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The US education department is freezing about $2.3bn in federal funds to Harvard University, the agency said yesterday, a move that the former US president Barack Obama called “unlawful and ham-handed”.

The Ivy League school chose earlier in the day to fight the White House’s demands that it crack down on antisemitism and alleged civil rights violations, including shutting down diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

In a statement, a member of an education department taskforce on combating antisemitism said: “Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges – that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws.”

• What did Obama say about the decision? In some of his most vocal criticism of this Trump administration, the former president praised Harvard, the country’s oldest university, for setting an example for other higher education institutions to reject federal overreach into its governance practices.

Trump officials step up defiance over man wrongly deported to El Salvador

Donald Trump with Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, at the White House on Monday. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

The Trump administration yesterday misrepresented a US supreme court decision that compelled it to return a man wrongly deported to El Salvador, using tortured readings of the order to justify taking no action to secure his release.

The supreme court last week unanimously ordered the administration to “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Abrego García, who was supposed to have been protected from deportation to El Salvador regardless of whether he was a member of the MS-13 gang.

But at an Oval Office meeting between Trump and El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, Trump deferred to officials who gave extraordinary readings of the supreme court order and claimed the US was powerless to return Abrego García to US soil.

• What did they say? “The ruling solely stated that if this individual, at El Salvador’s sole discretion, was sent back to our country, we could deport him a second time,” said Trump’s policy chief, Stephen Miller.

Sudan in ‘world’s largest humanitarian crisis’ after two years of civil war

A child is tested for malnutrition last month at the World Food Programme camp at El Fasher, in Darfur, Sudan. Photograph: WFP/Reuters

Sudan is suffering from the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and its civilians are paying the price for inaction by the international community, NGOs and the UN have said, as the country’s civil war enters its third year.

Two years to the day since fighting erupted in Khartoum between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, hundreds of people were feared to have died in RSF attacks on refugee camps in the latest apparent atrocity.

The consequences for Sudan’s 51 million people have been devastating. Tens of thousands are reportedly dead. Hundreds of thousands face famine. Almost 13 million people have been displaced, 4 million of those to neighbouring countries.

• Are there any diplomatic efforts to end the war? Yes, the UK is hosting ministers from 20 countries in London today in an attempt to restart stalled peace talks. Diplomatic efforts have often been sidelined by other crises, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

In other news …

Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff (left), and Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, have been holding indirect talks in Oman. Photograph: Evelyn Hocksteinamer Hilabi/AFP/Getty Images

• Iran is expected to resist a US proposal to transfer its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to a third country – such as Russia – as part of Washington’s effort to scale back Tehran’s civil nuclear programme.
• Two American college students visiting Copenhagen for spring break were charged with assault and held in a Danish prison for two weeks after an alleged dispute with an Uber driver, Danish police have said.
• A former Colorado sheriff’s deputy convicted of killing a 22-year-old man in distress who called 911 for help was sentenced yesterday to three years in prison, the maximum sentence allowed.
• New footage of Valerie the miniature dachshund, who has survived alone for more than a year on Kangaroo Island in South Australia, shows her sniffing around a trap. She went missing in 2023 and has now lived for more than 500 days in the wild.

Stat of the day: ‘Silicon six’ companies accused of avoiding almost $278bn in US corporation taxes over 10 years

Analysis finds Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Netflix, Apple and Microsoft had an average combined tax rate of 18.8%, compared with the 29.7% US average. Photograph: AP

The big American tech firms known as the “silicon six” have been accused of paying almost $278bn (£211bn) less corporate income tax in the past decade compared with the statutory rate for US companies making the same profits. Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Netflix, Apple and Microsoft paid just an average 18.8% in combined national and federal corporation taxes, according to the Fair Tax Foundation.

Don’t miss this: ‘She helps cheer me up’ – the people forming relationships with AI chatbots

Worldwide, more than 100 million people use personified chatbots, which include Replika, marketed as “the AI companion who cares”. Photograph: Rafael Henrique/Alamy

Men who have virtual “wives” and neurodiverse people using chatbots to help them navigate relationships are among a growing range of ways in which artificial intelligence is transforming human connection and intimacy. Worldwide, more than 100 million people use personified chatbots. People can spend between several hours a week to a couple of hours a day interacting with the apps.

Climate check: Climate crisis has tripled length of deadly ocean heatwaves, study finds

Bleached and dead staghorn coral off Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

The climate crisis has tripled the length of ocean heatwaves, a study has found, supercharging deadly storms and destroying critical ecosystems such as kelp forests and coral reefs. Half of the marine heatwaves since 2000 would not have happened without global heating, which is caused by burning fossil fuels.

Last Thing: JD Vance fumbles Ohio State’s national title trophy during White House visit

JD Vance fumbles football team’s championship trophy at White House – video

JD Vance, the man entrusted with the responsibility of being America’s backup in times of emergency, showed himself as a less-than-entirely safe pair of hands on Monday when the vice-president ended the Ohio State football team’s visit to the White House by fumbling the team’s national championship trophy.

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