Category World News

The American Bar Association (ABA) has sued the administration of US President Donald Trump, seeking an order that would prevent the White House from pursuing what it called a campaign of intimidation against major law firms.

The lawsuit, filed on Monday in a federal court in Washington, DC, alleged that the administration violated the United States Constitution by issuing a series of executive orders targeting law firms over their past clients and employees.

According to the complaint, those executive orders were used to “to coerce lawyers and law firms to abandon clients, causes, and policy positions the President does not like”.

Dozens of executive agencies and US officials are named in the suit, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Kash Patel and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

In a statement, the ABA — the country’s largest voluntary association for lawyers — called Trump’s attacks on law firms “uniquely destructive”.

“Without skilled lawyers to bring and argue cases, the judiciary cannot function as a meaningful check on the executive branch,” the association wrote.

Four law firms have separately sued the administration over President Trump’s orders, which stripped their lawyers of security clearances and restricted their access to government officials and federal contracting work.

Four different judges in Washington have sided with the firms and temporarily or permanently barred Trump’s orders against them. One of the firms that sued and won a preliminary victory, Susman Godfrey, is representing the ABA in Monday’s lawsuit.

White House spokesperson Harrison Fields responded to Monday’s lawsuit with a statement calling it “clearly frivolous”.

He added that the ABA has no power over the president’s discretion to award government contracts and security clearances to law firms.

“The Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on this issue,” Fields said.

Despite Trump’s court losses, nine law firms have struck deals with the president, pledging to offer nearly $1bn in free legal services to stave off similar executive orders.

Monday’s lawsuit escalates a clash between the ABA and the Trump administration, which has cut some government funding to the group and has moved to restrict its role in vetting federal judicial nominees.

Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay is reported to be in extremely critical condition after undergoing surgery to tend to a brain bleed, just more than a week after being shot in the head during a campaign event.

The attack was part of an eruption of violence that has stoked fears of a return to the darker days of assassinations and bombings.

The Santa Fe Foundation hospital on Monday said that Uribe was stable after undergoing a “complementary” operation to his original surgery, but remained in serious critical condition.

It added that an urgent neurological procedure had been necessary because of clinical evidence and imaging showing an acute inter-cerebral bleed, but that the brain swelling persisted and bleeding remained difficult to control.

The 39-year-old potential presidential candidate from the right-wing opposition was shot in the head twice on June 7 during a rally in Bogota.

The assassination attempt, which was caught on video, recalled a streak of candidate assassinations in the 1980s and 1990s, a time when fighting between armed rebels, paramilitary groups, drug traffickers and state security forces touched the lives of many Colombians.

Three suspects, including a 15-year-old alleged shooter, are in custody. An adult man and woman are also being held.

The 15-year-old boy, who police believe was a “sicario” or hitman working for money, was charged last week with the attempted murder of Uribe, to which he pleaded not guilty. He was also charged with carrying a firearm.

The adult man, Carlos Eduardo Mora, has been charged for alleged involvement in planning the attack, providing the gun and being in the vehicle where the shooter changed his clothes after the attack, according to the attorney general’s office.

Uribe is a senator for the conservative Democratic Centre party and one of several candidates who hope to succeed left-wing President Gustavo Petro in the 2026 presidential vote.

He comes from a prominent political family. His grandfather, Julio Cesar Turbay, was president from 1978 to 1982, and his mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was killed in 1991 in a botched rescue attempt after being kidnapped by an armed group led by drug cartel lord Pablo Escobar.

The main dissident faction of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group on Friday denied responsibility for the attack on Uribe, though it did accept responsibility for a series of unrelated bomb attacks.

Southwest Colombia was rocked by a series of explosions and gun attacks last week which has left at least seven people dead. The attacks hit Cali, the country’s third-largest city, and the nearby towns of Corinto, El Bordo and Jamundi, targeting police stations and other municipal buildings with car and motorcycle bombs, rifle fire and a suspected drone.

Colombia’s government has struggled to contain violence in urban and rural areas as several rebel groups try to take over territory abandoned by the FARC after its peace deal with the government.

A Massachusetts federal judge has declared that cuts to National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants made by the administration of US President Donald Trump are “illegal” and “void,” and ordered that many of the grants be restored.

