President Trump has tasked the Justice Department with punishing his opponents and remunerating his allies, all without letting the agency\u2019s behind-the-scenes turmoil spill into the open. On each of these fronts, the department this week has hit some snags.<\/p>\n
$1.8 billion fund: A federal judge this morning temporarily barred the Trump administration<\/a> from taking steps to establish the fund that the president said would be used to pay victims of \u201cweaponization and lawfare\u201d under Democratic administrations. And this evening, a different judge reopened Trump\u2019s $10 billion case against the I.R.S.<\/a>, saying she wanted to investigate \u201cgrievous allegations\u201d that the hasty deal to resolve it \u2014 which included the creation of the fund \u2014 was \u201cpremised on deception.\u201d <\/p>\n Many of Trump\u2019s allies have announced plans to apply for<\/a>, and are likely to benefit from, the fund\u2019s disbursements. A number of lawmakers, including prominent Republicans<\/a>, have publicly objected to its aims.<\/p>\n Epstein files: The former attorney general Pam Bondi, whom Trump last month fired largely for her handling of the Epstein files, today blamed the botched release of the files<\/a> on Todd Blanche, her onetime deputy who now runs the department. <\/p>\n Trump mulls an Iran cease-fire <\/p>\n Trump this afternoon left a two-hour meeting in the Situation Room without deciding whether to sign on to a potential deal with Iran<\/a>, a senior administration official said, despite the president\u2019s earlier suggestion on social media that he was ready \u201cto make a final determination.\u201d<\/p>\n U.S. officials said yesterday that the draft deal under consideration<\/a> would extend the nominal cease-fire with Iran and pave the way for future negotiations on its nuclear program. But the senior official today said that some sticking points, including the unfreezing of Iranian assets, were still being debated.<\/p>\n The Iranian foreign ministry\u2019s spokesman said this afternoon that \u201cmessage exchanges between Iran and the U.S. continue, but no final agreement has been reached,\u201d according to Iran\u2019s state news agency.<\/p>\n Both sides in recent days have continued to exchange fire, and Israeli troops have pushed deeper into Lebanon<\/a> while pounding the region with airstrikes.<\/p>\n More on the war: <\/p>\n Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. had seized $1 billion in Iranian cryptocurrency as part of its effort to squeeze Iran\u2019s economy. \u201cJust outright grabbed the wallets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Insurance rates for ships passing through the strait have quadrupled, and in some cases quadrupled twice, since the war began. Our reporter went inside the room where war insurance is bought and sold<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cCongress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,\u201d the judge wrote, adding that a law passed by Congress in 1964 made \u201ccrystal clear\u201d that the institution was to be named for President John F. Kennedy. The judge also temporarily blocked it from shutting down for renovations this summer, as Trump had planned<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trump later wrote on social media that the judge should be \u201cashamed of himself.\u201d<\/p>\n Related: Ian Roberts, the former Des Moines superintendent who lied about his immigration status but whose arrest by ICE sparked local outrage, was sentenced to two years in prison<\/a>. <\/p>\n More top newsBallet and the body<\/p>\n Olivia Book is a dancer who draws the eye. She has a congenital limb difference \u2014 her right arm is smaller than her left. In February, Book was promoted to the corps de ballet of Ballet West in Salt Lake City, making her one of the first professional ballerinas with a limb difference.<\/p>\n Ballet has been rethinking its rigid body standards<\/a>, and many of the challenges that Book has encountered, she said, have been technical: balance, for example, or dancing pas de deux with only one hand connecting her to her partner.<\/p>\n Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s new album<\/p>\n She was the first breakthrough pop star of this decade, a onetime Disney Channel star who built a career on two complementary musical impulses: exasperated power balladry and exasperated pop-punk. <\/p>\n Now on the other side of what she calls her first \u201cbig-girl relationship,\u201d Rodrigo dishes the details on her third album, \u201cYou Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love.\u201d She sat down with \u201cPopcast\u201d for her first in-depth interview about the album \u2014 and, as it turns out, her first in-depth podcast conversation ever. Watch it here<\/a>. <\/p>\n Dinner table topicsNew York\u2019s good vibes <\/p>\n Something strange is happening: A city famous for its grouches and curmudgeons suddenly feels less grouchy and curmudgeonly. Furtive sidewalk glances now include some eye contact and maybe even \u2014 Gasp! Is that what I think it is? \u2014 the half-hint of a smile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump has tasked the Justice Department with punishing his opponents and remunerating his allies, all without letting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-248401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}