Exit polls in Poland’s presidential runoff Sunday showed the two candidates in a statistical tie with the race still too close to call in the deeply divided nation. The results could set the course for the nation’s political future and its relations with the European Union.

A first exit poll showed liberal Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski with a slight lead over conservative historian Karol Nawrocki, but two hours later an updated “late poll” showed Nawrocki winning 50.7%, more than Trzaskowski with 49.3%

Though the final result was still unclear with the two locked in a near dead heat, both men claimed to have won in meetings with their supporters in Warsaw.

“We won,” Trzaskowski told his supporters to chants of “Rafał, Rafał.”

“This is truly a special moment in Poland’s history. I am convinced that it will allow us to move forward and focus on the future,” Trzaskowski said. “I will be your president.”

Nawrocki, speaking to his supporters at a separate event in Warsaw, said he believed he was on track to win. “We will win and save Poland,” he said. “We must win tonight.”

The decisive presidential runoff pitted Trzaskowski, a liberal pro-EU politician, against Nawrocki, a conservative historian backed by the right-wing Law and Justice party and aligned with U.S. conservatives, including President Donald Trump.

The fact that it was so close underlined how deep the social divisions have become in Poland.

The outcome will determine whether Poland takes a more nationalist path or pivots more decisively toward liberal democratic norms. With conservative President Andrzej Duda completing his second and final term, the new president will have significant influence over whether Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist government can fulfill its agenda, given the presidential power to veto laws.

“We will not allow Donald Tusk’s grip on power to be completed,” Nawrocki said.

The runoff follows a tightly contested first round of voting on May 18, in which Trzaskowski won just over 31% and Nawrocki nearly 30%, eliminating 11 other candidates.

Katarzyna Malek, a 29-year-old voter in Warsaw, cast her ballot in the first round for a left-wing candidate but went for Trzaskowski on Sunday, viewing him as more competent and more likely to pursue stronger ties with foreign partners and lower social tensions.

The campaign has highlighted stark ideological divides. Trzaskowski, 53, has promised to restore judicial independence, ease abortion restrictions and promote constructive ties with European partners. Nawrocki, 42, has positioned himself as a defender of traditional Polish values and skeptical of the EU.

Months of a political drama in South Korea is drawing to a close with the country poised to elect a new president this week to succeed Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative leader who was toppled over his ill-fated imposition of martial law.

Surveys show liberal Lee Jae-myung maintaining a solid lead over his main conservative rival Kim Moon Soo, who wants an upset victory. Whoever wins, the new president will forgo the usual two-month transition and serve one full, five-year term at a time when South Korea faces crucial challenges including a severe left-right political divide, the Trump administration’s tariff policy and North Korea’s expanding military partnership with Russia.

Here is a look at the two main candidates standing for the June 3 election:

LEE JAE-MYUNG

Lee, 60, the Democratic Party candidate, was the driving force behind an opposition-led campaign to oust Yoon, whose Dec. 3 marital law decree plunged South Korea into turmoil.

Lee said he initially thought Yoon’s late-night televised marital law announcement was a digital deepfake when his wife told him of the news. After realizing it was real, Lee, then the party’s chairman, ordered all his party lawmakers to rush to the National Assembly to vote down Yoon’s decree. He then livestreamed his moves to the assembly, urging the public to gather there to protest Yoon’s action.

Lee previously served as governor of South Korea’s most populous Gyeonggi province and mayor of Seongnam city, near Seoul. He has portrayed himself as “an able captain” who can revitalize the economy, heal a worsened domestic division and bring back peace with North Korea.

“If you give me a chance to work as president, I will clearly prove how big change one official — the person in charge — can bring,” Lee told a crowd in his first official campaign speech on May 12.

Once a political outsider, Lee rose sharply in politics from his position as mayor after fiery speeches critical of conservative President Park Geun-hye over a 2016-17 corruption scandal that went viral.

