The Trump administration fired Shira Perlmutter from her post heading the U.S. Copyright Office, just days after booting the nation’s Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden.
A spokesperson from the Copyright Office confirmed on Sunday that the White House sent Perlmutter an email on Saturday, saying, “your position as the Register of Copyrights and Director at the U.S. Copyright Office is terminated effective immediately.”
The move comes after President Trump fired Thursday Carla Hayden, the head of the Library of Congress, which oversees the Copyright Office. Hayden was the first woman and first African American to serve as Librarian of Congress.
Hayden, who was confirmed to her post in 2016, tapped Perlmutter to head the Copyright Office in October 2020. Perlmutter had previously been a policy director at the Patent and Trademark Office, The Associated Press reported
, and brought expertise in copyright and other areas of intellectual property.
Perlmutter and Hayden both faced scrutiny from a conservative nonprofit, American Accountability Foundation (AAF), which called for their firings late last month.
“The President and his team have done an admirable and long-needed job cleaning out deep state liberals from the federal government. It is time they show Carla Hayden and Shira Perlmutter the door and return an America First agenda to the nation’s intellectual property regulation,” AAF’s president, Tom Jones, told the Daily Mail
in late April.
Legislation introduced by House Republicans late Sunday would slash Medicaid spending significantly by imposing new restrictions on beneficiaries like work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks, but it did not include the most controversial changes that had been floated.
The bill from the House Energy and Commerce Committee
comes ahead of what’s expected to be a marathon committee meeting on Tuesday to discuss and advance the measure. It appears to cater more to the moderate wing of the party than to conservatives, who had been agitating for drastic cuts to the program.
The legislation does not include a per-beneficiary cap on federal Medicaid spending. Nor does it contain a reduction in the federal match to states, both of which were being pushed by conservatives.
Moderate and swing-district Republicans had made it clear to leadership they would not support legislation that would cut Medicaid benefits. President Trump repeatedly pledged to protect Medicaid, but he has not gone into detail on what kinds of policies he would support.
Medicaid has emerged as one of the key sticking points in the sweeping legislation Republicans are writing to advance President Trump’s domestic agenda.
The Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, has been tasked with finding $880 billion in savings as part of the overall goal of slashing at least $1.5 trillion to pay for Trump’s domestic priorities, including an extension of his 2017 tax cuts.
President Trump announced Sunday that Edan Alexander, the final U.S. living hostage in Gaza, is set to be released by Hamas and is coming home to New Jersey.
“I am happy to announce that Edan Alexander, an American citizen who has been held hostage since October 2023, is coming home to his family,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Sunday. “I am grateful to all those involved in making this monumental news happen.”
Trump described the release as “a step taken in good faith” toward the U.S. and mediators, Qatar and Egypt, “to put an end to this very brutal war and return ALL living hostages and remains to their loved ones.”
“Hopefully this is the first of those final steps necessary to end this brutal conflict. I look very much forward to that day of celebration!” Trump added.
The announcement comes as negotiations over a hostage-ceasefire deal have stalled in recent weeks. It also comes ahead of Trump’s planned trip this week to the region.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement Sunday that America informed Israel of Hamas’s “intention to release” Alexander “as a gesture to the Americans, without conditions or anything in exchange.”
“The US has conveyed to Israel that this is expected to lead to negotiations for the release of hostages according to the original Witkoff framework, which Israel has already accepted,” the statement continued, referring to the proposal from Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who has played a key role in hostage negotiations.
“Israel is preparing for the possibility that this effort will be implemented,” the statement added, noting that “in accordance with Israel’s policy,” there would be no ceasefire as negotiations take place.
The Alexander family release a statement describing news of Edan Alexander’s release as “the greatest gift imaginable” and thanking the Trump administration for their help in securing his release.
“Today, on Mother’s Day, we received the greatest gift imaginable—news that our beautiful son Edan is returning home after 583 days in captivity in Gaza. We express our deepest gratitude to President Trump, Steve Witkoff, and the US administration for their tireless work to make this happen,” a statement from the family read.
They called on Israel and other negotiating partners to continue in their efforts to bring hostages home.
