Embattled Fed Governor Lisa Cook's lawyer says she'll sue Trump to keep her job

WORLD NEWS IN BRIEF

WASHINGTON

Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook will sue President Donald Trump's administration to try to prevent him from firing her, her lawyer said Tuesday.

The announcement makes it more likely that a high-stakes legal battle will ensue that will probably end up at the Supreme Court, and could redefine the limits of the president's legal authority over the central bank. Increasingly at issue is the Fed's independence from day-to-day politics, which most economists consider a key factor in keeping long-term inflation and interest rates low.

"President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook," said Abbe Lowell, Cook's lawyer and a longtime Washington figure who has represented prominent people from both major political parties. "His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis. We will be filing a lawsuit challenging this illegal action."

Trump, meanwhile, underscored in remarks at the White House that his goal is to seize more power over the Fed to get it to lower interest rates. He has previously said he would only appoint people to the Fed's board who will support lower borrowing costs.

"We'll have a majority very shortly, so that'll be good," Trump said, referring to the Fed's governing board. "Once we have a majority, housing will swing," he added, blaming slow housing sales on high mortgage rates.

Trump has criticized Fed Chair Jerome Powell for months because the Fed has left its key short-term interest rate unchanged at about 4.3% - relatively high compared with its level during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it was nearly zero.

But now Trump has turned his attention to the broader Federal Reserve system. The committee that sets interest rates has 12 voting members, with seven coming from the board and the other five drawn from the presidents of the 12 regional Fed banks.

The Fed exercises expansive power over the U.S. economy by adjusting a short-term interest rate that can influence broader borrowing costs for things like mortgages, auto loans and business loans.

Also Tuesday, the Fed itself weighed in for the first time on the firing, saying it would "abide by any court decision."

The Fed also defended its longtime independence from politics: "Congress, through the Federal Reserve Act, directs that governors serve in long, fixed terms and may be removed by the president only 'for cause,'" the central bank said. "Long tenures and removal protections for governors serve as a vital safeguard, ensuring that monetary policy decisions are based on data, economic analysis, and the long-term interests of the American people."

Spate of hoax calls about active shooters stir fear at college campuses

A rash of hoax calls about active shooters on college campuses - some featuring gunshots sounding in the background - has sent waves of fear among students around the nation as the school year begins.

The calls have prompted universities to issue campuswide texts to "run, hide, fight." Students and teachers have rushed to find cover, often cowering in classrooms for safety. Officers have swarmed campuses seeking out the threat. Yet in every recent case, the threat didn't exist.

"It's looking as if this was another swatting or hoax call," University of Arkansas Police Department Assistant Chief Matt Mills said after false reports of an active shooter Monday prompted school leaders to cancel classes for the day.

The hoax calls and false alarms have hit at least a dozen college campuses from Arkansas to Pennsylvania.

On Monday alone, law enforcement responded to calls claiming there were active shooters at Arkansas, Northern Arizona University, Iowa State, Kansas State, Colorado University and the University of New Hampshire. More calls were made Tuesday to campuses in Georgia, Kentucky and West Virginia.

The goal of swatting, which sometimes uses caller ID spoofing to disguise numbers, is to get authorities, particularly a SWAT team, to respond to an address.

The FBI said Tuesday that it was working with law enforcement on the swatting cases on college campuses, which come as such false reports surge nationwide.

DEIR AL-BALAH, GAZA STRIP

Israeli military says strikes on Gaza hospital targeted a Hamas camera

The Israeli military said Tuesday that its double strike on a Gaza hospital that killed 20 people targeted what it believed was a Hamas surveillance camera. But the first strike killed a cameraman from the Reuters news agency doing a live television shot, according to witnesses and health officials.

The military released its initial findings into the strike, offering no immediate explanation for striking twice and no evidence for an assertion that six of the dead were militants, including two who were identified by their employers as a health care worker at the hospital and an emergency services driver. The dead also included five journalists.