Supporting his popularity was his self-built success story: Poverty forced him to quit school and work as a child laborer at factories where he suffered injuries that left him with an arm disability. He later passed the country’s highly exhaustive bar exam and became a human rights lawyer.

Lee has since tried to establish an image as someone who can fix deep-rooted inequality and corruption. But many conservative critics view him as a dangerous populist who intensifies divisions for political gains and backpedals on promises too easily.


KIM MOON SOO

Kim, 73, a hardline conservative who served as Yoon’s labor minister, initially was considered past his political prime.

He suddenly emerged as a potential standard-bearer of the embattled South Korean conservatives after he solely defied a request by a Democratic Party lawmaker for all Cabinet members to stand and bow at the assembly in a gesture of apology over Yoon’s decree.

Kim won the People Power Party’s nomination in early May. He quickly faced an attempt by party leaders to replace him with Han Duck-soo, a former prime minister and independent who was more popular in polls. In a dramatic shift, Kim eventually retained his candidacy after party members voted in his favor.

In a televised party meeting afterward, Kim knelt, apologized for the infighting and vowed to promote internal unity.

“From today, we are one team. Let’s fight together and win together,” he said.

Kim has said he would build a greater missile defense system and win a stronger U.S. security commitment to cope with North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats. He vowed to reform anti-business regulations and reduce corporate and inheritance taxes.

Kim was a prominent labor and pro-democracy activist in the 1970 and ‘80s, when South Korea was ruled by military-backed leaders. He was expelled from Seoul National University, the country’s top school, worked at factories to promote labor rights and spent 2 1/2 years in prison for his anti-government activities.

Kim switched his ideology in 1994 and joined a conservative party, drawing rebukes from fellow activists who denounced him as a traitor. Kim has said he abandoned his dream to become “a revolutionist” after observing the collapses of communist states.

He served as Gyeonggi province governor for eight years and a member of the National Assembly for three terms. His political career suffered major setbacks when he successively lost parliamentary and Seoul mayoral elections to the liberals. He was named labor minister in 2024.

In a recent campaign appearance, Kim lauded late authoritarian President Park Chung-hee, father of Park Geun-hye, as a great leader who lifted the country out of poverty and apologized for his past fight against him. Park is a divisive figure because he engineered the country’s past rapid economic rise but suppressed dissidents.

The agency tasked with carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign is undergoing a major staff reorganization.

In a news release Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced leadership changes at the department tasked with finding, arresting and removing immigrants who no longer have the right to be in the country as well as at the agency’s investigative division.

Kenneth Genalo, who had been the acting director of Enforcement and Removal Operations, is retiring and will serve as a special government employee with ICE. Robert Hammer, who has been the acting head of Homeland Security Investigations, will transition to another leadership role at headquarters.

The agency said Marcos Charles will become the new acting head of ERO while Derek Gordon will be the acting head at HSI. ICE also announced a host of other staff changes at various departments within the agency.

ICE said the changes would “help ICE achieve President Trump and the American people’s mandate of arresting and deporting criminal illegal aliens and making American communities safe.”

The news comes after White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said on Fox News earlier this week that the administration was setting a goal of 3,000 arrests by ICE each day and that the number could go higher.

“President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day,” said Miller.

Three thousand arrests per day would mark a huge increase in daily arrests from current figures. Between Jan. 20 and May 19 the agency arrested 78,155 people, which translates to an average of 656 arrests per day.

This is the latest staff shakeup at an agency that is central to Trump’s vision of removing everyone in the country illegally. In February, the acting director of ICE was reassigned as well as two other top ICE officials.

Carrying out deportations, especially in high numbers, poses logistical challenges.

There are a limited number of enforcement and removal officers — those tasked with tracking down, arresting and removing people in the country illegally — and the number of officers has remained stagnant for years. ICE also has a limited number of detention beds to hold people once arrested and a limited number of planes to remove them from the country.

But the administration is pushing for a major funding boost as part of a package in Congress that could supercharge immigration enforcement. The plan would aim to fund the removal of 1 million immigrants annually and house 100,000 people in detention centers. The plan also calls for 10,000 more ICE officers and investigators.

