Federal judge refuses to block Alabama law banning DEI initiatives in public schools
U.S. District Judge David Proctor wrote that University of Alabama students and professors who filed a lawsuit challenging the law as unconstitutional did not meet the legal burden required for a preliminary injunction, which he called 'an extraordinary and drastic remedy.' The civil lawsuit challenging the statute will go forward, but the law will remain in place while it does.
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CBS News
30 minutes ago
- CBS News
Transcript: Rep. Jason Crow on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Aug. 17, 2025
The following is the transcript of an interview with Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Aug. 17, 2025. MARGARET BRENNAN: And we're joined now by Colorado Democratic Congressman Jason Crow. Good to see you in person. Before we start talking about Ukraine, I want to pick up on something, since you sit on the Intelligence Committee. The Secretary of State just said that lawmakers had come to the Trump administration with information that they've been granting visas to individuals with ties to Hamas, or with organizations with ties to Hamas. That's a pretty stunning accusation. Israel controls who enters and exits Gaza. The United States screens all visas. So, is there really a blind spot that you are aware of? REP. JASON CROW: I'm not aware of that. But if that's true, actually, that is concerning. That would be a problem. I mean, Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization. They should not be traveling anywhere. So, if that's happening, it should be stopped immediately. And, you know, the Intelligence Committee has a role to play in that. MARGARET BRENNAN: But the Intelligence Committee wasn't behind the information presented to the Secretary of State. SPEAKER: I have not been briefed on that. I have no information about it. MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, on Ukraine: You know that the U.S. intelligence assessment is that the battlefield is turning in Russia's favor, despite the fact that Putin has to rely on Iran and North Korea to keep this thing going. If neither President Biden nor President Trump were ever willing to commit troops, doesn't the secretary have a point that it has to be hammered out at the negotiating table? REP. CROW: You know, this absolutely will end at a negotiating table, like most conflicts will. But what happened on Friday was a historic embarrassment for the United States. There's no other way to put it. Right? You listen to what Marco Rubio and the president have said. They keep on saying they're dedicating time. They're making it a priority. They're focusing their attention on it. In any negotiation, when you're trying to end an armed conflict, there's nothing more important than understanding what motivates your adversary. What is making Vladimir Putin tick, in this instance. Vladimir Putin does not care about the amount of time that we're nego- we're allocating to this, does not care about a B-2 bomber flyover, does not care about a lineup of F-22 fighters rolled out. He doesn't care about any of that. What Vladimir Putin cares about is basically three things. He cares about economic pressure in the form of sanctions. He cares about political, diplomatic isolation, being a pariah state. And he cares about military defeat. Those are the three things that will end this conflict if he feels pressure on all of those three fronts. And this administration continues to be unwilling to do anything to assert pressure in any of those three areas. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, they have put in place some secondary sanctions, at least on India here, and they haven't pulled back. They need Congress to help them repeal a lot of these sanctions. But bigger picture, in hindsight, do you think the United States to date has been too hesitant to actually help Ukraine win this war? President Obama did not send offensive weapons to Ukraine. President Biden was criticized for being perhaps too slow in delivery of certain weapons. REP. CROW: There's no doubt. As you know, I was one of the members of Congress that, on a bipartisan basis, pushed really hard in the first two years of this war, under the Biden administration, to do more, to do more quicker. And I was concerned that we were doing just enough to prevent Ukraine from losing and not doing enough to help them win. And I do believe that had we done more, and we had done it faster, and that we were willing to be more aggressive in providing aid and support for Ukraine, then they would be in a different position on the battlefield today. But compare that to what this administration has done, which has relieved almost all pressure. Like look at what happened on Friday. U.S. military personnel in uniform, literally, were on their hands and knees, rolling out a red carpet for the most murderous dictator of the 21st century. Somebody who has kidnapped and is holding prisoner tens of thousands of Ukrainian children. Somebody who started this whole war, right? This both-sides-ism that the administration is engaging in, that both sides need to come to the table and negotiate. Ukraine is the victim. They are the victim. They didn't start this war. Russia did. And somehow we keep on acting like Vladimir Putin deserves to be brought out into the open like any other head of state. This is a historic embarrassment and defeat for U.S. foreign policy. MARGARET BRENNAN: You have served this country in uniform. I wonder, since you sit on the Armed Services Committee, how comfortable you would be with the United States giving this, whatever the Article Five-like security guarantee would look like. Is that something you should see boots on the ground to do? REP. CROW: I don't think boots on the ground would be the way to go. But, certainly, the United States has assets and capability that I think are essential to any type of security guarantee. I think Europe has to come forward with the forward presence of military. But we can provide intelligence. We can provide economic support, diplomatic support. One of the most important things that we can do right now is actually seize Russian assets. This would be huge. This would be a game-changing thing that put pressure on Vladimir Putin. And actually create security guarantees and reconstruction for Ukraine. There's over $150 billion of seized Russian assets, and the United States could lead a coalition to seize that money. Allocate it towards reconstruction, allocate it towards security, allocate it towards the building of a Ukrainian military that could actually resist Russia going forward. But this administration is unwilling to do it. MARGARET BRENNAN: Last administration was too, they-- REP. CROW: --That's right. MARGARET BRENNAN: They did agree to the legislation. But on the immigration front, you and your fellow Democratic lawmakers are now trying to challenge the Trump administration's policy that requires notice to be given before you visit an immigration facility. You just did visit some. What did you see, and how does that compare to the last visit? REP. CROW: Well, there's an ICE detention center in my district, in Aurora, Colorado. I have visited that center 10 times now over the last five years, six years. And oversight of federal facilities is one of the most important things that any member of Congress does. Air Force bases, military bases, VA hospitals and ICE detention centers. This administration just tripled the budget of ICE. Made it the largest federal law enforcement agency in the history of the United States. Bigger than the FBI, ATF, DEA, all others combined. And they are putting in roadblocks to prevent oversight, to prevent transparency because they were trying to hide what they are doing. That is unacceptable. So we filed a lawsuit to force them to abide by federal law that guarantees us access. MARGARET BRENNAN: And we'll see where that heads next. Jason Crow, thank you. We'll be right back.