“We urge the Israeli government and the negotiating teams: please don’t stop. We hope our son’s release begins negotiations for all 58 remaining hostages, ending this nightmare for them and their families. No hostage should be left behind.”
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced on Sunday that the U.S. is halting imports of livestock at ports of entry along the southern border in response to the “continued spread” of the “New World Screwworm” (NWS) in Mexico.
The move comes after NWS was detected in remote farms as far north as Oaxaca and Veracruz, approximately 700 miles from the U.S. border, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Rollins stressed that the announcement “is not about politics or punishment of Mexico, rather it is about food and animal safety.”
“[Mexican Agriculture and Rural Development] Secretary Berdegué and I have worked closely on the NWS response; however, it is my duty to take all steps within my control to protect the livestock industry in the United States from this devastating pest,” Rollins said in a statement.
“The protection of our animals and safety of our nation’s food supply is a national security issue of the utmost importance. Once we see increased surveillance and eradication efforts, and the positive results of those actions, we remain committed to opening the border for livestock trade,” Rollins continued.
The import suspension will continue on a month-by-month basis “until a significant window of containment is achieved.” The suspension applies to livestock that originate in Mexico or that are transported through Mexico.
Rollins pledged to continue working closely with Mexican counterparts to eradicate NWS, saying officials “have been in daily communication discussing how we can build on the good work that has been accomplished to improve our strategy toward eradication.”
NWS was previously eradicated in U.S. and Mexico, according to USDA. The first recent case was reported in Mexico in November 2024, and, that same month, USDA shut down the border for live animal trade. In February 2025, the imports resumed but were subject to “a comprehensive pre-clearance inspection and treatment protocol.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet him in Turkey this week to begin negotiations to end the three-year war between their countries.
But he stipulated that any discussions must begin with a pause in fighting.
“We await a full and lasting ceasefire, starting from tomorrow, to provide the necessary basis for diplomacy. There is no point in prolonging the killings,” Zelensky wrote Sunday in a post on the social platform X
.
“And I will be waiting for Putin in Türkiye on Thursday. Personally. I hope that this time the Russians will not look for excuses,” Zelensky continued.
Putin proposed Sunday direct talks with Ukraine to take place Thursday in Istanbul “to achieve the restoration of a long-term, lasting peace.” Russia also launched drone attacks
on Kyiv, The Associated Press
reported, just hours after Putin proposed the talks.
President Trump has pushed for both countries to sign on to a temporary truce, a plan only Ukraine has endorsed so far. But on Sunday, he urged Zelensky to agree to meet with Putin in Turkey.
“President Putin of Russia doesn’t want to have a Cease Fire Agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the BLOODBATH. Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump said on Truth Social
.
Trump added in the post that the meeting would help “determine whether or not a deal is possible” so European and American leaders can determine “where everything stands, and can proceed accordingly!”
“I’m starting to doubt that Ukraine will make a deal with Putin, who’s too busy celebrating the Victory of World War II, which could not have been won (not even close!) without the United States of America. HAVE THE MEETING, NOW!!!” Trump added.
The effort comes as Ukraine and its allies in Europe — France, Germany, the U.K. and Poland — have turned up the pressure on Russia to accept a 30-day ceasefire. Trump, too, has warned that if the deal is not forged, Russia could suffer from more sanctions
.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) on Sunday blasted Republican efforts to reduce Medicaid funding, saying potential cuts would “destroy health care as we know it.”
“This is very simply an effort to destroy health care as we know it, to rip it away from everyday Americans, make it more costly for everybody else,” Lujan Grisham said in an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”
The Democratic governor warned that potential cuts would have far-reaching consequences across the country.
“It will close hospitals — think something like 432 hospitals across the country are on the edge right now. About a third of their funding … or more, comes from Medicaid. So you have less providers who have fewer access points.”
“No state, including this one — no state can take this kind of cost shifting. And you know, businesses then don’t have employees because they don’t have access to health care. It has a huge economic factor that they aren’t talking about, which is outrageous,” she said.
She also noted that “every state,” including her own, “is going to do everything they can to protect the people they are serving,” saying they’ve taken steps to prepare for reductions in federal support.