Financial markets welcomed a U.S. court ruling that blocks President Donald Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs on imports under an emergency-powers law.

U.S. futures jumped early Thursday and oil prices rose more than $1. The U.S. dollar rose against the yen and euro.

The court found the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which Trump has cited as his basis for ordering massive increases in import duties, does not authorize the use of tariffs.

The White House immediately appealed and it was unclear if Trump would abide by the ruling in the interim. The long term outcome of legal disputes over tariffs remains uncertain. But investors appeared to take heart after the months of turmoil brought on by Trump's trade war.

The future for the S&P 500 was up 1.5% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.2%.

In early European trading, Germany's DAX gained 0.5% to 24,160.75. The CAC 40 in Paris jumped 0.9% to 7,860.67. Britain's FTSE was nearly unchanged at 8,722.63.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index jumped 1.9% to 38,432.98. American's largest ally in Asia has been appealing to Trump to cancel the tariffs he has ordered on imports from Japan and to also stop 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection technician examines overseas parcels after they were scanned at the agency's overseas mail inspection facility at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on Feb. 23, 2024.

The ruling also pushed the dollar sharply higher against the Japanese yen. It was trading at 145.40 yen early Thursday, up from 144.87 yen late Wednesday.

A three-judge panel ruled on several lawsuits arguing Trump exceeded his authority, casting doubt on trade policies that have jolted global financial markets, frustrated trade partners and raised uncertainty over the outlook for inflation and the global economy.

Many of Trump's double-digit tariff hikes are paused for up to 90 days to allow time for trade negotiations, but the uncertainty they cast over global commerce has stymied businesses and left consumers wary about what lies ahead.

"Just when traders thought they'd seen every twist in the tariff saga, the gavel dropped like a lightning bolt over the Pacific," Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

The ruling was, at the least, "a brief respite before the next thunderclap," he said.

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 1.3% to 23,561.86, while the Shanghai Composite index gained 0.7% to 3,363.45.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.2% to 8,409.80.

In South Korea, which like Japan relies heavily on exports to the U.S., the Kospi surged 1.9% to 2,720.64. Shares also were helped by the Bank of Korea's decision to cut its key interest rate to 2.5% from 2.75%, to ease pressure on the economy.
Taiwan's Taiex edged 0.1% lower, and India's Sensex lost 0.2%.

On Wednesday, U.S. stocks cooled, with the S&P 500 down 0.6% but still within 4.2% of its record after charging higher amid hopes that the worst of the turmoil caused by Trump's trade war may have passed. It had been roughly 20% below the mark last month.

The Dow industrials lost 0.6% and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.5%.

Trading was relatively quiet ahead of a quarterly earnings release for Nvidia, which came after markets closed.

The bellwether for artificial intelligence overcame a wave of tariff-driven turbulence to deliver another quarter of robust growth thanks to feverish demand for its high-powered chips that are making computers seem more human. Nvidia's shares jumped 6.6% in afterhours trading.

Like Nvidia, Macy's stock also swung up and down through much of the day, even though it reported milder drops in revenue and profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Its stock ended the day down 0.3%.

The bond market showed relatively little reaction after the Federal Reserve released the minutes from its latest meeting earlier this month, when it left its benchmark lending rate alone for the third straight time. The central bank has been holding off on cuts to interest rates, which would give the economy a boost, amid worries about inflation staying higher than hoped because of Trump's sweeping tariffs.

The State Department has halted the scheduling of new visa interviews for foreign students hoping to study in the U.S. while it prepares to expand the screening of their activity on social media, officials said.

A U.S. official said Tuesday the suspension is intended to be temporary and does not apply to applicants who already had scheduled their visa interviews. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an internal administration document.

A cable signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and obtained by The Associated Press says the State Department plans to issue guidance on expanded social media vetting.

“Effective immediately, in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting, consulate sections should not add any additional student or exchange visitor visa appointment capacity” until the guidance is issued, the cable says.

