Senators spar over nationwide injunctions stopping Trump policies

WASHINGTON — Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee used a congressional hearing Tuesday to air grievances about district court rulings against the Trump administration, as Democrats argued judges are simply doing their job.

The joint subcommittee hearing was among the latest Republican pushback to district judges who have ruled against the Trump administration, at times using nationwide injunctions to temporarily pause or slow executive branch actions.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, used his opening remarks to list off a string of cases in which courts ruled against the Trump administration.

In one example, Cruz referenced an order from a Rhode Island district court that blocked Trump administration agencies from freezing funds awarded through two high-profile laws enacted during the Biden administration, a bipartisan infrastructure law and a separate climate, tax and health care package.

—CQ-Roll Call

Minnesota issues ‘rare’ air quality alert as Canadian wildfire smoke spreads

MINNEAPOLIS — Air quality alerts remain in effect for yet another day for the entire state of Minnesota with concentrations of wildfire smoke so thick the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has issued a rare hazardous warning.

The MPCA uses a color-coded scale when issuing alerts, with purple and maroon signaling when the air is the worst. On Tuesday, the agency issued a maroon warning for the northwest corner of the state and a purple warning for a large swath of northern and north-central Minnesota.

The agency has not issued a maroon warning since 2021, said Ryan Lueck, an air quality forecaster for the MPCA.

“This is not common,” Lueck, noting the air quality has reached such poor levels only “a handful of times” over the past decade. “It’s pretty rare.”

—The Minnesota Star Tribune

Chinese scholar at University of Michigan tried to smuggle biological pathogen into the US, feds say

DETROIT — Federal agents have arrested a University of Michigan scholar from China on charges she tried to smuggle a biological pathogen into the United States characterized as a potential agricultural terrorism weapon that can be used for targeting food crops.

The FBI counterintelligence case against UM scholar Yunqing Jian, 33, and her boyfriend, 34-year-old Zunyong Liu, was unsealed in federal court in Detroit on Tuesday and marks the second time in less than a week a Chinese national with ties to the university has been charged with federal crimes.

On Friday, prosecutors unsealed a criminal case against a former University of Michigan Chinese student who voted illegally in the 2024 election, saying he fled the U.S. to avoid prosecution.

Jian is a citizen of China who received a doctorate degree in plant pathogens from Zhejiang University, and investigators say they have discovered information describing her membership in and loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party.

—The Detroit News

Ukraine says it attacked key Crimean bridge as traffic halted

Ukraine said it attacked the Crimean Bridge with explosives as Russia closed traffic on the route linking the annexed Black Sea peninsula with the Russian mainland.

Agents planted mines on underwater supports and detonated them on Tuesday, the Ukrainian Security Service, known as the SBU, said in a statement on Telegram. The SBU said the operation took place over several months and left the bridge in an emergency condition, which couldn’t be independently verified.

Russia closed traffic on the bridge twice on Tuesday, without explaining the reason for the moves, Interfax reported. The bridge was originally shut for more than three hours starting in the morning local time, and then again for almost two-and-a-half hours, the news agency said.

Maritime passenger transportation was suspended in Sevastopol, the city’s road and transport infrastructure authority said, also without explaining what prompted the interruption, according to Interfax.

—Bloomberg News