The interview comes amid significant uncertainty
surrounding spending negotiations, in particular concerning Medicaid.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over Medicaid and is planning to formally consider and vote to advance its portion of the package on Tuesday, but the conference still remains at odds over potential changes to Medicaid. The budget resolution that served as a blueprint for the final bill instructed the panel to achieve at least $880 billion in spending cuts, which experts say is likely impossible without cuts to the safety net program.
Republicans are largely on board with imposing work requirements, six-month registration checks and barring those who entered the country without authorization from the social safety net program, a source told The Hill, and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters this week that a controversial proposal to directly reduce the enhanced federal match for states that expanded Medicaid, known as the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, was off the table, a key red line for moderates.
However, the situation remains uncertain regarding whether the conference will place per capita caps on Medicaid expansion enrollees — another hard no among centrists.
President Trump’s efforts to upend the conventional understanding of birthright citizenship heads to the Supreme Court this week, the first time in his second term that the justices will consider a major administrative action from the bench.
The justices won’t be directly addressing the constitutionality of Trump’s order blocking automatic citizenship for children born on U.S. soil to noncitizens, for now. The administration has so far only asked the justices to narrow the nationwide reach of several district judges’ injunctions, contending they went too far.
But the case has already invigorated a debate on the legal right about whether the president’s shake-up is valid.
Trump suddenly disrupted the status quo on his first day back in office. He issued an executive order that would restrict birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil whose parents don’t have permanent legal status. He promised such action on the campaign trail.
The order has been challenged in 10 different lawsuits, several of which are now before the Supreme Court on its emergency docket.
In a rare move for an emergency appeal, the justices on Thursday will hold oral arguments on the matter of nationwide injunctions before deciding whether lower courts can issue such injunctions when ruling against Trump’s order.
But looming in the background is the major debate
over the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, a dispute contested across the political spectrum, including in conservative legal circles, that could ultimately reach the high court.
Most academic scholars have long espoused the view that birthright citizenship applies to nearly anyone born in the country, with few exceptions.
Within the conservative legal community, the debate has already come to the forefront in digesting Trump’s order through a competing series of academic papers, legal blog posts and even live, in-person debates.
Two law professors raised the debate’s profile in February when they signaled in a New York Times op-ed that Trump might emerge victorious if the Supreme Court weighed the matter.
“When they finally consider this question, the justices will find that the case for Mr. Trump’s order is stronger than his critics realize,” wrote University of Minnesota law professor Ilan Wurman and Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett.
Proponents of Trump’s plan have zeroed in on a qualification in the Citizenship Clause that narrows birthright citizenship to children born in the U.S. who are “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
That exception has traditionally been interpreted to excludeforeign diplomats’ children, foreign enemies in hostile occupation or Native American children subject to tribal laws. But some say the children of noncitizens fall under that umbrella, too.
Kurt Lash, a law professor and constitutional scholar at the University of Richmond, made that case in a paper first published to the online research platform Social Science Research Network in February. His latest updates have included input and critiques from a broader group of legal minds.
He argues that children born to noncitizens today are “analogous” to Native Americans at the time of the 14th Amendment who did not recognize the United States’s sovereign authority, positing that noncitizens intentionally entered the country without authorization and likewise refuse to “formally present themselves” to American authorities.
“Although the children would have presumptive citizenship, that presumption would be rebutted by their birth into a familial context of refused or counter-allegiance to the American sovereign,” he wrote.
The burst of support for narrowing birthright citizenship has drawn plenty of critics.
Evan Bernick, a law professor at Northern Illinois University who describes himself as an originalist, wrote in post
to the legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy that he expects Lash’s paper to be the “leading academic defense” of the constitutional position set out in Trump’s order. Then he proceeded to dismantle it.
Bernick argued that
Lash’s analogy between noncitizen children and the children of Native Americans contains “fatal shortcomings,” pointing to the fact that the “reality” faced by noncitizens and their children doesn’t match that of Native Americans at the time.
He noted that Native Americans could not be sued, prosecuted or bound without treaty-based consent. That’s not true for noncitizens and their children.
