Today’s Top News ⇒ President Trump Faces Multiple Controversies

[Em Vicky Khan]

Harvard University has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in a bid to halt a freeze of $2.2m in funding, as a battle between Trump and the Ivy League institution escalates.

In a damning legal complaint filed with the Massachusetts district court, Harvard’s president, Alan M Garber, accused the Trump administration of trying to “gain control of academic decision making at Harvard”, adding that no government “should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue”.

The Trump administration has sought to force changes at multiple Ivy League institutions after months of student activism centered around the war in Gaza. The administration has painted the campus protests as anti-American, and the institutions as liberal and antisemitic, a claim that Garber refutes.

Here are the key stories at a glance:

Harvard says Trump ‘slamming on the brakes’ to vital research
In a statement accompanying the lawsuit, Harvard’s Garber said the funding freeze was putting health research into jeopardy, including improving the prospects for children who survive cancer, understanding how cancer spreads through the body, predicting the spread of infectious disease outbreaks and easing the pain of soldiers wounded on the battlefield.

“As opportunities to reduce the risk of multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease are on the horizon, the government is slamming on the brakes,” he wrote.