Asked about the suspension at a briefing Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the U.S. uses every available resource to vet people applying for visas.

“We will continue to use every tool we can to assess who it is that’s coming here, whether they are students or otherwise,” Bruce said. The move, first reported by Politico, is the latest in the Trump administration’s crackdown on international students.

Last week, the Trump administration revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, removing the college from the program that allows schools to sponsor foreign students for visas. That effort was quickly challenged in court and for now is blocked by a federal judge.

This spring the administration also revoked the legal status of thousands of international students already in the country, leading some to leave the U.S. out of fear of deportation. After many students filed successful legal challenges, the administration said it was restoring the students’ legal status. But the government also expanded the grounds for terminating international students’ legal status going forward.

President Donald Trump’s previous administration stepped up scrutiny of all visa applicants, introducing reviews of their social media accounts. The policy remained during President Joe Biden’s administration.

An extended pause in scheduling student visas could lead to delays that may disrupt college, boarding-school or exchange students’ plans to enroll in summer and fall terms. A downturn in enrollment of international students could hurt university budgets. To make up for cuts in federal research funding, some colleges shifted to enrolling more international students, who often pay full tuition.

An appeals court has cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at ending collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of federal employees while a lawsuit plays out.

The Friday ruling came after the Trump administration asked for an emergency pause on a judge’s order blocking enforcement at roughly three dozen agencies and departments.

A split three-judge panel in the nation’s capital sided with government lawyers in a lawsuit filed by unions representing federal employees. The majority ruled on technical grounds, finding that the unions don’t have the legal right to sue because the Trump administration has said it won’t end any collective bargaining agreements while the case is being litigated.

Judge Karen Henderson, appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush, and Justin Walker, appointed by Trump, sided with the government, while Judge Michelle Childs, appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, dissented.

The government says Trump needs the executive order so his administration can cut the federal workforce to ensure strong national security. The law requiring collective bargaining creates exemptions for work related to national security, as in agencies like the FBI.

Union leaders argue the order is designed to facilitate mass firings and exact “political vengeance” against federal unions opposed to Trump’s efforts to dramatically downsize the federal government.

His order seeks to expand that exemption to exclude more workers than any other president has before. That’s according to the National Treasury Employees Union, which is suing to block the order.

The administration has filed in a Kentucky court to terminate the collective bargaining agreement for the Internal Revenue Service, where many workers are represented by the National Treasury Employees Union. They say their IRS members aren’t doing national security work.

Other union employees affected by the order include the Health and Human Services Department, the Energy Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Communications Commission.

Immigration officials said Tomás Hernández worked in high-level posts for Cuba’s foreign intelligence agency for decades before migrating to the United States to pursue the American dream.

The 71-year-old was detained by federal agents outside his Miami-area home in March and accused of hiding his ties to Cuba’s Communist Party when he obtained permanent residency.

Cuban-Americans in South Florida have long clamored for a firmer hand with Havana and the recent apprehensions of Hernández and several other former Cuban officials for deportation have been extremely popular among the politically powerful exile community.

“It’s a political gift to Cuban-American hardliners,” said Eduardo Gamarra, a Latin American expert at Florida International University. But many Cubans fear they could be next on Trump’s list, he said, and “some in the community see it as a betrayal.”

While President Donald Trump’s mass deportation pledge has frightened migrants from many nations, it has come as something of a shock to the 2.4 million Cuban-Americans, who strongly backed the Republican twice and have long enjoyed a place of privilege in the U.S. immigration system.

Amid record arrivals of migrants from the Caribbean island, Trump in March revoked temporary humanitarian parole for about 300,000 Cubans. Many have been detained ahead of possible deportation.

Among those facing deportation is a pro-Trump Cuban rapper behind a hit song “Patria y Vida” — “Homeland and Life” — that became the unofficial anthem of anti-communist protests on the island in 2021 and drew praise from the likes of then Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State. Eliéxer Márquez, who raps under the name El Funky, said he received notice this month that he had 30 days to leave the U.S.

