BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — A judge on Wednesday ordered the release of a Palestinian man who led protests against the war in Gaza as a student at Columbia University and was arrested by immigration officials during an interview about finalizing his U.S. citizenship.

U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford in Burlington, Vermont, issued his ruling following a hearing on Mohsen Mahdawi, a legal permanent resident for 10 years, who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on April 14. He has been held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.

A judge later issued an order barring the government from removing him from the state or country.

Mahdawi’s lawyers say he was detained in retaliation for his speech advocating for Palestinian human rights.

According to court documents, his notice to appear in immigration court says he is removable under the Immigration and Nationality Act because Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined his presence and activities “would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest.”

The government argues that Mahdawi’s detention is a “constitutionally valid aspect of the deportation process” and that district courts are barred from hearing challenges to how and when such proceedings are begun.

“District courts play no role in that process. Consequently, this Court lacks jurisdiction over Petitioner’s claims, which are all, at bottom, challenges to removal proceedings,” wrote Michael Drescher, Vermont’s acting U.S. attorney.

According to a court filing, Mahdawi was born in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and moved to the United States in 2014. He recently completed coursework at Columbia and was expected to graduate in May before beginning a master’s degree program there in the fall.

As a student, Mahdawi was an outspoken critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and organized campus protests until March 2024. He cofounded the Palestinian Student Union at Columbia with Mahmoud Khalil, another Palestinian permanent resident of the U.S. and graduate student who was detained by immigration authorities.

An immigration judge in Louisiana ruled that the government’s assertion that Khalil’s presence in the U.S. posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences” satisfied the requirements for deportation.

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — A closely watched inflation gauge cooled last month in a sign that prices were steadily easing before most of President Donald Trump’s tariffs were implemented.

At the same time, consumers accelerated their spending, particularly on cars, likely in an effort to get ahead of the duties.

Wednesday’s report from the Commerce Department showed that consumer prices rose just 2.3% in March from a year earlier, down from 2.7% in February. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 2.6% compared with a year ago, below February’s 3%. Economists track core prices because they typically provide a better read on where inflation is headed.

The slowdown in inflation could be a temporary respite until the widespread duties imposed by Trump begin to push up prices in many categories. Most economists expect inflation to start picking up in the coming months.

“Core inflation will inevitably rebound sharply in the coming months,” Harry Chambers, assistant economist at Capital Economics, said in an email. “Goods prices will rise much more strongly.”

Chambers expects core inflation will near 4% by late this year.

Wednesday’s report also showed that consumer spending increased 0.7% from February to March, a healthy gain. Much of the increase appeared to be driven by efforts to get ahead of duties, such as Trump’s 25% duty on imported cars, which took effect April 3. Spending on autos surged 8.1% in March. Still, that means auto sales are likely to fade in the coming months because those assets have already been secured.

But spending on restaurants and hotels also jumped after falling in February, a sign Americans are still willing to splurge a little on travel and dining out.

The spending increase is noteworthy because consumer confidence surveys have plunged for several months, suggesting Americans have grown increasingly worried about the economy. Yet so far, that hasn’t translated into a noticeable slowdown in spending.

Earlier Wednesday, the government reported that consumer spending slowed in the first three months of the year, compared with last year’s final quarter, as bad weather depressed shopping and Americans took a breather after healthy spending over the winter holidays.

The nation’s economy actually shrank 0.3% in the January-March quarter as imports surged as companies sought to get ahead of Trump’s tariffs.

Trump benefited in last year’s election from broad dissatisfaction among voters about the steep rise in prices that began in 2021 and that, on average, pushed prices up about 25% by the middle of last year. Grocery costs shot up nearly 30%. As a candidate, Trump said he would immediately lower prices if elected.

Yet the president has slapped 25% duties on steel and aluminum, as well as cars, and a 10% tariff on nearly all other imports. And China, the United States’ third-largest trading partner, now faces a 145% duty on its exports.

The inflation-fighters at the Federal Reserve target a 2% inflation rate and pay close attention to Wednesday’s inflation gauge, known as the personal consumption expenditures price index. The better-known consumer price index was released earlier this month and also showed a steady decline.

Inflation figures were revised higher for January and February, leaving price increases in the first quarter higher than previously estimated. The higher figures would likely leave Fed officials wary of cutting rates soon even before taking tariffs into account.

Trump has pushed the Fed to cut its key short-term interest rate because inflation has cooled. But Fed Chair Jerome Powell has underscored that the central bank is likely to remain on the sidelines as officials gauge how tariffs will impact the economy. The Fed isn’t expected to lower its rate at its policy meeting next week.

Texas Observer readers,

Three months into a second Trump administration, nearly a decade into the Trump era, more than a decade into the Greg Abbott era, and 22 harrowingly long years into the GOP’s unilateral control of Texas government, the forces of political progress in our state find themselves somewhere between stasis, retrenchment, and the abyss. 

There just isn’t much right now to prop up either cheap short-term optimism (backlash midterm) or grander narratives (demographic destiny). One may say the game has been rigged, but a critical mass of the state’s voters have simply continued to empower a party that’s been in control so long that its abandoned principles have abandoned principles, so long that charges of hypocrisy have no stable ground on which to land. 

School vouchers, the political crisis du jour as I write this (and most likely when you read it), are a “handout.” They are an “entitlement.” They are both more government bureaucracy and waste, and, if passed, will likely lead to more fraud and corruption (surely, DOGE will get right on it). But most Texas Republicans are unmoved by their own party’s erstwhile rhetoric. Politics is a game for power; they have it, and they’ll find new ways to wield it so long as they do. And logical contradictions mean little so long as you’re helping the right people (families with kids already in private schools) and hurting the right targets (unionized teachers, families who could never afford private tuition, the idea of public education as a social equalizer). 

Even if vouchers were to fall victim (again) to internecine GOP conflict, the general march toward privatization, toward turning public goods into auctioned goods, toward turning the machinery of state into little more than a high rollers’ pay-to-play game, is set to continue apace. 

And yet, people are funny creatures.

Look around, and you’ll always find those who stare down long, even unbeatable, odds and choose to fight anyway. Or, if not fight, at least find a way to live lives that quietly disprove the dominant political narrative about them, to “prefigure,” as the anarchists say, a society at ease with its own diversity and unsettled hierarchies. I think this emerges, in this Observer issue, as a subtle theme—through the story of a man off death row, becoming something the state claims he can never be; an uncle in Uvalde channeling irrecoverable loss into public office; Afghan refugee wrestlers succeeding in the country’s Mexican-American metropolis; and the everyday acts of small-“d” democracy at the state Capitol.

From this springtime issue, I hope you’ll come away not with erudite despair, but a grounded, tempered hope. 

Solidarity,

Note: To receive our print magazine, become a member here.

The post Editor’s Letter: Introducing Our May/June 2025 Issue appeared first on The Texas Observer.

By PRABHJOT GILL, SHEIKH SAALIQ and MUNIR AHMED, Associated Press

ATTARI, India (AP) — Pakistan said Wednesday it had “credible intelligence” that India is planning to attack it within days, as soldiers exchanged gunfire along borders and Pakistanis heeded New Delhi’s orders to leave the country following last week’s deadly attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

India’s moves to punish Pakistan after accusing it of backing the attack in Pahalgam, which Islamabad denies, have driven tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals to their highest point since 2019, when they came close to war after a suicide car bombing in Kashmir. The region is split between India and Pakistan and claimed by both in its entirety.

An Indian paramilitary soldier stands guard at a temporary checkpoint in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Calls for de-escalation

Pakistan said the intelligence shows that India plans military action against it in the next 24 to 36 hours “on the pretext of baseless and concocted allegations of involvement.”

There was no immediate comment from Indian officials. However, Indian government officials said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has “given complete operational freedom to the armed forces to decide on the mode, targets and timing of India’s response to the Pahalgam massacre.” They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations.

Last week’s attack was claimed by a previously unknown militant group calling itself the Kashmir Resistance. New Delhi describes all militancy in Indian-controlled Kashmir as Pakistan-backed terrorism. Pakistan denies this, and many Muslim Kashmiris consider the militants to be part of a homegrown freedom struggle.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in separate phone calls with India and Pakistan, stressed the need to “avoid a confrontation that could result in tragic consequences.” The U.S. State Department also called for de-escalation and said Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be speaking to the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers.

Pakistanis forced to leave

The deadline for Pakistani citizens to leave India, with exceptions for those with medical visas, passed on Sunday, but many families were still scrambling to the border crossing in Attari town in northern Punjab state.

Some arrived on their own. Others were being deported by police.

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“We have settled our families here. We request the government not to uproot our families,” said Sara Khan, a Pakistani who was ordered back without her husband, Aurangzeb Khan, who holds an Indian passport. She carried her 14-day-old child and said she had been living in Indian-controlled Kashmir since 2017.

“They (Indian authorities) told me you are illegal and you should go,” said Khan, while waiting on the Indian side of the border crossing.

Tensions between India and Pakistan have escalated after gunmen killed 26 people, most of them Indian tourists, near the resort town of Pahalgam.

The massacre set off tit-for-tat diplomatic measures that included the cancellation of visas and a recall of diplomats. New Delhi suspended a crucial water-sharing treaty with Islamabad and ordered its border shut with Pakistan. In response, Pakistan has closed its airspace to Indian airlines.

Cross-border exchanges of gunfire between soldiers have increased along the Line of Control, the de facto frontier that separates Kashmiri territory between the two rivals.

Fire along the frontier

On Wednesday, India and Pakistan accused each other of initiating the gunfire.

Pakistan’s state-run media said Indian forces violated the ceasefire agreement along the Line of Control by initiating fire with heavy weapons. According to Pakistan Television, Pakistani troops returned fire after coming under attack overnight in the Mandal sector of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

Meanwhile, the Indian army said it responded to “unprovoked” small arms fire from Pakistan in the Naushera, Sunderbani and Akhnoor sectors of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

The incidents could not be independently verified. In the past, each side has accused the other of starting border skirmishes in the Himalayan region.

India’s cabinet committee on security, headed by Modi, met Wednesday. It was the second such meeting since the attack.

Witness accounts

At least three tourists who survived told The Associated Press that the gunmen singled out Hindu men and shot them from close range. The dead also included a Nepalese citizen and a local Muslim pony ride operator.

Aishanya Dwivedi, whose husband was killed, said a gunman approached the couple and challenged him to recite the Islamic declaration of faith. Her husband replied that he was Hindu, and the attacker shot him “point blank in the head,” she said.

“He was on my lap. I was soaked in his blood,” Dwivedi said.

Saaliq reported from New Delhi. Ahmed reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writer Rajesh Roy in New Delhi contributed to this report.