103,000 workers in January to 77,000 workers in May 2025. Most of the reductions came from DOGE's deferred resignation program. The workforce reductions were part of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal bureaucracy

While in Congress, where he served from 2011 to 2023, Long sponsored legislation to get rid of the IRS. A former auctioneer, Long has no background in tax administration.

Administration seeks $1 billion deal with UCLA

The Trump administration is seeking a $1 billion settlement from the University of California, Los Angeles, a White House official said Friday, weeks after the Department of Justice accused the school of antisemitism and other civil rights violations.

UCLA is the first public university whose federal grants have been targeted by the administration over allegations of civil rights violations related to antisemitism and affirmative action. The Trump administration has frozen or paused federal funding over similar allegations against private colleges.

The White House official did not detail any additional demands from the administration. The person was not authorized to speak publicly about the request and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration suspended $584 million in federal grants, the university said this week, after the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division announced it had found UCLA violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.”

Last month UCLA reached a $6 million settlement with three Jewish students and a Jewish professor who sued, arguing that the university violated their civil rights by allowing pro-Palestinian protesters to block their access to classes and other areas on campus in 2024.

The university has said it is committed to campus safety and inclusivity and will continue to implement recommendations.

Justice Department targets Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff

The Justice Department is escalating efforts to scrutinize perceived adversaries of President Donald Trump with investigations into New York Attorney General Letitia James and Democratic U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff of California.

The Justice Department has subpoenaed James for records related to a lawsuit the Democrat filed against Trump over alleged fraud in his personal business dealings, according to a person familiar with the matter. It's part of an investigation into whether James violated Trump's civil rights, another person said. Another subpoena seeks records related to a lawsuit involving the National Rifle Association and its longtime leader Wayne LaPierre.

The people could not publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on Friday on the condition of anonymity.

Attorney General Pam Bondi this week also named Ed Martin as a special prosecutor to help conduct separate mortgage fraud investigations into James and Schiff, one of the people said. James and Schiff have denied any wrongdoing and have called the claims politically motivated.

The moves are among the most serious yet the Justice Department has taken against political foes of the president, who vowed on the campaign trail to seek retribution against his opponents. Schiff and James are both vocal critics of Trump, and James has sued Trump and his Republican administration dozens of times over his policies as president and over how he conducted his private business empire.

News of the subpoenas comes as the Justice Department advances an investigation into the Trump-Russia probe that shadowed Trump for much of his first term as president and as the administration has engaged in a widespread purge from the workforce of law enforcement officials who had been involved in examining the activities of Trump and his supporters.

Trump orders federal law enforcers onto D.C. streets

�¾��ٳ��� calling for a , the White House says there will be an increased presence of federal law enforcement on the streets of Washington, D.C., for at least the next week. “We have to run D.C.,” Trump told reporters.

But doing so would require  of 1973 in Congress and could face steep pushback. This was prompted by the  nicknamed ‘Big Balls’ by a group of teenagers. Carjackings and homicides are actually down sharply in D.C. after spiking in 2023.

A two-hour tour of the D.C. streets, starting around 1 a.m. Friday morning, revealed no evidence of the sort of multiagency flood of uniformed personnel described in Trump’s announcement.

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Trump says US can’t afford to return the revenues if a court rules his tariffs illegal

The president says there would be another “GREAT DEPRESSION!” if a U.S. Appeals Court rules he exceeded his authority by declaring an emergency to impose the taxes and mandates repayment of the billions of dollars collected so far.

“If a Radical Left Court ruled against us at this late date, in an attempt to bring down or disturb the largest amount of money, wealth creation and influence the U.S.A. has ever seen, it would be impossible to ever recover, or pay back, these massive sums of money and honor,” Trump said. “It would be 1929 all over again.”

The government has collected about $130 billion in tariff revenues so far this year, about $74 billion more than it did last year, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

California working to plan still unscheduled redistricting election

California Democrats are rushing to schedule an emergency election to remake U.S. House districts in response to . This presents a dilemma for county officials, who are being urged to plan for an election that hasn’t been scheduled and might never happen.

Orchestrating an election by nearly 23 million registered voters across 58 counties is a time-consuming and costly endeavor under any circumstances, but  and Democrats leading the Legislature already have blown past deadlines for organizing everything from printing mail ballots in multiple languages to lining up staff and securing voting locations.

Democrats are considering new political maps that could slash five Republican-held House seats in the liberal-leaning state while bolstering Democratic incumbents in other battleground districts, leaving Republicans with just four safe House seats among 52 in the state. The California maps could be unveiled as soon as next week.

Republicans escalate pressure on holdout Texas Democrats

The Texas House will try to reconvene at 1 p.m. Friday as Democratic lawmakers remain outside the state  Republicans drew after Trump asked for more winnable seats. Relatedly:

1. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has pledged to take legal action to get missing Democrats removed from office if they don’t appear

2. The House Democratic Caucus chair must respond this afternoon to a similar effort filed by Gov. Greg Abbott with the Texas Supreme Court

3. This session ends Aug. 19, but Abbott says he’ll keep calling special sessions until the outnumbered Democrats return

4. The missing lawmakers already face mounting daily fines and civil arrest warrants issued by the state House

5. Sen. John Cornyn has said the  to help Texas authorities locate members

6. Some of the Democrats are meeting again with Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said California will seek  if Texas succeeds.

Under Biden, Vance says US got ‘too comfortable’ with censorship

Vance said he felt that, during President Joe Biden’s administration, the U.S. “got a little too comfortable with censoring rather than engaging with a diverse array of opinions.”

Moving forward, Vance said he hopes other countries can avoid such “a very dark path.“ The remarks came in response to a question invoking some of Vance’s previous comments about free speech that have ruffled feathers in Europe.

During February remarks to the , Vance said that he feared free speech was “in retreat” across the European continent. That prompted pushback from top German officials, one of whom called it “unacceptable” to draw a parallel with authoritarian governments.

Asked about 2028, Vance scoffs at discussing ‘lowly’ politics in stately UK setting

Asked ahead of his Lammy meeting about Trump’s recent statements that Vance is for now “favored” to be next to take up the MAGA mantle, the vice president quickly pivoted.

“I don’t want to talk about lowly things like politics in this grand palace, come on,” Vance said. “I’m not really focused even on the election in 2026, much less one two years after that.”

Vance says US ‘has no plans’ to recognize a Palestinian state

During his opening remarks ahead of the meeting with Lammy, Vance was asked about the U.K.’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state.

Vance said he wasn’t sure what such recognition would even mean, “given the lack of a functional government there.”

Asked if Trump had been given a heads up on Israel’s announced intent to occupy Gaza City, Vance said he would not go into such conversations.

“If it was easy to bring peace to that region of the world, it would have been done already,” he said.

Trump’s tax on endowments already affecting wealthiest universities

The tax increase in Trump’s signature  takes effect next year, but Harvard, Yale and Stanford are already citing having to pay hundreds of millions more in taxes as another reason for layoffs and hiring freezes as they navigate �����Ի���. Colleges say having to pay much more in taxes could lead to less financial aid for lower-income students.

About a dozen universities fit the new tax parameters, according to an Associated Press  from the National Association of College and University Business Officers:

7. 8% rate: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

8. 4% rate: Notre Dame, Dartmouth College, Rice University, University of Pennsylvania, Washington University in St. Louis and Vanderbilt University

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