Elite US university Harvard was hit with a $2.2 billion freeze in federal funding Monday after rejecting a list of sweeping demands that the White House said was intended to crack down on campus anti-Semitism.The call for changes to its governance, hiring practices and admissions procedures expands on a list Harvard received on April 3, which ordered officials to shut diversity offices and cooperate with immigration authorities for screenings of international students.Harvard president Alan Garber vowed in a letter to students and faculty to defy the government, insisting that the school would not “negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights.”Trump’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism responded with a statement announcing the $2.2 billion hold in multi-year grants, plus a freeze on $60 million in government contracts. “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,” it said.”The disruption of learning that has plagued campuses in recent years is unacceptable. The harassment of Jewish students is intolerable. It is time for elite universities to take the problem seriously and commit to meaningful change if they wish to continue receiving taxpayer support.” Campuses across the country were rocked last year by student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, with some resulting in violent clashes involving police and pro-Israel counter-protesters.Trump and other Republicans have accused the activists of supporting Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group whose deadly attack on October 7, 2023 against Israel sparked the conflict.The Department of Education announced in March that it had opened an investigation into 60 colleges and universities for alleged “anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination.”Garber’s letter came after the administration placed $9 billion in federal funding to Harvard and its affiliates under review, making its first demands.On Friday, the government sent Harvard a much more detailed list demanding an “audit” of the views of students and faculty, which the university made public.- ‘Raging anti-Semitism’ -Harvard generated an operating surplus of $45 million on a revenue base of $6.5 billion in the last financial year.Garber said the school was “open to new information and different perspectives” but would not agree to demands that “go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.””No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Garber said.Top Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who was lauded by Trump last year for aggressive questioning of universities over anti-Semitism, called for Harvard to be defunded, calling it “the epitome of the moral and academic rot in higher education.”The New York firebrand, seen as one of the most vocal supporters in Congress of Israel and US Jewish causes, accused the university of tolerating “raging anti-Semitism.”Harvard’s response to the White House’s demands was in sharp contrast to the approach taken by Columbia University, the epicenter of last year’s pro-Palestinian protests.The Trump administration cut $400 million in grants to the private New York school, accusing it of failing to protect Jewish students from harassment as protesters rallied against Israel’s Gaza offensive.The school responded by agreeing to reform student disciplinary procedures and hiring 36 officers to expand its security team.As well as the funding cut, immigration officers have targeted two organizers of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia: Mahmoud Khalil, whom the government is seeking to deport, and Mohsen Mahdawi, who was arrested Monday as he attended an interview to become a US citizen.

US prosecutors charged a man on Monday with the attempted murder of Democratic heavyweight and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro after a weekend arson attack at his official residence, court filings showed.Cody Balmer, 38, who was charged with attempted criminal homicide along with seven other offenses — including terrorism affecting the government and prowling at nighttime — was denied bail. He told police he harbored “hatred towards Shapiro,” who is Jewish and earlier in the night had marked the first night of the Passover holiday with friends and family.Shapiro has said he would not be intimidated in observing his faith following what prosecutors called a “homemade Molotov cocktails” attack.Asked what he would have done had he encountered Shapiro in the residence, Balmer told investigators he would “have beaten him with his hammer.”Shapiro, widely viewed as a potential 2028 presidential contender, was inside with his family when the fire broke out in a different part of the Georgian-style mansion in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Sunday, state police said.”While the fire was successfully extinguished, it caused a significant amount of damage to a portion of the residence,” the force said in a statement. No casualties were reported.Shapiro said that he and his sleeping family were woken up by a police trooper who “banged on our door” at around 2:00 am local time (0600 GMT) and that they were evacuated from the building.”Thank God no one was injured and the fire was extinguished,” he said. Speaking to reporters outside the residence, with fire damage visible behind him, Shapiro made a forceful appeal for an end to political violence.”This kind of violence is becoming far too common in our society, and I don’t give a damn if it’s coming from one particular side or the other… it is not OK, and it has to stop,” he said.Police said in charging documents released Monday that Balmer was captured on surveillance cameras climbing a perimeter fence, breaking a window and throwing a gasoline-filled Heineken beer bottle, before breaking another window, entering the residence and igniting another bottle.He then fled the property.- ‘Disgusting violence’ -An ex-lover of Balmer called police and reported that the alleged arsonist wanted to hand himself in, the criminal complaint alleges.Balmer then subsequently walked up to state police headquarters and told an officer he was responsible for the blaze.At a hearing, Balmer was arraigned before Judge Dale Klein and was denied bail, a court official said. He is next due in court on April 23.Top Republican officials reacted to the attack Sunday, with US Attorney General Pam Bondi saying on X she was “deeply relieved that Governor Shapiro and his family are safe.”Vice President JD Vance called the attack “really disgusting violence” and said he hopes “whoever did it is brought swiftly to justice.”President Donald Trump, who survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania last year, called Shapiro’s assailant on Monday a “whack job,” adding that “certainly a thing like that can not be allowed to happen.”The 51-year-old Shapiro was in the race to be Democrat Kamala Harris’s running mate in her ultimately unsuccessful US presidential bid — a position that instead went to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.Shapiro, an assertive political centrist, was elected governor of Pennsylvania in 2022 when he faced off against a far-right candidate backed by Trump.