In a ruling issued on Monday, Judge William Young vacated the terminations that began in late February and said the NIH violated federal law by arbitrarily cancelling more than $1bn in research grants because of their perceived connection to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Young told the court there could be little doubt the cuts represent “racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community”, according to quotes published on X by Politico reporter Kyle Cheney.

In April, a group of researchers sued the NIH, saying hundreds of critical research projects were halted due to an “ideological purge”. The plaintiffs argued that the reasons given for the terminations – connections with “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and “gender identity” – were vague and lacking in concrete explanation.

Terminated grants included programmes focusing on women, racial minorities and the health of health of gay, lesbian and transgender people, but also included studies on cancer, youth suicide and bone health. The government has argued that the court lacks jurisdiction and that the NIH has discretion to set its own priorities.

Young said he was reinstating grants that had been awarded to organisations and Democratic-led states that sued over the terminations. And the judge strongly suggested that as the case proceeds, he could issue a more sweeping decision.

Young, who was appointed by US President Ronald Reagan, offered a harsh rebuke to the government, saying that in his 40 years on the bench, he had “never seen evidence of racial discrimination like this”.

‘Didn’t take job to terminate grants’

The ruling comes almost a week after Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), admitted that the Trump administration had gone too far in slashing biomedical research grants and said efforts were under way to restore some of the funding

Bhattacharya made the remarks Tuesday during a Senate committee hearing examining both recent cuts to his agency and deeper reductions proposed by the White House in next year’s budget.

“I didn’t take this job to terminate grants,” said the physician and health economist, who left a professorship at Stanford University to join the Trump administration.

World leaders assembled at this week’s Group of Seven summit in Canada will try to push United States President Donald Trump to back away from his punishing trade war, which experts say poses a risk to global economic stability.

Most countries represented at the G7 are already subject to Trump’s 10 percent baseline tariff with threats of more to come. European countries and Japan face additional levies on cars and steel and aluminium. The G7 consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the US.

Arriving for a meeting with the host, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump said trade would be the “primary focus” of the summit, which began on Sunday and runs until Tuesday.

The trade issue is of particular interest to Canada after the Trump administration announced several extra levies on Canadian goods in recent months.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has been invited to the summit and will have her own face-to-face time with Trump as her country tries to renegotiate its three-way North American free trade agreement, which also includes Canada.

While there is little expectation that the summit will end with a breakthrough in the trade negotiations between the US and the rest of the world, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is part of Trump’s delegation.

Dozens of countries are locked in negotiations with the Trump administration to clinch some sort of trade deal before the US imposes stinging “reciprocal” tariffs, threatened for July.

Last week, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the date could be pushed back later for countries thought to be negotiating in good faith.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters he would team up with his counterparts from France and Italy to discuss the US trade threat with Trump directly.

“[French President] Emmanuel Macron, [Italian Prime Minister] Giorgia Meloni and I are firmly resolved to try, over the next two days, to talk again with the US government to see if we can find a solution,” Merz told reporters.

“There will be no solution at this summit, but we may be able to get closer to a solution in small steps,” he added.

The European Commission handles trade negotiations for the 27-country European Union and the bloc’s trade chief, Maros Sefcovic, was also attending the summit, accompanying the delegation of commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Shortly after arriving at the summit, von der Leyen on Monday made an appeal to “keep trade between us fair, predictable and open” in a veiled plea for Trump to back off from his tariff onslaught.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he will talk about implementing the UK’s trade deal with the US during his one-on-one with Trump.

The UK in May was the first country to sign a preliminary deal with Washington to avoid deeper tariffs although the 10 percent baseline levy stays in place.

Starmer said the deal was in its final stages and he expects it to be completed “very soon”.

Trade talks underscored by Iran and Israel

The trade talks come alongside increasing tensions between Israel and Iran as the two countries exchange attacks. On Monday, an Israeli air strike hit an Iranian state TV station midbroadcast. Calls for de-escalation have been a point of contention at the meeting, according to Al Jazeera’s James Bay.

“The problem with the G7 is that you have a range of views. You have President Trump on one end, who it seems will not even sign a statement on de-escalation. You have the Europeans, who have been saying ‘de-escalation’ since this current situation started on Friday,” Bay said.