Summary: National Education Association files suit in Rhode Island federal court ExcEL Educators Leadership Academy lost $6 million in grant funding U.S. Department of Education cited for alleged First Amendment violations     The national teachers’ union is suing the U.S. Department of Education, challenging what it describes as the illegal termination of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants aimed at improving instruction for thousands of English language learners.  The Lawyers’ Committee of Rhode Island, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Education Association, on behalf of its 3 million members, filed suit in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island seeking a court order blocking the termination of the grants.  According to the complaint, the U.S. Department of Education in 2025 halted funding for national professional development grants for programs to support the training and certification of bilingual teachers for English language learners, one of the fastest growing segments of students in the country. The discontinuation notices, including those to a Pawtucket nonprofit, came with little or no warning and were driven by concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.  “The Trump administration terminated these grants to punish Americans for saying things it doesn't want to hear. The combed through grant applications hunting for words it deemed ‘divisive ideology,’ like diversity and equity, and then defunded the programs that used them. That is a textbook First Amendment violation, and it has dismantled teacher-certification pipelines in a dozen states and stripped English learner students of the qualified educators the law guarantees them,” Amy Romero, chief legal counsel of Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island, said in a news release.  The lawsuit alleges violations of the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights to freedom of expression and viewpoint discrimination, as well as violations of the Administrative Procedures Act, which governs decision making for federal agencies.  Pawtucket nonprofit program `dismantled’  The lawsuit was brought on behalf of the NEA and its members; and Laureen Avery, administrator for ExcEL Educators Leadership Academy, a nonprofit organization based in Pawtucket. ExcEL received about $6 million in multi-year grants that were discontinued. The National Professional Development program was created by Congress as part of the No Child Left Behind Act to award competitive grants to address the shortage of bilingual and English as a Second Language teachers.  “For the educators participating in ExcEL, this grant represents far more than a funding stream — it is a pathway to earning the qualifications needed to effectively serve multilingual learners,” Avery, a founder of ExcEL, said in a statement. “The department’s decision disrupts ongoing professional learning and networks, undermines educator preparation efforts, and jeopardizes services that directly benefit students and families.” As a result of the cuts, Avery lost her job, and the coaching network for ESL teachers was dismantled, the lawsuit says. Tina Cheuk, a professor in California whose research for Project BRILLANTE focuses on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math literacy for English language learners, is also a plaintiff. That program received $3.3 million in grants that have been cut off.  The Department of Education and U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon are named defendants. The government has not yet responded in court.  Was `coded language' targeted?  The lawsuit alleges that the federal government ignored its own performance-based regulations and previously established legal criteria for evaluating grant recipients.  They argue that federal education officials instead of relying on data justified terminating the funding by selectively searching for “coded language” associated with DEI in grant applications that had previously been approved.  The Education Department announced it would terminate more than $600 million in grants for what it characterized as “divisive ideologies.”  The loss of grants has led to districts losing their pipeline to ESL teachers, students lost equal education opportunities to work with credentialed educators and teachers lost access to professional training, the lawsuit says.  Reporting by Katie Mulvaney, Providence Journal / The Providence Journal USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Summary: Plaintiffs seek temporary restraining order from Judge Amit Mehta Lawsuit challenges National Park Service and Interior Department approval Event scheduled for trump’s 80th birthday on june 14 A federal judge in Washington has been asked to block President Donald Trump’s plan to host an Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts bout at the White House next week and to halt construction of the metal arena structure ​called "the Claw" on the South Lawn of the iconic executive residence.  Two Washington-area residents in a June 7 court filing asked U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to issue a temporary restraining order halting the event, scheduled to coincide with Trump’s 80th birthday on June 14.  On June 8, Mehta asked the lawyers in the case to propose a schedule to hear the emergency request.  Dubbed “UFC Freedom 250", the event is set to feature fighting inside the 92-foot-tall (28 meters), octagon-shaped cage with weigh-ins at the nearby Lincoln Memorial.  