Connect with us

RSS

Trump Admin Pauses $1.8 Billion in Federal Funds to More Elite Universities

Copies of The Daily Northwestern on display on the campus of Northwestern University, a day after a US official said $790 million in federal funding has been frozen for the university while it investigates the school over civil rights violations, in Evanston, Illinois, US, April 9, 2025. Photo: Vincent Alban via Reuters Connect

The Trump administration has paused nearly $1.8 billion in combined federal funding to Cornell University and Northwestern University, White House officials told multiple news outlets.

Cornell stands to lose $1 billion and Northwestern $790 million, a severe measure imposed on the higher education institutions for allegedly being sites of egregious, as well as unredressed, incidents of antisemitic discrimination and educational policies which undermine merit. Following the news, which was first reported by the New York Times on Tuesday, Cornell confirmed its receipt of “more than 75 stop work orders” and Northwestern said it is not yet apprised of any changes to its government partnerships.

“The affected grants include research into new materials for jet engines, propulsion systems, large scale information networks, robotics, superconducts, and space and satellite communications, as well as cancer research — work of significance for our national defense, the competitiveness of our economy, and the health of our citizens,” Cornell president Michael Kotlikoff said in a statement. “We are actively seeking information from federal officials to learn more about the basis for these decisions.”

He continued, “The university has worked diligently to create an environment where all individuals and viewpoints are protected and respected. We are committed to working with our federal partners to continue the contributions made by our scientists and scholars.”

Northwestern University, currently under investigation by Linda McMahon’s downsized US Department of Education, only recently touted its progress in addressing the campus antisemitism crisis, issuing a statement containing a checklist of policies it has enacted since being censured by federal lawmakers over its handling of pro-Hamas demonstrations which convulsed its campus during the 2023-2024 academic year. In it, the university said that it has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool which aids officials in determining what constitutes antisemitism, and begun holding “mandatory antisemitism training” sessions which “all students, faculty, and staff” must attend.

“This included a live training for all new students in September and a 17-minute training module for all enrolled students, produced in collaboration with the Jewish United Fund,” the statement continued. “Antisemitism trainings will continue as a permanent part of our broader training in civil rights and Title IX.”

Northwestern struggled for months to correct an impression that it coddled pro-Hamas protesters and acceded to their demands for a boycott of Israel in exchange for an end to their May 2024 encampment.

University president Michael Schill denied during a US congressional hearing held that year that he had capitulated to any demand that fostered a hostile environment, but his critics noted that part of the deal to end the encampment stipulated his establishing a scholarship for Palestinian undergraduates, contacting potential employers of students who caused recent campus disruptions to insist on their being hired, creating a segregated dormitory hall that will be occupied exclusively by students of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Muslim descent, and forming a new advisory committee in which anti-Zionists students and faculty may wield an outsized voice.

The status of those concessions, which a law firm representing the civil rights advocacy group StandWithUs described as “outrageous” in July 2024, was not disclosed in the statement.

Cornell University has seen a series of disturbing antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre perpetrated by Hamas across southern Israel.

Three weeks after the atrocities which ravaged Israeli communities, now-former student Patrick Dai threatened to commit heinous crimes against members of the school’s Jewish community, including mass murder and rape. Cornell students also occupied an administrative building and held a “mock trial” in which they convicted then-school president Martha Pollack of complicity in “apartheid” and “genocide against Palestinian civilians.” Meanwhile, history professor Russell Rickford called Hamas’s barbarity on Oct. 7 “exhilarating” and “energizing” at a pro-Palestinian rally held on campus.

Cornell University and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) have sparred all of this academic year, with SJP pushing the limits of what constitutes appropriate conduct on campus. In September, school officials suspended over a dozen students who disrupted a career fair, an action which saw them “physically” breach the area by “[pushing] police out of the way.” In February, the university amnestied some of the protesters, granting them “alternate resolutions” which terminated their suspensions, according to The Cornell Daily Sun.

In January, anti-Zionist agitators at Cornell kicked off the spring semester with an act of vandalism which attacked Israel as an “occupier” and practitioner of “apartheid.” The students drew a blistering response from Kotlikoff, who said that “acts of violence, extended occupations of buildings, or destruction of property (including graffiti), will not be tolerated and will be subject to immediate public safety response,” but the university has declined to say how it will deal with the matter since identifying at least one of the culprits in February.

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the Trump administration is following through on its threats to inflict potentially catastrophic financial injuries on colleges and universities deemed as soft on antisemitism or excessively “woke.” The past several weeks have seen the policy imposed on elite universities including Harvard and Columbia, rattling the higher education establishment.

