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--:-- E. Martinez: The man suspected of fatally shooting two Israeli embassy employees in D.C. has been charged with murder. He could still face additional charges. Police are investigating the killings as a possible hate crime.
--:-- Michelle Martin: I'm E. Martinez with Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- E. Martinez: The Trump administration has opened a new front in its war against Harvard University by revoking the school's ability to sponsor international students. So how are current students affected?
--:-- Michelle Martin: I think this moment is not just about visas. It's about values.
--:-- E. Martinez: And independent agencies like the Federal Reserve are supposed to be insulated from political influence. But the Supreme Court says President Trump is allowed to fire members of those agencies, at least for now.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.
--:-- E. Martinez: This message comes from BetterHelp. President Fernando Madeira describes how BetterHelp Online Therapy has helped him.
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--:-- E. Martinez: To get matched with a therapist, visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR for 10% off your first month.
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--:-- E. Martinez: That's L-E-E-S-A dot com, promo code NPR.
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--:-- E. Martinez: The man suspected of killing two Israeli embassy employees outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C., has been charged with two counts of murder, among other crimes. Law enforcement officials say they're continuing to investigate the attack as a possible hate crime.
--:-- NPR's Jennifer Ludden: I'm NPR's Jennifer Ludden, and I'm here with the latest.
--:-- E. Martinez: Jennifer, good morning.
--:-- Jennifer Ludden: Good morning. I understand that we now have a lot more information on what exactly happened.
--:-- E. Martinez: Yes, we do. We know now from the affidavit that the suspect, Elias Rodriguez, flew from his home in Chicago to Washington, D.C. on Tuesday. That's the day before the attack.
--:-- Jennifer Ludden: That's right. He declared a firearm in his checked luggage and he bought a ticket to the event that was taking place at this Jewish museum three hours before it started. It was a mixer for young diplomats.
--:-- E. Martinez: From witness interviews and surveillance video, we also have some pretty gruesome details of the shooting.
--:-- Jennifer Ludden: Law enforcement officials say Rodriguez shot at the two victims from the back and kept firing repeatedly, even as one of them tried to crawl away.
--:-- E. Martinez: He then discarded his 9mm handgun, and eventually he went inside the museum and told a police officer that he had done this, saying, quote, I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.
--:-- Jennifer Ludden: Yeah, and the Washington Post is also reporting that the gunman sat down indoors after the shooting as though he was fleeing the danger. A witness told The Post that somebody even got him a glass of water.
--:-- E. Martinez: So President Trump and others have called this an act of anti-Semitism. But is it correct that so far he has not been charged with a hate crime?
--:-- Jennifer Ludden: That's right. Not at this point. But Jeanine Pirro, the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, told reporters that the murder charges and others are only the beginning.
--:-- E. Martinez: Federal agents raided Rodriguez's home in Chicago yesterday. They learned that he expressed admiration for a person who self-in front of the Israeli embassy here in D.C. last year. He described them as a martyr.
--:-- Jennifer Ludden: And Pirro says investigators are going through massive amounts of evidence to learn what motivated him.
--:-- E. Martinez: Violence against anyone based on their religion is an act of cowardice. It is not an act of a hero. It is the kind of case that we will vigorously pursue.
--:-- Jennifer Ludden: And she says, look, there's going to be additional charges as the evidence warrants.
--:-- E. Martinez: Tell us more about the two people who were killed. They were a young couple. They both worked at the Israeli embassy. What else can you tell us about them?
--:-- Jennifer Ludden: It's really quite sad, Michelle. Israel's ambassador to the U.S. said Kiron Lajinsky had bought an engagement ring. He was planning to propose to Sarah Milgram next week.
--:-- E. Martinez: They were going to be on a trip to Jerusalem. Lajinsky was a German and Israeli citizen. Milgram was American. She grew up in a Kansas City suburb.
--:-- Jennifer Ludden: A friend of Milgram's, Israeli attorney Ayelet Rezin Bedor, told me she took the embassy job after Hamas attacked Israel a year and a half ago.
--:-- E. Martinez: She was already sensing a rise in anti-Semitism and she wanted to combat that. Not with violence or shoutings or verbal abuse, but in diplomacy, with love, with intelligence.
--:-- Jennifer Ludden: Razine Batur says it is a painful irony that Milgram lost her life in this way.
--:-- E. Martinez: Finally, Jennifer, very briefly, obviously something like this heightens people's fears, obviously for many Jewish people, but others as well. Are officials saying something about that?
--:-- Jennifer Ludden: Absolutely. D.C.'s police chief says there's going to be more law enforcement officers around faith-based groups, schools, and places like the Jewish Community Center here.
--:-- E. Martinez: That is NPR's Jennifer Ludden. Jennifer, thank you.
--:-- Jennifer Ludden: Thank you.
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--:-- E. Martinez: Harvard University has sued the Trump administration for a second time. This comes less than 24 hours after the Department of Homeland Security revoked Harvard University's ability to enroll international students.
--:-- NPR's Alyssa Nadworny: I'm NPR's Alyssa Nadworny, and I'm here with the story.
