The announcement suggests that Israel may soon pull ahead of other countries in the race for laser weapons. Nations have pursued the technology for decades, but efforts to scale lasers have been complicated by significant technical difficulties. Published on May 28, 2025 Israel’s air defenses have faced over 26,000 aerial attacks from missiles, drones and rockets since Oct. 2023. Most of the projectiles, which were fired from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Yemen, were intercepted by the Iron Dome and long-range Arrow shield systems. Many drones, however, penetrated its defenses.

Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum, in a letter seen by Bloomberg News, is directing federal agencies to review their contracts, terminate those that they deem not critical and transition to other vendors if necessary. The contracts are worth an estimated 0 million, according to a person with knowlege of the matter, who asked not to named discussing the administration’s moves. Harvard didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has argued that Harvard’s responses to the government’s requests to provide information about misconduct by foreign students were insufficient.To regain its program certification, Harvard was given 72 hours to provide six categories of information about foreign students over the past five years, including disciplinary records and video of those engaged in protests. Harvard still hasn’t turned over the requested information.Trump on Monday also threatened to also divert billions in grant dollars away from the university.More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com“I am considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land,” Trump said in a post on social media. “What a great investment that would be for the USA, and so badly needed!!!”The government has sought a series of changes as a condition of continuing its financial relationship with the university. It has demanded the university remake its governance, transform admissions and faculty hiring — which the administration has called discriminatory — as well as stop admitting international students who officials say are hostile to American values. The letter, first reported by the New York Times, asks agencies to report on their “actions or intended actions with respect to each referenced contract” by June 6.The letter alleges that Harvard has continued to “engage in race discrimination, including in its admissions process and in other areas of student life” and says that the government is “aware of recent events at Harvard University involving anti-Semitic action that suggest the institution has a disturbing lack of concern for the safety and wellbeing of Jewish students.”Harvard President Alan Garber, who’s Jewish, has apologized for Harvard’s handling of antisemitism on campus and acknowledged that he has experienced prejudice himself at the school. But he has also said the extent of the government’s demands show that “the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism.” The university has sued the US government over the cuts to funding as well as the block on enrolling international students. The university last week won a temporary court order blocking the government from enforcing the foreign student ban.President Donald Trump’s administration is moving to cancel all remaining federal contracts with Harvard University, marking the latest escalation of its battle against the oldest and richest US school. Gruenbaum referred to alleged discrimination at the Harvard Law Review. A federal task force recently called out the Review’s award of a ,000 fellowship to a protester who faced criminal charges for assaulting a Jewish student on campus, a decision that the government claims was “reviewed and approved” by a faculty committee. The Trump administration has already moved to freeze funding and block Harvard’s ability to enroll international students in an intensifying battle over what the president has cast as a failure by the university and other academic institutions to crack down on antisemitism, and part of a broader campaign against diversity efforts and left-wing bias.  “We needed to move quickly because the consequences of revocation of visas for our international students were dire,” Garber told the Harvard Gazette. There will be a court hearing this week where Harvard will seek to extend the restraining order, he said.Administration officials are pressuring schools including Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern and other elite universities to institute broad policy changes, raising concerns over academic freedom, free speech and government interference. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered US embassies worldwide to stop scheduling new interviews for student-visa applicants as the Trump administration weighs stricter vetting of social-media profiles, a move that will impact higher education across the country.Published on May 27, 2025