Thanks to Cold War laws aimed at removing Fidel Castro, Cuban migrants for many decades enjoyed almost automatic refugee status in the U.S. and could obtain green cards a year after entry, unlike migrants from virtually every other country.

Support for Trump among likely Cuban-American voters in Miami was at an all-time high on the eve of last year’s election, according to a poll by Florida International University, which has been tracking the Cuban-American community since 1991. Trump rarely mentions Cubans in his attacks on migrant targets including Venezuelans and Haitians. That has given many Cubans hope that they will remain immune to immigration enforcement actions.

Democrats, meanwhile, have been trying to turn the immigration crackdown to their advantage. In April, grassroots groups erected two giant billboards on Miami highways calling Rubio and Republican Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart, María Elvira Salazar and Carlos Giménez “traitors” to the Cuban-American community for failing to protect tens of thousands of migrants from Trump’s immigration policies.

In March, Giménez sent Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a letter with the names of 108 people he said were former Cuban state agents or Communist Party officials living unlawfully in the U.S.

“It is imperative that the Department of Homeland Security enforce existing U.S. laws to identify, deport and repatriate these individuals who pose a direct threat to our national security, the integrity of our immigration system and the safety of Cuban exiles and American citizens alike,” Giménez wrote, adding that the U.S. remains a “beacon of hope and freedom for those escaping tyranny.”

Giménez’s target list was compiled by Luis Dominguez, who left Cuba in 1971 and has made it his mission to topple Cuba’s government. In 2009, when the internet was still a novelty in Cuba, Dominguez said he posed as a 27-year-old female sports journalist from Colombia to lure Castro’s son Antonio into an online romance.

With support from the right-wing Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, he started combing social media and relying on a well-oiled network of anti-socialist sources, inside Cuba and outside the country, to dox officials allegedly behind human rights abuses and violations of democratic norms. To date, his website, Represores Cubanos — Cuban Repressors — has identified more than 1,200 such state agents, some 150 in the United States.

“They’re chasing the American dream, but previously they condemned it while pursuing the Cuban dream,” Dominguez said. “It’s the typical double life of any Communist regime. When they were in power they criticized anything about the U.S. But now that they’re here, they love it.”

Dominguez, 62, said he regularly shares his findings with federal law enforcement but a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t comment on the agency’s relationship with the activist.

Enrique Garcia, a former colleague, said he studied with Hernández in the former Soviet Union in the 1970s. Upon their return, Hernández was sent to work in the spy agency’s elite “North America” department, said Garcia.

Garcia, who defected to the U.S. in the 1990s and has devoted himself to helping American spy catchers unmask Cuban agents, said one-time Cuban agents have infiltrated the current migration wave while hiding their past and even current loyalties to the Cuban government.

President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to allow him to resume his downsizing of the federal workforce, while a lawsuit filed by labor unions and cities proceeds.

The Justice Department is challenging an order issued last week by a federal judge in San Francisco that temporarily halted Trump’s efforts to shrink a federal government he calls bloated and expensive.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston’s temporary restraining order questioned whether Trump’s Republican administration was acting lawfully in trying to pare the federal workforce.

Illston, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, directed numerous federal agencies to stop acting on Trump’s workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by the Department of Government Efficiency and the Office of Personnel Management.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the court to quickly put the ruling on hold, telling the justices that Illston overstepped her authority.

Illston’s order expires next week, unless extended.

The case is the latest in a string of emergency appeals the Trump administration has made to the Supreme Court, including some related to firings. The administration separately has filed an emergency appeal with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which has yet to act.

Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, have left their jobs via deferred resignation programs or have been placed on leave as a result of Trump’s government-shrinking efforts. There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took deferred resignation, and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go.

In her order, Illston gave several examples to show the impact of the downsizing. One union that represents federal workers who research health hazards faced by mine workers said it was poised to lose 221 of 222 workers in the Pittsburgh office; a Vermont farmer didn’t receive a timely inspection on his property to receive disaster aid after flooding and missed an important planting window; a reduction in Social Security Administration workers has led to longer wait times for recipients.

Among the agencies affected by the temporary restraining order are the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Labor, the Interior, State, the Treasury and Veterans Affairs. It also applies to the National Science Foundation, Small Business Association, Social Security Administration and Environmental Protection Agency.

Plaintiffs include the cities of San Francisco, Chicago and Baltimore; the labor group American Federation of Government Employees; and the nonprofit groups Alliance for Retired Americans, Center for Taxpayer Rights and Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.

Some of the labor unions and nonprofit groups are also plaintiffs in another lawsuit before a San Francisco judge challenging the mass firings of probationary workers. In that case, Judge William Alsup ordered the government in March to reinstate those workers, but the U.S. Supreme Court later blocked his order.

The Trump administration granted Syria sweeping exemptions from sanctions Friday in a big first step toward fulfilling the president’s pledge to lift a half-century of penalties on a country shattered by 13 years of civil war.

While broad, the administration’s actions could possibly be reversed. Syrians say they need permanent relief to secure the tens of billions of dollars in investment needed to rebuild after a conflict that fragmented the country, displaced or killed millions of people, and left behind thousands of foreign fighters.

A measure by the State Department waived for six months a tough set of sanctions imposed by Congress in 2019. A Treasury Department action suspended enforcement of sanctions against anyone doing business with a range of Syrian individuals and entities, including Syria’s central bank.

Syria is now led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, a former militia commander who helped drive longtime autocratic leader Bashar Assad from power late last year.

President Donald Trump announced last week that the U.S. would roll back the heavy financial penalties in a bid to give the interim government a better chance of survival.

The Trump administration said businesses and investors are getting the protection against sanctions they need to come back to Syria, calling it “the opportunity for a fresh start.”

“The only other option was Syria becoming a failed state and civil war,” said Mouaz Moustafa, a Syrian American advocate who had campaigned for quick, broad relief. “Now there is hope for a future democratic Syria.”

The congressional sanctions, known as the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, had aimed to isolate Syria’s previous rulers by effectively expelling those doing business with them from the global financial system. They specifically block postwar reconstruction, so while they can be waived for 180 days by executive order, investors are likely to be wary of reconstruction projects when sanctions could be reinstated after six months.

The Trump administration said Friday’s actions were “just one part of a broader U.S. government effort to remove the full architecture of sanctions.” Those penalties had been imposed on the Assad family for their support of Iranian-backed militias, their chemical weapons program and abuses of civilians.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Friday that in return for sanctions relief, Trump expects “prompt action by the Syrian government on important policy priorities.”

Al-Sharaa’s own past has fueled doubts. The group that he led, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, was originally affiliated with al-Qaida, although it later renounced ties and took a more moderate tone. It is still listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization.

But if al-Sharaa’s government fails, the U.S. and others fear renewed conflict in Syria and a power vacuum that could allow a resurgence of the Islamic State and other extremist groups.

“If we engage them, it may work out, it may not work out. If we do not engage them, it was guaranteed to not work out,” Rubio told lawmakers this week. Trump met al-Sharaa last week in Saudi Arabia, a day after announcing his intention to lift the sanctions: “We’re taking them all off. Good luck, Syria. Show us something special.”

Rubio said sanctions relief must start quickly because Syria’s transition government could be weeks from “collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions.”

But asked by lawmakers this week what sanctions relief should look like overall, Rubio gave a one-word explanation: “Incremental.” While some sanctions can be quickly waived through executive actions like those taken Friday, Congress would have to permanently remove the penalties it imposed.

A proposal circulated among administration officials this week broadly emphasized taking all action possible, as fast as possible, according to U.S. officials familiar with the plan who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Last week, a State Department proposal laid out a three-phase road map with temporary, partial relief initially and setting sweeping conditions for Syrians to meet for any future phases of relief or permanent lifting of sanctions, one of the officials said.