“Denying the children of undocumented people citizenship subjects them to all that power without affording them any protection, contrary to the basic allegiance-protection framework that undergirds Lash’s theory,” he wrote.
Bernick and Wurman, the op-ed author, squared off on the topic at a Federalist Society event last month
, one of several in-person legal conferences where birthright citizenship has become a hot topic.
There, Bernick said the conventional wisdom about birthright citizenship is correct, and “obviously so.” Wurman — also an originalist — pushed back that the matter is “plainly not” settled.
Though opinions still differ between conservative legal scholars, minds have been changed as well.
U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho, a member of the conservative-leaning 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who is seen as a possible Supreme Court nominee if a vacancy arises during Trump’s term, seemingly shifted his views on the subject after insisting that the widely accepted view of birthright citizenship is the right one.
“Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. That birthright is protected no less for children of undocumented persons than for descendants of Mayflower passengers,” Ho wrote in a 2006 paper
.
Ho, himself a Taiwanese immigrant, advanced those views for years, including in a 2011 Wall Street Journal op-ed
. But in an interview
with conservative law professor Josh Blackman in November, days after Trump was elected president, the judge walked back his position.
“No one to my knowledge has ever argued that the children of invading aliens are entitled to birthright citizenship,” he said.
Despite being hotly debated, these questions will not be directly before the justices on Thursday.
Instead, they are tasked with deciding whether lower courts can — as they’ve done — issue nationwide injunctions when striking down Trump’s order, as opposed to issuing relief to only those directly involved in litigation or living in states that sued the administration.
However, the appeal has opened Pandora’s box. Dozens of states, lawmakers, scholars and advocacy groups weighed in with the court over whether the Constitution guarantees citizenship to the children of noncitizens born on U.S. soil.
“The President must participate in the political process and adhere to our constitutional structure, not simply ignore them,” more than 180 Democratic lawmakers wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief, countering the government’s stance. “And unless and until Congress changes the laws, the President must follow them.”
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said Sunday that he does not believe “we’ll have a debt limit suspension” a few days after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called on Congress to raise the debt
ceiling by the middle of the summer.
“I don’t think we’ll have a debt limit suspension because Republicans like to revisit this conversation,” Cole told NewsNation’s Chris Stirewalt on “The Hill Sunday.” “Look, if it was up to the Democrats, they agree, they’d love to get rid of the debt limit … I’ve talked to them.”
“You do that, that’s like never talking about your credit card when you go to the limit. And we like to get to a limit and we’ll have a discussion, and then at least have some reforms to change the trajectory of the debt,” he added later.
Bessent told House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Friday that there is “reasonable probability” that the government’s “cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted in August while Congress is scheduled to be in recess.”
“Therefore, I respectfully urge Congress to increase or suspend the debt limit by mid-July, before its scheduled break, to protect the full faith and credit of the United States,” Bessent said in a letter to the House Speaker.
Republicans have been hopeful they will be able to bring up the debt limit via a process called budget reconciliation, aiming to raise the debt ceiling within the same vehicle being assembled for the advancement of large portions of President Trump’s agenda with only GOP votes.
Bessent said in his Friday letter that “prior episodes have shown that waiting until the last minute to suspend or increase the debt limit can have serious adverse consequences for financial markets, businesses, and the federal government, harm business and consumer confidence, and raise short-term borrowing costs for taxpayers.”
Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, said on Sunday that he thinks Pope Leo XIV will carry forward Francis’s commitment and focus on immigration, climate change and human trafficking.
“I think he’s going to help complete and complement our political agenda,” Cupich told ABC News’s Martha Raddatz in a “This Week” interview from the Vatican City.
“He’ll still talk a lot about the immigrants as well because he knows about the sufferings of people and the real needs that they have for a better life. And he knows too that people in Oceania, for instance, where the rising sea levels are just… overwhelming those islands, where people are trying to escape,” the archbishop continued.
“He sees the drug trade that’s happening in Central and South America, where there are weapons from the United States going there. He knows that those people need an option. And he’ll call for, I think, as the bishops have in the United States, fixing this broken immigration system,” he added.
