Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day, but we will be back on Friday. Here are the latest developments:
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Donald Trump does not want to see Democratic members of Congress executed, after he posted that six Democrats who are service veterans were guilty of sedition, “punishable by DEATH!”, after they posted a video telling members of the military to “refuse illegal orders”.
The acting commander of the US Coast Guard told lawmakers that the display of swastikas and nooses will remain prohibited by the service, despite a new policy on harassment posted on a Pentagon website last week that removed the term “hate incident” and cast the symbols as merely “potentially divisive”.
A federal judge temporarily halted Trump’s deployment of national guard troops to Washington DC.
Trump and JD Vance were not invited to Dick Cheney’s funeral.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he will negotiate with Trump on a US-backed peace plan that calls for Ukraine to make painful concessions in order to end Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of his country.
Nydia Velázquez, a Democratic congresswoman from New York, announced on Thursday that she will not seek reelection in 2026 and instead retire at the end of her term.
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian American activist and former Columbia University graduate student who was detained by US immigration authorities, sued the Trump administration for information on its communications with anti-Palestinian organizations prior to his arrest.
The Trump justice department sued California for allowing undocumented college students to pay in-state tuition for public universities.
Coast Guard commander says swastikas and nooses remain banned, despite new policy calling them just 'potentially divisive'
The acting commander of the US Coast Guard, Admiral Kevin Lunday, told lawmakers on Thursday that the display of swastikas and nooses will remain prohibited by the service, despite a new policy on harassment posted online this month which casts the symbols as merely “potentially divisive”.
While a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Coast Guard, described a Washington Post report on the change in policy as “fake crap,” the new harassment policy was spelled out in a document titled “Harassing Behavior Prevention, Response and Accountability,” that was cleared for public release and currently remains posted on a Pentagon website.
“The terminology ‘hate incident’ is no longer present in policy,” the document, attributed to Rear Admiral Charles Fosse, the Coast Guard’s head of personnel, states. “Conduct previously handled as a potential hate incident, including those involving symbols widely identified with oppression or hatred, is processed as a report of harassment in cases with an identified aggrieved individual”.
“The public display of divisive symbols and flags, including those widely identified with oppression or hatred, can undermine unit cohesion and marginalize segments of our workforce,” a later section states. But the policy no longer refers to the display of those symbols as a punishable hate incident.
Instead, the policy document states: Potentially divisive symbols and flags include, but are not limited to, the following: a noose, a swastika, and any symbols or flags co-opted or adopted by hate-based groups as representations of supremacy, racial or religious intolerance, or other bias.”
Following an uproar from lawmakers, including senators who are considering Lunday’s nomination to be the Coast Guard commandant, the admiral assured Lauren Underwood, a Democratic congresswoman from Illinois, that both the public and private display of swastikas and nooses will be barred.
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