Columbia Concedes to Trump – The New York Times

In acquiescence to President Trump, Columbia University today agreed to overhaul its security and protest policies, and its Middle Eastern studies department.

The Trump administration accused Columbia of failing to protect students and staff from antisemitic violence and harassment, and refused to consider restoring $400 million in federal funding without the university making the changes.

As part of the agreement, Columbia plans to largely ban masks on campus and hire a new internal security force.

The university will also appoint a provost to oversee the university’s Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies department. The administration called for the department to be placed under academic receivership. Historians and professors had expressed concern about the government’s possible intervention: “It is one small department in one university,” said a retired former chair of the department. “But it will reverberate across the entire country.”

Columbia’s agreement comes as the White House bears down on higher education institutions. Other elite colleges and universities — including Harvard and Stanford — face federal inquiries. And earlier this week, the administration said it would cancel $175 million in federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania, at least partly because it had allowed a transgender woman on its women’s swim team.

For more: Decades ago, Columbia refused to pay Trump $400 million. He didn’t forget it.

Judge skeptical of Trump administration’s use of wartime law

A federal judge in Washington raised concerns about the White House’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely cited 18th-century wartime law, to deport immigrants from the country. Judge James Boasberg suggested that the administration stretched the use of the statute by applying it to Venezuelans it accused of being part of a criminal gang.

“The policy ramifications of this are incredibly troublesome and problematic and concerning,” Judge Boasberg said in a hearing today.

The deportation of undocumented migrants is just one part of Trump’s immigration crackdown, which has also targeted legal residents and tourists. U.S. officials have arrested a Georgetown academic; blocked a Brown professor from re-entering the country, despite her having a visa and a court order blocking her removal; and detained two German tourists who entered the country legally.

For more: ICE agents have asked a Cornell student activist to turn himself in.

Sudan’s military recaptured the presidential palace

This morning marked a potential turning point in Sudan’s two-year civil war, as government forces recaptured the presidential palace in the nation’s capital, Khartoum. Sudanese forces wrested control of the building after days of heavy fighting with the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group.

The palace is in ruins, but its retaking is a symbolic victory. The military lost much of Khartoum in the early days of the war in April 2023, but in a six-month counteroffensive it has recaptured states in southeastern Sudan and pushed the R.S.F. out of the capital.

A famous longevity guru sought control via confidentiality agreements

Bryan Johnson, a tech entrepreneur, is the face of Silicon Valley’s longevity obsession. He was the subject of a Netflix documentary last year, in which he spoke about his start-up, Blueprint, which sells health supplements and blood-testing equipment.

To protect his image and his companies, Johnson frequently employs confidentiality agreements — his employees, sexual partners, vendors and contractors have all had to sign the documents, according to people close to him and his start-ups, internal documents and court records. That control has started to fray. As Blueprint has faced mounting financial and product-quality questions, employees have challenged the agreements.

A French dispatch

Now on display at a Paris museum are hundreds of props that make up the unmistakable visual style of the director Wes Anderson: symmetry, retro fashion and pastel colors.

Curators spent years trawling through Anderson’s archive to compile a retrospective. The show, which opened at the Cinémathèque Française this week, features 500 exhibits, including a candy pink hotel model from “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” explorer outfits from “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” and a fur coat worn by Gwyneth Paltrow in “The Royal Tenenbaums.”

See pictures from the exhibition.

A ‘god-level’ composer

Hiroshi Yoshimura’s music doesn’t demand a lot of your attention, but rewards close listening. In the 1980s and ’90s, Yoshimura released albums of kankyō ongaku, or environmental music that were gentle and reflective, minimal and melodic.

Yoshimura, who died in 2003, was little-known outside Japan during his lifetime. In recent years, however, his global audience has grown. YouTube’s algorithm has delivered his music to a new generation of listeners looking for relaxing sounds, and a series of reissues brought it to streaming platforms for the first time.

Raise a glass

On television and in movies, bad wedding toasts are fertile comedic ground. It’s easy to see why. They can be too long or clichéd; worse still, the speaker might reveal too much about the couple — or about themselves. Despite all this, for prospective toast makers our comedy columnist has a suggestion: take a big swing.

“The reality about bad toasts is that most of them are not disasters, just merely forgettable,” Jason Zinoman writes. “The best ones are a little messy.”

Have a memorable weekend.

Thanks for reading. Matthew Cullen will be back on Monday. — Desiree

Kirsten Luce was our photo editor today.

We welcome your feedback. Write to us at evening@nytimes.com.