In an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” Cupich said he thinks Pope Leo feels an “obligation” to speak about issues of the modern day — from artificial intelligence to global politics, as Francis did.
“He sees this opportunity right now in his service as Leo XIV to take up the challenge of a new technology, namely artificial intelligence, and what that means to humanity,” Cupich said.
“I think that he feels an obligation, as I think popes have in the modern era, to speak to the issues of the day, because we live in a world in which there are real challenges globally,” he added. “There is, I think, a fresh moment for us to examine, what are the human dimensions of immigration? How do we see global warming impacting us? How the issues related to the sufferings of humanity should impact all of us and make all of us aware and participate in solutions.”
Your morning commute. A quick trip to the store. Picking the kids up after school. These quick everyday drives should be a breeze. Too often, they end in tragedy.
Earlier this month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration projected that nearly 40,000 people died on America’s roads in 2024
. That number is not just tragic; it is a policy failure. And the harsh reality is that most of those crashes were preventable with better design, better data and better decisions.
For generations, America has approached road safety with a reactive mindset: Wait for fatalities, then fix the road. That “crash first, fix later” strategy has left us with roads built for speed and sprawl, not safety and sustainability.
It’s time we shift from reaction to prevention. We need to stop looking in the rear-view mirror when it comes to safety — and start seeing risk before it becomes tragedy. Tens of thousands of lives depend on it.
Fortunately, we already have the tools to do better. Millions of Americans interact with them every day. Now, it’s time for those tools to transform how we plan, fund and build America’s roads.
Every day, millions of road users interact with smart traffic signals, adaptive speed enforcement, telematics
and digital sensors. These innovations aren’t just making commutes more efficient — they quietly collect valuable, real-time insights that can identify infrastructure risk before tragedy strikes.
This data — anonymous, aggregated and incredibly powerful — can tell us where drivers are slamming on their brakes, taking sharp turns at high speeds or frequently navigating confusing intersections. These patterns reveal design flaws we can fix, and not with moonshot megaprojects, but with low-cost, high-impact solutions. Roundabouts, better signage, reconfigured lanes or targeted enforcement can maximize safety at a modest price.
The benefits of this approach extend far beyond safety. Smarter roadways promote economic efficiency. Freight carriers can avoid high-risk or high-delay corridors. Public transit operators can improve bus routing and timing. Commercial fleets can be dispatched more efficiently.
When state and local transportation officials — engineers, planners, law enforcement and public safety officials — can access these tools, they can proactively address high-risk corridors, reduce delays and prioritize U.S. taxpayer-funded infrastructure dollars where they will do the most good. Several transportation agencies are already seeing the results.
In Washington state, officials have partnered with the private sector to turn raw traffic video into life-saving intelligence. The Video Analytics Towards Vision Zero program uses AI to analyze near-misses at intersections, capturing data on speeding, hard braking and pedestrian conflicts. That information now guides design changes that prevent crashes before they happen.
In North Carolina, the NC Vision Zero initiative
is using predictive analytics and driver behavior data to flag crash-prone areas before fatal accidents occur. By combining high-resolution crash mapping with near-miss data, officials have been able to implement low-cost, high-impact interventions, like better lighting, clearer signage and lane restriping, without waiting for tragedy to strike.
Now is the time for strong federal leadership to bring America’s road safety strategy into the 21st century. The coalition I run is bringing together safety advocates, technologists and public leaders to modernize how we invest in road safety. Our goal is simple: Empower America’s transportation agencies with better data, better tools and better outcomes.
We’ve seen what data and analytics can do in finance, health care and energy. America’s transportation systems should not be left behind. With strong congressional leadership, cross-sector collaboration and policy frameworks that promote smart investments, we can bring these cutting-edge tools to scale in every community.
Let’s stop treating roadway fatalities as an inevitable cost of mobility. Let’s stop asking our friends, families and constituents to pay that price before we act. It’s time to build roadways that prioritize safety from the start — saving lives, improving performance and making America’s infrastructure work better for everyone.
Because 40,000 deaths a year isn’t just a statistic — it’s a call to action.
Andrew Rogers is executive director of Modern Analytics for Roadway Safety.