The lawsuit, filed on June 6, alleges that authorization of the program by the National Park Service and Interior Department was unlawful and should be set aside. “This nation’s public monuments should not be loaned out for private exploitation,” the plaintiffs said. In a statement, the White House called the case an “obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory lawsuit” and said the event “is no different than the various other White House-hosted events on the South Lawn and properly permitted events on the Ellipse and National Mall throughout the year.” The lawsuit contends the event violates rules barring sporting events on the South Lawn and at the Lincoln Memorial, and that construction of the large arena structure requires congressional authorization. Trump is facing other lawsuits over construction projects on the White House and elsewhere in the capital, including his plan to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom on the site of the demolished East Wing, and his proposal to renovate and close the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.  Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by David Bario and Bill Berkrot

Summary: Anthropic warns of recursive self-improvement risks Startup calls for coordinated pause among major AI labs Anthropic valued at $965 billion ahead of IPO     Anthropic is calling on major artificial intelligence labs to consider a coordinated and verifiable pause in development, warning that rapid advances in the technology could soon allow AI systems to improve themselves faster than society can manage the risks.  The Claude creator said AI's ability to complete tasks on its own has been doubling roughly every four months and it was headed for "recursive self-improvement", the point at which the technology can improve without human intervention.  "If systems are capable of fully building their own successors, the ways we secure them, monitor them, and shape their behavior all grow much more important," the startup said in a lengthy blog post on Thursday, adding that a pause would allow society to "deal with its immense implications."  "We are not there yet, and recursive self-improvement is not inevitable. But it could come sooner than most institutions are prepared for," Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark and Anthropic Institute lead Marina Favaro wrote in the post.  Fears that advanced AI systems may get out of human control and cause societal harm have risen as the technology becomes increasingly capable. Anthropic's own Mythos model sent shockwaves through industries including banking and software earlier this year with its ability to find vulnerabilities in existing code.  But regulation has been slow, especially in the U.S. where most leading AI labs are based. A Trump administration executive order earlier this week put the onus on the labs themselves, asking them to voluntarily submit their most capable models for government cybersecurity testing before public release.  AI researchers have also urged a pause before but had little success. Elon Musk, who owns AI lab xAI, was among backers of a 2023 push by the non-profit Future of Life Institute to halt AI development for six months to allow time for safety guardrails.  Anthropic has long positioned itself as a safety-focused AI lab. Earlier this year, it refused to let the U.S. military use its models for domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons, prompting backlash from the government which put it on a national security blacklist, set to take effect later in 2026.  Reuters reported on Friday the dispute was showing signs of easing across parts of the U.S. government.  Still, Anthropic has continued to release increasingly powerful models and in February walked back a key safety pledge, saying that it would no longer hold back potentially dangerous AI if rivals were close to matching its capabilities.  It was recently valued at $965 billion in a massive funding round and confidentially filed for a U.S. initial public offering on Monday, putting it ahead of rival OpenAI in both valuation and the race to secure crucial funding.  COORDINATED ACTION  Anthropic's Thursday post cautioned that unilateral or poorly coordinated slowdowns could backfire if less cautious actors continue advancing, potentially reducing overall safety.  It said that a meaningful pause would require agreement among "multiple well-resourced labs" operating at the technological frontier, as well as rules on what conditions would trigger or lift such a pause and who would oversee it.  "A unilateral pause by one lab, by contrast, is achievable immediately, but accomplishes much less: it would change who the front-runner is, but it would not create the wider deliberative process that is currently missing," the startup said.  Its research arm, Anthropic Institute, plans to study systems needed to support a slowdown and in the coming months will convene policymakers, researchers, civil society groups and rival AI firms to discuss managing risks such as recursive self-improvement.  OpenAI, xAI, Alphabet, Meta Platforms and France's Mistral did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether they would join the call.  Reporting by Aditya Soni in Bengaluru and Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Shreya Biswas and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty