The Evening: Court expands Trump’s immigration powers
Also, Iran strikes a ship in the Strait of Hormuz.
The Evening
June 25, 2026

Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Thursday.

  • Justices allow Trump to expel migrants
  • Twin earthquakes devastate Venezuela
  • Plus, the U.S. plays Turkey (or Türkiye?)
People looking at their phones walk past the Supreme Court.
Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Supreme Court expands Trump’s immigration power

The Supreme Court ruled today that President Trump can terminate humanitarian protections that have permitted people from Haiti and Syria to live and work legally in the U.S. for more than a decade. The decision clears a path for the potential deportation of 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians, and renders hundreds of thousands of other immigrants vulnerable to expulsion.

In the majority decision, the court’s six conservative judges said that federal law prohibited courts from second-guessing the administration’s determination of which countries were too unsafe to deport people to. In a dissent that cited the president’s derogatory comments about Haitian immigrants, the three liberal judges argued that the administration had removed Haiti and Syria from its list of troubled countries for political or racial reasons.

The ruling landed like a bomb in South Florida, which is home to more Haitians than anywhere else in the country. The director of a community center there said she was being inundated with calls from people asking: “Will I lose my job? When does it go into effect? How much time do we have?”

In a separate 6-to-3 decision today — also decided along ideological lines — the court said that the Trump administration could physically prevent migrants seeking asylum from crossing into the country along the U.S.-Mexico border. Together, the rulings signaled a significant deference to the president on immigration policy.

For more:

Several commercial ships in a body of water.
Elke Scholiers/Getty Images

Traffic through Strait of Hormuz is halted after a ship attack

Iranian forces struck a container ship that was passing through the Strait of Hormuz today. In response, a U.N. agency suspended its efforts to evacuate the hundreds of ships that became stranded in the Persian Gulf during the Iran war.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz had been picking up in recent days as American officials promised to negotiate a long-term deal with Iran that would permanently open up the crucial waterway. Earlier in the day, the price of oil had been hovering around prewar levels.

Damaged multistory buildings with exposed interiors overlook extensive rubble. A person stands on the debris; others are gathered by a basketball hoop.
Catia La Mar, in the northern state of La Guaira, Venezuela, today. Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times

Venezuela searches for survivors after devastating quakes

Rare back-to-back earthquakes struck Venezuela last night, leveling buildings and trapping hundreds of people in the rubble. Photos and videos show scenes of vast devastation. The disaster killed at least 188 people and injured more than 1,500 others, but the toll is almost certain to rise as rescuers begin to reach the hardest-hit areas.

Residents in one of these cities, La Guaira, said they had seen few rescue workers. Many began digging through the rubble themselves. One woman who said she believed her boyfriend was inside a toppled building listened to taps coming from people trapped underneath. “They’ve pulled out a lot of dead people,” she said.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in profile, his hand on his chin.
Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

Internal emails about Kennedy’s C.D.C. takeover are made public

A cache of internal emails obtained by The Times offers a detailed look at the pressure Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. put on the C.D.C. in the early days of his tenure. One describes an order from Kennedy to the public health agency, telling it to take down its advertising campaign promoting flu vaccines. Read more about the scramble to meet Kennedy’s demands.

In other Trump administration news:

More top news

TIME TO UNWIND

Alex Freeman of the U.S. leaps, surrounded by teammates.
Albert Gea/Reuters

The Americans look to continue their World Cup magic

The U.S. men’s national team is in an unexpectedly wonderful position: It is 2-0 at a World Cup for the first time since 1930, and it doesn’t need to win its game tonight — kickoff is at 10 p.m. Eastern against Turkey — to advance. The Americans might rest some stars, but I have no doubt they’ll try to win. It should be fun.

If you’re watching, you might be surprised to see the opposing team called “Türkiye,” pronounced tur-KEE-yeh. It’s part of a rebranding push inspired by the country’s president; my colleague Victor Mather explains it all here.

For more: Vote on your favorite World Cup jerseys, and see how they rank.

An illustration showing a grid of nine people participating one of the following activities: folding origami, holding a flowering house plant, giving another person a kiss on the cheek, reading a cookbook, meditating, performing a skin care routine, sipping tea, listening to ASMR recording on a phone and solving a crossword puzzle.
Camilla Pintonato

What do you do to end your evening?

Consistent nighttime routines can help reduce stress or make the next morning feel a bit easier. They have also been shown to improve sleep quality. Times readers recently shared some of their favorite rituals with us:

“I walk around my house and talk to my plants.” — Billy Farrell, 34, Anchorage

"I like to polish my granite kitchen countertops with a green-apple-smelling cleaner." — Art Rosales, 55, Ventura, Calif.

“I do the ‘legs up the wall’ yoga pose for 15 minutes.” — Andrea Kulsrud, 46, Carmel, Ind.

Read the rest here, and share yours in the comments.

Four pictures: An older man; medical instruments; a patient prone with a machine shining into their eye; a closeup of an eye.
Elliott Verdier for The New York Times

Dinner table topics

WHAT TO DO TONIGHT

A light blue cast iron pot filled with rigatoni, ricotta, herbs and sausage.
Andrew Bui for The New York Times

Cook: This lemon ricotta pasta bake strikes the perfect balance of cozy and light.

Watch The Invite,” a witty comedy starring Seth Rogen and Olivia Wilde.

Read “Five Weeks in the Country,” or one of these other great historical fiction books.

Apply sunscreen the right way. (Many people do it wrong.)

Hunt: Which of these Bay Area homes would you buy with a $1.4 million budget?

Play today’s Connections,