In March, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced the cancellation of $400 million in federal contracts and grants for Columbia University, a measure that secured the school’s acceding to a slew of demands the administration put forth as preconditions for restoring the money. Later, the Trump administration disclosed its reviewing $9 billion worth of federal grants and contracts awarded to Harvard University, jeopardizing a substantial source of the school’s income over its alleged failure to quell antisemitic and pro-Hamas activity on campus following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. Princeton University saw $210 million of its federal grants and funding suspended too, prompting its president, Christopher Eisgruber to say the institution is “committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.”

Brown University’s federal funding is also reportedly at risk due to its failure to mount a satisfactory response to the campus antisemitism crisis, as well as its embrace of the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement — perceived by many across the political spectrum as an assault on merit-based upward mobility and causing incidents of anti-White and anti-Asian discrimination.

“Jewish students studying on elite US campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year,” McMahon said in a statement last month. “US colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by US taxpayers. That support is a privilege, and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal antidiscrimination laws.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Trump Admin Pauses $1.8 Billion in Federal Funds to More Elite Universities first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Iran’s Top Diplomat Meets With Russian Officials, Supreme Leader Sends Letter to Putin Ahead of Talks With US

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, March 21, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

Iran’s so-called “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, briefing Moscow on the ongoing nuclear negotiations between Tehran and the United States.

Khamenei also sent his top diplomat, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, to Moscow, where on Thursday he met with Putin and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, to deliver Khamenei’s letter. During their meetings, they discussed Iran’s nuclear program, last week’s US-Iran negotiations in Oman, and efforts to expand bilateral cooperation and address regional developments.

Thursday’s high-level meeting came just days before a second round of talks between Tehran and Washington, scheduled to take place in Rome this weekend.

Since taking office in January, US President Donald Trump has reinstated his “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran aimed at cutting the country’s crude exports to zero and preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

However, Tehran has refused to halt its uranium enrichment program, insisting that the country’s right to enrich uranium is non-negotiable.

Last month, Trump threatened to bomb Iran and impose secondary tariffs if the country does not reach an agreement with Washington to curb its nuclear program.

Russia has said that any military strike against Iran would be “illegal and unacceptable.” As an increasingly close ally of Tehran, Moscow plays a crucial role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the West, leveraging its position as a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council and a signatory to a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal that imposed limits on the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia will continue to assist in resolving the conflict between the two adversaries.

“The Russian Federation remains ready to do everything within our capabilities to contribute to the settlement of the situation by political and diplomatic means,” Peskov said in a statement.

During his first term, Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 nuclear deal — known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — between Iran and several world powers, which had imposed temporary limits on Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for lifting harsh, long-standing economic penalties on the Islamist regime in Tehran.

“Regarding the nuclear issue, we always had close consultations with our friends China and Russia. Now it is a good opportunity to do so with Russian officials,” Araghchi told Iranian state media before his meeting in Moscow.

On Tuesday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said that any deal with Iran must require the complete dismantling of its “nuclear enrichment and weaponization program — reversing his earlier comments, in which he indicated that the White House would allow Iran to enrich uranium to a 3.67 percent threshold for a “civil nuclear program.”

Although Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has raised concerns over Tehran’s rapid acceleration of uranium enrichment.

The IAEA warned that Iran is enriching uranium up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level and enough to build six nuclear bombs.

Despite Tehran’s claims that its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes rather than weapon development, Western states have said there is no “credible civilian justification” for the country’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”

Russia’s diplomatic role in the US-Iran nuclear talks could be crucial, as Moscow has recently solidified its growing partnership with the Iranian regime.

On Wednesday, Russia’s upper house of parliament ratified a 20-year strategic partnership agreement with Iran, strengthening military ties between the two countries.

Signed by Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in January, the Strategic Cooperation Treaty will boost collaboration between the two countries in areas such as security services, military drills, warship port visits, and joint officer training.

Iran’s Ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, said this agreement “stands as one of the most significant achievements in Tehran-Moscow relations.”

“One of the most important commonalities between the two countries is the deep wounds inflicted by the West’s unrestrained unilateralism, which underscores the necessity for broader cooperation in the future,” Jalali told Iranian state media this week.

Under the agreement, neither country will permit its territory to be used for actions that pose a threat to the other, nor will they provide assistance to any aggressor targeting either nation. However, this pact does not include a mutual defense clause of the kind included in a treaty between Russia and North Korea.

The agreement also includes cooperation in arms control, counterterrorism, peaceful nuclear energy, and security coordination at both regional and global levels.

