Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly directed a desktop computer in his Pentagon office be installed with the messaging app Signal, adding another layer to the controversy around his use of the encrypted messaging app, multiple outlets reported Thursday.

Hegseth earlier this year effectively “cloned” the Signal app on his personal cellphone to his computer as a way to get around blocks on the messaging app in classified areas, and to message people outside the Pentagon, The Washington Post first reported. Personal cell phones and electronics are not allowed in classified areas of the Pentagon.

President Donald Trump's company, the Trump Organization, has parted ways with a prominent conservative attorney who is also representing Harvard University in the school's legal clash with the Trump administration.

Trump's son Eric Trump, who leads the Trump organization alongside Donald Trump Jr., confirmed the dismissal of William Burck as an outside legal adviser after Trump launched a blistering attack on Harvard in an April 24 post on Truth Social that called for his sons to "get rid of him ASAP!"

A federal judge on Thursday blocked parts of President Donald Trump's executive order seeking to impose new rules on U.S. elections, which Democrats and other groups said risked denying eligible citizens the right to vote.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the Trump administration cannot enforce parts of the order requiring federal election officials to assess whether people who are registering to vote are citizens.

She declined, however, to block parts of the order that sought to force states not to count mail-in ballots received after election day.

The ruling came in response to lawsuits by groups including the Democratic National Committee, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the League of Women's Education Fund.

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The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS ) has terminated two grants for Black history and culture that were awarded to the Whitney Plantation, a former plantation in Louisiana that focuses on the truths of slavery and the experiences of people who were enslaved. IMLS provides resources and support to libraries, archives and museums in all 50 states and territories.

The termination comes as the Trump administration has both gutted federal funding aimed at arts and cultural institutions and has pushed to end state and federal initiatives in support of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Recently, federal webpages that included references to thousands of figures, including Harriet Tubman, Indigenous codetalkers, the US army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers, were either removed outright or scrubbed to exclude references to the aforementioned people. After public outcry, some of these pages were restored.

The Whitney Plantation already received one of the grants this year, but the other, which was to help fund an exhibit about how enslaved people resisted on plantations, was set to be completed in June this year. Without the funding, the Whitney stands to lose about $55,000. The exhibit on resistance to slavery, on which the museum had worked for three years, was due to open in January 2026.

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