New York Times
30 minutes ago
- New York Times
Trump Administration Minimizes Summit Papers Left in Hotel
The Trump administration this weekend downplayed a report that officials left in a public area of a hotel documents describing the confidential movements of President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia during their meeting in Alaska on Friday. NPR reported earlier that the documents were left on a printer in the Hotel Captain Cook in downtown Anchorage, near Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, where Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin had their meeting about the war in Ukraine. The documents were produced by the Office of the Chief of Protocol, a position held by Monica Crowley, a former Fox News personality who served in Mr. Trump's first term. The papers were found around 9 a.m. on Friday and sent to NPR by a guest of the hotel, who was granted anonymity. They listed the sequence of events, which included a smaller meeting with Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin and their top foreign policy advisers; an expanded meeting and working lunch with several cabinet officials; a news conference; and an interview between Mr. Trump and Sean Hannity of Fox News. The documents also included a lunch menu for a three-course luncheon held 'in honor of his excellency Vladimir Putin.' Green salad, filet mignon, and halibut Olympia — a humble local favorite — were on the menu. But since the lengthy day of meetings was cut short on Friday, the expanded meeting and the working lunch were bypassed in favor of an abrupt news conference between the two leaders, who did not take questions. The White House and State Department have both derided the documents as a glorified lunch menu. 'Instead of covering the historic steps towards peace achieved at Friday's summit, NPR is trying to make a story out of a lunch menu. Ridiculous,' Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesman, said in an email. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday, but NPR reported a day earlier that an administration spokeswoman had characterized the papers as a 'multipage lunch menu' and not a security breach. The papers included precise times and locations of each meeting, as well as the phone numbers of several administration officials. Eliot A. Cohen, a former counselor in the State Department who served in the Bush administration, said in an interview that the administration had been both 'sloppy' and 'incompetent' in leaving behind the materials. 'Above all, they don't have process,' said Mr. Cohen, who is now an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'A well-drilled bureaucracy doesn't do these things.' But he added that the materials did not seem high-level or reveal state or military secrets. 'My guess is the Russians already have everybody's phone numbers,' Mr. Cohen said.
CBS News
30 minutes ago
- CBS News
Air Canada says it will resume flights after government forced arbitration with flight attendants
Air Canada said it plans to resume flights on Sunday after the Canadian government intervened, forcing the airline and its striking flight attendants back to work and into arbitration. The strike, which began on Saturday morning, stranded more than 100,000 travelers around the world during the peak summer travel season. The North American country's largest airline said in a release that the first flights will resume Sunday evening but that it will take several days before its operations return to normal. It said some flights will be canceled over the next seven to 10 days until the schedule is stabilized. However, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents the 10,000 flight attendants, said the demonstrations will keep going around the country, despite the airline's statement. "We invite Air Canada back to the table to negotiate a fair deal, rather than relying on the federal government to do their dirty work for them when bargaining gets a little bit tough," the union said. "We remain on strike. We demand a fair, negotiated contract and to be compensated for all hours worked." Fewer than 12 hours after workers walked off the job, Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu ordered the 10,000 flight attendants back to work, saying now is not the time to take risks with the economy and noting the unprecedented tariffs the U.S. has imposed on Canada. Hajdu referred the work stoppage to the Canada Industrial Relations Board. The airline said Sunday the Canada Industrial Relations Board has extended the term of the existing collective agreement until a new one is determined by the arbitrator. The shutdown of Canada's largest airline early Saturday was impacting about 130,000 people a day. Air Canada operates around 700 flights per day. According to numbers from aviation analytics provider Cirium, Air Canada had canceled a total of 671 flights by Saturday afternoon, following 199 on Friday. And another 96 flights scheduled for Sunday were already suspended. The bitter contract fight escalated Friday as the union turned down Air Canada's prior request to enter into government-directed arbitration, which allows a third-party mediator to decide the terms of a new contract. Flight attendants walked off the job around 1 a.m. EDT on Saturday. Around the same time, Air Canada said it would begin locking flight attendants out of airports. Last year, the government forced the country's two major railroads into arbitration with their labor union during a work stoppage. The union for the rail workers is suing, arguing the government is removing a union's leverage in negotiations. The Business Council of Canada had urged the government to impose binding arbitration in this case, too. And the Canadian Chamber of Commerce welcomed the intervention. Hajdu maintained that her Liberal government is not anti-union, saying it is clear the two sides are at an impasse. Passengers whose flights are impacted will be eligible to request a full refund on the airline's website or mobile app, according to Air Canada. The airline said it would also offer alternative travel options through other Canadian and foreign airlines when possible. Still, it warned that it could not guarantee immediate rebooking because flights on other airlines are already full "due to the summer travel peak." Air Canada and the Canadian Union of Public Employees have been in contract talks for about eight months, but they have yet to reach a tentative deal. Both sides have said they remain far apart on the issue of pay and the unpaid work flight attendants do when planes aren't in the air. The airline's latest offer included a 38% increase in total compensation, including benefits and pensions, over four years, that it said "would have made our flight attendants the best compensated in Canada." But the union pushed back, saying the proposed 8% raise in the first year didn't go far enough because of inflation.