The Supreme Court on Thursday effectively ended a publicly funded Catholic charter school in Oklahoma, dividing 4-4.

The outcome keeps in place an Oklahoma court decision that invalidated a vote by a state charter school board to approve the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would have been the nation’s first religious charter school. But it leaves the issue unresolved nationally.

The one-sentence notice from the court provides an unsatisfying end to one of the term’s most closely watched cases. The Catholic Church in Oklahoma had wanted taxpayers to fund the online charter school “faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ.” Opponents warned that allowing it would blur the separation between church and state, sap money from public schools and possibly upend the rules governing charter schools in almost every state.

Only eight of the nine justices took part in the case. Justice Amy Coney Barrett didn’t explain her absence, but she is good friends and used to teach with Notre Dame law professor Nicole Garnett, who has been an adviser to the school.

The issue could return to the high court in the future, with the prospect that all nine justices could participate. The court, following its custom, did not provide a breakdown of the votes. But during arguments last month, four conservative justices seemed likely to side with the school, while the three liberals seemed just as firmly on the other side.

That left Chief Justice John Roberts appearing to hold the key vote, and suggests he went with the liberals to make the outcome 4-4.  The case came to the court amid efforts, mainly in conservative-led states, to insert religion into public schools. Those include a challenged Louisiana requirement that the Ten Commandments be posted in classrooms and a mandate from Oklahoma’s state schools superintendent that the Bible be placed in public school classrooms.

St. Isidore, a K-12 online school, had planned to start classes for its first 200 enrollees last fall, with part of its mission to evangelize its students in the Catholic faith.

A key unresolved issue is whether the school is public or private. Charter schools are deemed public in Oklahoma and the other 45 states and the District of Columbia where they operate. North Dakota recently enacted legislation allowing for charter schools.

They are free and open to all, receive state funding, abide by antidiscrimination laws and submit to oversight of curriculum and testing. But they also are run by independent boards that are not part of local public school systems.

“Oklahoma parents and children are better off with more educational choices, not fewer. While the Supreme Court’s order is disappointing for educational freedom, the 4-4 decision does not set precedent, allowing the court to revisit this issue in the future,” said Jim Campbell, who argued the case at the high court on behalf of Oklahoma’s charter school board. Campbell is the chief legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal organization that appears often at the court in cases on high-profile social issues.

On the other side, the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which are among groups representing parents and other opponents of the school in a separate lawsuit, applauded the outcome for preserving public education.

“The very idea of a religious public school is a constitutional oxymoron. The Supreme Court’s ruling affirms that a religious school can’t be a public school and a public school can’t be religious,” said Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

Oklahoma officials also offered differing views.

Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and state School Superintendent Ryan Walters said the fight is far from over. “There will be another case just like this one and Justice Barrett will break the tie,” Stitt said.
Attorney General Gentner Drummond, also a Republican, sued to stop the school. He called the 4-4 vote “a resounding victory for religious liberty” that also will ensure that “Oklahoma taxpayers will not be forced to fund radical Islamic schools, while protecting the religious rights of families to choose any school they wish for their children.”

During arguments, Justice Samuel Alito said, “We have statement after statement by the attorney general that reeks of hostility toward Islam.”

A British court said Thursday that the U.K. can transfer sovereignty over the contested and strategically located Chagos Islands to Mauritius, overturning a block that was imposed hours before the agreement was due to be signed.

High Court judge Martin Chamberlain said after a hearing on Thursday that an injunction barring the handover should be removed. He said “the public interest and the interests of the United Kingdom would be substantially prejudiced” if there was a further delay.

The U.K. government welcomed the ruling, saying “this deal is vital to protect the British people and our national security.”

The U.K. has agreed to hand Mauritius the Indian Ocean archipelago, which is home to a strategically important naval and bomber base on the largest of the islands, Diego Garcia. The U.K. would then lease back the base for at least 99 years.

The agreement was due to be signed by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Mauritian leader Navin Ramgoolam at a virtual ceremony on Thursday morning.

But a judge granted an injunction in the early hours of Thursday, blocking the British government from taking any “conclusive or legally binding step” to hand the islands to a foreign government.

The injunction came in response to a claim by two Chagossian women representing the islands’ original residents, who were evicted decades ago to make way for the American base. Bernadette Dugasse and Bertrice Pompe, both British citizens, fear it will become even harder to return once Mauritius takes control of the islands.

After the injunction was lifted, Pompe said it was “a very sad day,“ but vowed to continue fighting.

“We do not want to hand over our rights to Mauritius. We are not Mauritians,” she said outside the High Court.

“The rights we are asking for now, we have been fighting for for 60 years,” she added. “Mauritius is not going to give that to us.”

One of the last remnants of the British Empire, the Chagos Islands have been under British control since 1814. Britain split the islands away from Mauritius, a former British colony, in 1965, three years before Mauritius gained independence.

Britain evicted as many as 2,000 people from the islands in the 1960s and 1970s so the U.S. military could build the Diego Garcia base, which has supported U.S. military operations from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Displaced Chagossians fought unsuccessfully in U.K. courts for years for the right to go home. Under the deal, a resettlement fund would be created to help displaced islanders move back to the islands, apart from Diego Garcia. Details of any such measures remain unclear.

Mauritius has long contested Britain’s claim to the archipelago and in recent years the United Nations and its top court have urged Britain to return the Chagos to Mauritius, around 2,100 kilometers (1,250 miles) southwest of the islands.

In a non-binding 2019 opinion, the International Court of Justice ruled that the U.K. had unlawfully carved up Mauritius when it agreed to end colonial rule in the late 1960s.

The British government says those rulings put the future of the Diego Garcia base, vital to U.K. security, at stake. Negotiations on handing the islands to Mauritius began in 2022 under the previous Conservative government and resumed after Starmer’s Labour Party was elected in July.

A draft agreement was struck in October, but was delayed by a change of government in Mauritius and reported quarrels over how much the U.K. should pay to lease the base.

The U.K. also paused to consult the U.S. after the change of government in Washington. President Donald Trump’s administration gave its approval.

The U.K.’s opposition Conservatives have criticized the deal, accusing the government of surrendering sovereignty over a British territory.

“We should not be paying to surrender British territory to Mauritius,” Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said.

The Justice Department moved Wednesday to cancel a settlement with Minneapolis that called for an overhaul of its police department following the murder of George Floyd, as well as a similar agreement with Louisville, Kentucky, saying it doesn’t want to pursue the cases.

Following a scathing report by the Justice Department in 2023, Minneapolis in January approved a consent decree with the federal government in the final days of the Biden administration to overhaul its training and use-of-force policies under court supervision.

The agreement required approval from a federal court in Minnesota. But the Trump administration was granted a delay soon after taking office while it considered its options, and on Wednesday told the court it does not intend to proceed. It planned to file a similar motion in federal court in Kentucky.

“After an extensive review by current Department of Justice and Civil Rights Division leadership, the United States no longer believes that the proposed consent decree would be in the public interest,” said the Minnesota motion, signed by Andrew Darlington, acting chief of the special litigation section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The United States will no longer prosecute this matter.”

The Justice Department announced its decision just before the five-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. Then-officer Derek Chauvin used his knee on May 25, 2020, to pin the Black man to the pavement for 9 1/2 minutes in a case that sparked protests around the world and a national reckoning with racism and police brutality.

However, no immediate changes are expected to affect the Minneapolis Police Department, which is operating under a similar consent decree with the Minnesota Human Rights Department.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara reiterated at a news conference Tuesday that his department would abide by the terms of the federal agreement as it was signed, regardless of what the Trump administration decided.

The city in 2023 reached a settlement agreement with the state Human Rights Department to remake policing, under court supervision, after the agency issued a blistering report in 2022 that found that police had long engaged in a pattern of racial discrimination.