--:-- E. Martinez: Alyssa, so what exactly did the Trump administration do?
--:-- Alyssa Nadworny: So on Thursday, Kristi Noem, the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, sent a letter to Harvard saying the administration is terminating Harvard's student exchange certification, which means the school can no longer sponsor student visas.
--:-- E. Martinez: That prevents Harvard from enrolling new students and pulls the rug out from under currently enrolled students.
--:-- Alyssa Nadworny: In a statement, Noem says the administration is holding Harvard accountable for, quote, fostering violence and anti-Semitism and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.
--:-- E. Martinez: She encouraged current students to transfer.
--:-- Alyssa Nadworny: Okay, and then Harvard's response? So they were swift in filing a new lawsuit.
--:-- E. Martinez: In it, they accused the Trump administration of retaliating against Harvard for exercising its First Amendment rights.
--:-- Alyssa Nadworny: In a letter to campus, Harvard's president, Alan Garber, called the action unwarranted and said it imperils the future of thousands of scholars.
--:-- E. Martinez: Harvard is already suing the Trump administration over research funding cuts related to accusations of anti-Semitism on campus. That trial is set to start in July.
--:-- Alyssa Nadworny: So what kind of an impact do you think this might have on Harvard and its student body?
--:-- E. Martinez: Well, the university has nearly 7,000 international students, roughly one-fourth of the student body.
--:-- Alyssa Nadworny: We spoke to several of them. One senior from Canada told us she's worried about whether she'll be able to graduate next week.
--:-- E. Martinez: The students we talked to asked not to be named because they fear retaliation from the U.S. government for speaking out.
--:-- Alyssa Nadworny: Another student at Harvard, a third-year undergrad from Europe, told us he came to the U.S. to study to be a professor.
--:-- E. Martinez: I'm very close to graduation. I thought, you know, dang it, if this is the reason that I'm not going to be able to graduate, like I really have no idea what I would do if I were to get deported or if I were unable to re-enroll in September here at Harvard.
--:-- Alyssa Nadworny: Might this move Alyssa have implications beyond Harvard?
--:-- E. Martinez: It could. I talked with Sean Carver about this. He's the executive director at International House at UC Berkeley.
--:-- Alyssa Nadworny: I think Harvard is the canary in the coal mine as the administration kind of uses them to test what they can and cannot do to influence public and private institutions.
--:-- E. Martinez: So it could just be that the administration is having a spat with Harvard, but Carver says other institutions are fearful.
--:-- Alyssa Nadworny: This isn't the first time that international students have been a target of the administration. Earlier this semester, the government revoked hundreds of student visas, but then reversed that decision.
--:-- E. Martinez: I've been doing this for over 20 years, and this is probably the most difficult time for international students.
--:-- Alyssa Nadworny: You know, more than a million international students study at U.S. colleges and universities.
--:-- E. Martinez: And Carver says international student applications are way down.
--:-- Alyssa Nadworny: And he says it's likely because students are looking at Europe, Asia, and Canada for college.
--:-- E. Martinez: And that could ultimately have a big impact on the U.S. economy. One report found last year international students contributed more than $43 billion.
--:-- Alyssa Nadworny: That's NPR's Alyssa Nadworny. Thanks a lot.
--:-- Alyssa Nadworny: You bet.
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--:-- E. Martinez: In a 6-3 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court said President Trump can fire two members of independent agencies for now.
--:-- NPR's Andrea Hsu: I'm NPR's Andrea Hsu, and I'm here to explain.
--:-- E. Martinez: Andrea, good morning.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: Good morning. Could you just start by telling us who are these officials that Trump fired?
--:-- E. Martinez: Yeah, so Gwen Wilcox was a member of the National Labor Relations Board. And Kathy Harris sat on the Merit Systems Protection Board.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: That's the board that hears federal employee complaints. And they both sued, saying Trump did not have the authority to fire them.
--:-- E. Martinez: In fact, in creating their agencies, Congress wrote into law that members can only be fired for cause like neglect of duty or malfeasance.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: But the Trump administration has been arguing that those restrictions on the president violate the Constitution.
--:-- E. Martinez: So that's the fight that's been playing out in the lower courts.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: And what have the lower courts said? Well, there's already been a lot of ping-ponging back and forth, Michelle.
--:-- E. Martinez: Initially, two judges found Wilcox and Harris's firings not only violated the law, but also ignored Supreme Court precedent.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: A case called Humphrey's Executor from 90 years ago. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Congress could limit the president's power to remove members of independent agencies.
--:-- E. Martinez: And so Wilcox and Harris actually went back to work for a while.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: But the government appealed, there was some back and forth. And last month, Chief Justice John Roberts stepped in and allowed Trump to remove Wilcox and Harris again.
--:-- E. Martinez: And now the entire Supreme Court has weighed in.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: Yeah. Yesterday, a majority of justices said they think Trump does have the authority to fire Wilcox and Harris, for now anyway.
--:-- E. Martinez: They wrote that the Constitution gives the president the power to fire at will those officials who help him carry out his duties, with only narrow exceptions.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: And they said Wilcox and Harris probably don't qualify for those exceptions.
--:-- E. Martinez: Okay, so tell me more about this probably. Does that mean that this is not necessarily a definitive ruling?
--:-- Andrea Hsu: That's right. It's a stay while the appeals court weighs the merits of the case.
--:-- E. Martinez: To be clear, the Supreme Court hasn't yet heard arguments of this case.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: This order came out of what's known as the emergency docket, which conservatives have increasingly relied on to get quick decisions without a hearing.
--:-- E. Martinez: And this is something that liberal justice Elena Kagan brought up in her dissent.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: She wrote, our emergency docket, well fit for some things, should not be used to overrule or revise existing law, meaning Humphrey's Executor.
--:-- E. Martinez: She said what's at stake here is not just someone's job, it's this very idea that Congress embraced when it created independent agencies, that if their members are insulated from political pressure, that they will make sound judgments that benefit the public good.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: Now, in recent years, the court has been chipping away at this idea, and at Humphrey's Executor, but in yesterday's decision, the conservative majority did carve out an exception for one independent agency, the Federal Reserve.
--:-- E. Martinez: Okay, so what did they say about the Fed?
--:-- Andrea Hsu: Wilcox and Harris had warned that if the court finds that Trump can fire them that nothing can stop him from firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
--:-- E. Martinez: And in fact, Trump did threaten to fire Powell, which tanked the markets.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: Later, he pulled back and said he had no intention of firing Powell.
--:-- E. Martinez: In any event, the conservative majority disagreed with the notion that their order would affect the Fed.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: They wrote that the Fed is a uniquely structured quasi-private entity with a distinct historical tradition.
--:-- E. Martinez: Kagan scoffed at this in her dissent, and she maintained that the Fed's independence rests on the same foundation as other independent agencies.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: Now, again, this is not, yesterday's order is not the final word, but it does give us a pretty good sense of how the justices could rule, if and more likely when they hear arguments in this case.
--:-- E. Martinez: That is NPR's Andrea Hsu. Andrea, thank you.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: You're welcome.
--:-- [Theme music fades back in]
--:-- E. Martinez: And finally, last night, President Trump dined with more than 200 investors into the Trump meme coin, the president's personal cryptocurrency venture.
--:-- NPR's A Martinez: I'm A Martinez, and I'm here to tell you more.
--:-- E. Martinez: The Associated Press reports that at the dinner, hosted at Trump's golf resort in Virginia, the coin's top 25 investors were invited to a private reception with Trump, raising questions about the president's commingling his business interests with his public office.
--:-- NPR's A Martinez: The White House said the president attended the event in his personal time.
--:-- E. Martinez: While there, he stood at a lectern emblazoned with a presidential seal. No media were allowed access.
--:-- NPR's A Martinez: A lot has changed in higher education since President Trump took office. Students have come to me and just, they feel really scared.
--:-- E. Martinez: Everything that's been going on has kind of changed my life plans.
--:-- NPR's A Martinez: This Sunday on Up First, how members of the class of 2025 are feeling about the state of higher education and their own futures.
--:-- E. Martinez: Listen to the Sunday story right here on NPR's Up First podcast.
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--:-- E. Martinez: And that's Up First for Friday, May 23rd. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm E. Martinez.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And just a quick reminder that Up First airs on Saturdays, too. Aisha Roscoe and Scott Simon will have the news wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- E. Martinez: Today's episode of Up First was edited by Krishna Dev Kalamur, Nicole Cohen, Russell Lewis, Ali Schweitzer, and Alice Wolfley.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It was produced by Zian Butch, Nia Dumas, and Ana Perez.
--:-- E. Martinez: We get engineering support from Zach Coleman in Washington, D.C., and Josh Savageau at NPR in St. Paul.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And a big thank you to Jeff Jones and all of our colleagues at NPR for their support this week.
--:-- E. Martinez: Our technical director is Carly Strange, and our executive producer is Jay Shaler.
--:-- Michelle Martin: We hope you'll join us again Monday.
--:-- E. Martinez: This message comes from NetSuite. What does the future hold for business? Can someone invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 42,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one AI cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform.
--:-- Michelle Martin: With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities.
--:-- E. Martinez: Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash story.
--:-- Michelle Martin: This message comes from NPR sponsor Rosetta Stone, an expert in language learning for 30 years.
--:-- E. Martinez: Right now, NPR listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership to 25 different languages for 50% off.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Learn more at rosettastone.com slash NPR.
--:-- E. Martinez: This message comes from the Hartford. Every day, they make business insurance easy, or easier anyway.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And when it comes to business insurance for midsize and large businesses, they know just how complex it can be.
--:-- E. Martinez: And businesses rely on them to make the complex challenges less so.
--:-- Michelle Martin: That's why at each step, from quotes to claims to everything in between, the Hartford is devoted to making it easier.
--:-- E. Martinez: Connect with your underwriter at the Hartford or visit thehartford.com.
--:-- Michelle Martin: That's all for today.