Iran’s growing ties with Moscow come at a time when Tehran is facing increasing sanctions by the US, particularly on its oil industry.

Last year, Iran obtained observer membership in the Eurasian Economic Union. The free trade agreement between Tehran and the union’s member states, set to take effect next month, will eliminate customs tariffs on over 80 percent of traded goods between Iran and Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

The post Iran’s Top Diplomat Meets With Russian Officials, Supreme Leader Sends Letter to Putin Ahead of Talks With US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Hamas Rejects Israeli Interim Truce Offer, Says Will Only Release Remaining Hostages for End to Gaza War

Protesters, mainly Houthi supporters, stand near a screen displaying senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya during a rally to show support to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in Sanaa, Yemen, Oct. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

Hamas wants a comprehensive deal to end the war in Gaza and swap all Israeli hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel, a senior official from the Palestinian terrorist group said, rejecting Israel‘s offer of an interim truce.

In a televised speech, Khalil Al-Hayya, the group’s Gaza chief who leads its negotiating team, said the Iran-backed Islamist group would no longer agree to interim deals, adopting a position that Israel is unlikely to accept and potentially further delaying an end to the conflict.

Instead, Hayya said Hamas was ready to immediately engage in “comprehensive package negotiations” to release all remaining hostages in its custody in return for an end to the Gaza war, the release of Palestinians jailed by Israel, and the reconstruction of Gaza.

“Netanyahu and his government use partial agreements as a cover for their political agenda, which is based on continuing the war of extermination and starvation, even if the price is sacrificing all his prisoners [hostages],” said Hayya, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We will not be part of passing this policy.”

Egyptian mediators have been working to revive the January ceasefire agreement that halted fighting in Gaza before it broke down last month, but there has been little sign of progress with both Israel and Hamas blaming each other.

“Hamas’s comments demonstrate they are not interested in peace but perpetual violence. The terms made by the Trump administration have not changed: release the hostages or face hell,” said US National Security Council spokesperson James Hewitt.

The latest round of talks on Monday in Cairo to restore the ceasefire and free Israeli hostages ended with no apparent breakthrough, Palestinian and Egyptian sources said.

Israel had proposed a 45-day truce in Gaza to allow hostage releases and potentially begin indirect talks to end the war. Hamas has already rejected one of its conditions – that it lay down its arms. In his speech, Hayya accused Israel of offering a counterproposal with “impossible conditions.”

Hamas released 38 hostages under a ceasefire that began on Jan. 19. In March, Israel‘s military resumed its ground and aerial offensive in Gaza, after Hamas rejected proposals to extend the truce without ending the war.

Israeli officials say that the offensive will continue until the remaining 59 hostages are freed and Gaza is demilitarized. Hamas insists it will free hostages only as part of a deal to end the war and has rejected demands to lay down its arms.

The war was triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to Gaza.

The post Hamas Rejects Israeli Interim Truce Offer, Says Will Only Release Remaining Hostages for End to Gaza War first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

US Says Chinese Satellite Firm Supporting Houthi Attacks on American Interests

A Houthi fighter mans a machine gun mounted on a truck during a parade for people who attended Houthi military training as part of a mobilization campaign, in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

The US State Department on Thursday accused a Chinese firm, Chang Guang Satellite Technology, of directly supporting attacks on US interests by Iran-backed Houthi fighters and called this “unacceptable.”

Earlier, the Financial Times cited US officials as saying that the satellite company, linked to China’s military, was supplying Houthi rebels with imagery to target US warships and international vessels in the Red Sea.

“We can confirm the reporting that Chang Guang Satellite Technology Company Limited is directly supporting Iran-backed Houthi terrorist attacks on US interests,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told a regular news briefing.

“China consistently attempts … to frame itself as a global peacemaker … however, it is clear that Beijing and China-based companies provide key economic and technical support to regimes like Russia, North Korea and Iran and its proxies,” she said.

Bruce said the assistance by the firm to the Houthis, a US-designated terrorist group, had continued even though the United States had engaged with Beijing on the issue.

“The fact that they continue to do this is unacceptable,” she said.

The spokesperson for China’s Washington embassy, Liu Pengyu, said he was not familiar with the situation, so had no comment. The firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China is Washington’s main strategic rival, and the latest charge comes as the two economic and military superpowers are in a major standoff over trade in which US President Donald Trump has dramatically ramped up tariffs on Chinese goods.

The post US Says Chinese Satellite Firm Supporting Houthi Attacks on American Interests first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News