The military said the back-to-back strikes on southern Gaza's largest hospital were ordered because soldiers believed militants were using the camera to observe Israeli forces. But its account appeared to contradict the sequence of events in Monday's attack on Nasser Hospital.

A senior Hamas official denied that Hamas was operating a camera at the hospital.

"If this claim was true, there are many means to neutralize this camera without targeting a health care facility with a tank shell," Bassem Naim, a member of the group's political bureau, told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

An initial strike hit a top floor of one of the hospital's buildings. Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri was killed in that blast while filming from the site, according to a fellow journalist and a doctor at the hospital.

Hospital officials said a second person, who has not been identified, was also killed in the first strike.

BALTIMORE

Court tosses lawsuit by Trump against Maryland federal judges

A federal judge on Tuesday threw out the Trump administration's lawsuit against Maryland's entire federal bench in an emphatic ruling that underscored the extraordinary nature of the suit, slamming it as "potentially calamitous."

U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, also criticized the administration's attacks on the judiciary, highlighting in a footnote that White House officials in recent months had described judges as "rogue," "unhinged" and "crooked," among other epithets.

"Although some tension between the coordinate branches of government is a hallmark of our constitutional system, this concerted effort by the Executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it is both unprecedented and unfortunate," he wrote.

The Trump administration filed a notice of appeal.

At issue in the lawsuit is an order by the chief judge of the Maryland district court that stopped the immediate deportation of migrants challenging their removals. The Justice Department said the automatic pause impeded the president's authority to enforce immigration laws, and it sought a court order blocking it.

Cullen said allowing the suit to continue "would run counter to overwhelming precedent, depart from longstanding constitutional tradition, and offend the rule of law."

"In their wisdom, the Constitution's framers joined three coordinate branches to establish a single sovereign," Cullen wrote. "That structure may occasionally engender clashes between two branches and encroachment by one branch on another's authority.

But mediating those disputes must occur in a manner that respects the Judiciary's constitutional role."

WASHINGTON

Democratic governors look to derail Trump's plan to send National Guard to Chicago, other cities

JB Pritzker took a water taxi along the Chicago Riverwalk, past one of Donald Trump's famous downtown towers. The gleaming and heavily trafficked tourist district was a deliberate backdrop on the day the Illinois governor directed a defiant message toward the White House: "Mr. President, do not come to Chicago. You are neither wanted here nor needed here."

The governor's protests, however, may not matter. After Trump's National Guard deployments to Los Angeles in June and Washington, D.C. this month, the Republican says his next targets for federal intervention may be two of the nation's most Democratic cities: Chicago and Baltimore.

Trump's possible move - targeting states whose governors are among potential White House contenders in 2028 - would be another escalation of presidential power, directly challenging the rights of states and cities to govern themselves. It also would intensify a partisan scramble for voters' trust on matters of public safety.

For Trump, militarizing U.S. streets is the latest tactic to support his "law and order" branding and mass deportation agenda. It's a way to cast Democratic leaders in affected locales as weak and ineffective, even as Trump exaggerates the violence he's ostensibly trying to stop. Pritzker "should be calling me, and he should be saying 'Can you send over the troops please?'" Trump said Tuesday at the White House. "It's out of control."

Democrats see a dangerous overreach by an aspiring authoritarian and have said they will challenge Trump in court if necessary. They also see in the political fight a way to persuade voters, especially moderates and independents, that Republicans bluster on crime while Democrats are better able to protect citizens and keep the peace.

"This is not about fighting crime," said Pritzker, flanked on Monday by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and other leaders, adding that it's more about "an arrogant little man" trying to "intimidate his political rivals."

Yet there are risks for Democrats. Though violent crime is down across the country, including Chicago, arguing over how to combat what's still happening means tussling on some of Trump's most comfortable political turf. Additionally, Trump has demonstrated a willingness to block federal money for locales where elected officials have opposed him.

- The Associated Press