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US President Donald Trump demanded Thursday that courts stop blocking his agenda, edging closer to a constitutional showdown after a judge suggested the administration had ignored an order to block summary deportations.A federal judge, in a strongly worded order, gave the Justice Department until Tuesday to explain why it went ahead with flights to El Salvador of prison-bound Venezuelan migrants, some of whose representatives say they had committed no crime and were targeted only for their tattoos.Trump, in a scathing attack on the judiciary that would have been unthinkable coming from most presidents, demanded that the Supreme Court intervene.”It is our goal to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and such a high aspiration can never be done if Radical and Highly Partisan Judges are allowed to stand in the way of JUSTICE,” Trump wrote in a post on his online platform Truth Social aimed at Chief Justice John Roberts.”STOP NATIONWIDE INJUNCTIONS NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” Trump wrote in all capital letters.”If Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court do not fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY, our Country is in very serious trouble!”Roberts, who was nominated by Republican George W. Bush, a day earlier issued a rare rebuke by the country’s top justice to remarks of the president after Trump called for the impeachment of the judge who ruled on the deportation case.”For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a brief statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”On Saturday, James Boasberg, the chief judge of the US District Court in Washington, issued an emergency order against the deportation of Venezuelans as they sought legal recourse.He said that two flights already in the air must turn around. El Salvador’s President Nayyib Bukele, who has offered to take in prisoners on the cheap in Latin America’s largest prison, responded on social media: “Oopsie… Too late.”- ‘Woefully insufficient’ -In a new order on Thursday, Boasberg said an acting field office director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency had explained that the Trump administration was considering justifying its actions by saying the issue was a matter of “state secrets.””This is woefully insufficient,” Boasberg wrote, saying that “the Government again evaded its obligations.”He said that a regional official in charge of immigration enforcement was not in a position to attest to cabinet-level arguments against a federal court.He gave the Trump administration until Tuesday to explain why it did not violate his restraining order.Officials said that 237 Venezuelans were flown to El Salvador, some of them as Trump invoked the rarely used 1798 Alien Enemies Act to remove alleged members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal gang. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday he had confidence that the deported Venezuelans were gang members but that, even if not, they were illegally in the United States. A lawyer for one of the men, Jerce Reyes Barrios, said that he was a professional soccer player in Venezuela with no criminal record who applied through legal channels for asylum in the United States after demonstrating against Nicolas Maduro, the leftist president whose legitimacy is rejected by Washington and the opposition. The lawyer, Linette Tobin, said that US authorities accused him of gang membership based on a tattoo that in fact was associated with his fandom for Real Madrid.Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said that Trump was “refusing to accept that we are still a nation of laws and not royal edicts.”Gregg Nunziata, a former Senate aide to Rubio who now heads to Society for the Rule of Law, called Trump’s post on the judiciary “a knife pointed at the heart of our Constitution and worthy of impeachment on its own.”

US President Donald Trump signed an order Thursday aimed at “eliminating” the Department of Education, a decades-old goal of the American right, which wants individual states to run schools free from the federal government.Surrounded by schoolchildren sitting at desks set up in the East Room of the White House, Trump smiled as held up the order after signing it at a special ceremony.Trump said the order would “begin eliminating the federal Department of Education once and for all.””We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible. It’s doing us no good,” Trump said. “We’re going to return education back to the states where it belongs.”The Education Department, created in 1979, cannot be shuttered without the approval of Congress — but Trump’s order will likely have the power to starve it of funds and staff.The move honors one of Trump’s campaign promises and is among the most drastic steps yet in the brutal overhaul of the government that Trump is carrying out with the help of tech tycoon Elon Musk.The order directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States.”Democrats and educators have slammed the move.The top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, called it a “tyrannical power grab” and “one of the most destructive and devastating steps Donald Trump has ever taken.”Republican leaders, including governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas, were in the audience for the signing ceremony.Trump has cast the move as necessary to save money and improve educational standards in the United States, claiming they are lagging behind those in Europe and China.But education has been a battleground for decades in America’s culture wars, and Republicans have long wanted to remove control of it from the federal government.- ‘Beautiful day’ -Trump’s appointment of McMahon — the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment — to lead the department was widely seen as a sign that its days were numbered.The president said at the signing ceremony that “hopefully she will be our last secretary of education.”McMahon, who moved to halve the department’s staff after being sworn in earlier this month, told reporters at the White House that Trump “wants to get those dollars back to the states without the bureaucracy of Washington.”Trump promised on the campaign trail to get rid of the department and devolve its powers to US states, in much the same way that has happened with abortion rights.But the White House said earlier that a rump education department was likely to stay on to deal with “critical functions” including loans and some grants for low-income students.”The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters before the signing. The Heritage Foundation — a right-wing think-tank that has seen many of its “Project 2025″ recommendations adopted by Trump — welcomed the move.”It’s a beautiful day to dismantle the Department of Education,” it said on X.Traditionally the US government has had a limited role in education, with only about 13 percent of funding for primary and secondary schools coming from federal coffers, the rest being funded by states and local communities.But federal funding is invaluable for low-income schools and students with special needs. And the federal government has been essential in enforcing key civil rights protections for students.Trump, his billionaire advisor Musk and Musk’s Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE) have already dismantled several other government agencies, effectively crippling them by slashing programs and employees.A similar move to dismantle the US Agency for International Development was halted earlier this week by a federal judge, who said the push likely violated the US Constitution.

A US judge ordered Thursday that an Indian researcher at a top American university not be removed from the country, following his arrest and threat of expulsion for alleged Hamas ties.The detention of Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University in the US capital, came as fears mount in the academic world that freedom of research and speech is being challenged two months into US President Donald Trump’s new term.Suri’s lawyer demanded his release and denounced the arrest as a “targeted, retaliatory detention” that was intended “to silence, or at the very least restrict and chill, his speech” as well as that of others who “express support for Palestinian rights.”Early Thursday evening Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles of the Eastern District of Virginia Court ordered Suri “shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the court issues a contrary order.”The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has also filed an emergency motion to stop the deportation, said Suri was being held at an immigration detention center in Louisiana.”Ripping someone from their home and family, stripping them of their immigration status, and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint is a clear attempt by President Trump to silence dissent,” said ACLU immigrant rights attorney Sophia Gregg. “That is patently unconstitutional.” On Wednesday, the French government condemned the expulsion of a French space scientist meant to attend a conference in Houston, after officials searched his smartphone and found what they called “hateful” messages against US policy.”Dr Khan Suri is an Indian national who was duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Georgetown University said in a statement.”We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention.”Neither Secretary of State Marco Rubio “nor any other government official has alleged that Mr Suri has committed any crime or, indeed, broke any law whatsoever,” his lawyer said in the court filing.The filing accused the US government of having detained Suri “based on his family connection and constitutionally protected free speech.”- Fellow arrested -Suri — a fellow at Georgetown’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, according to the university website — was arrested Monday at his home in Arlington, Virginia, according to Politico, which first reported on the story. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said on X that Suri was “a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting anti-Semitism on social media.”McLaughlin accused him of having “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”The State Department decided the researcher was subject to deportation under a provision of immigration law that allows for expulsion if the visa holder’s presence in the United States is determined to threaten US foreign policy, she added.Hamas is a US-designated terror organization.Georgetown University said it backs its “community members’ rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable.”Citing a petition filed by Suri’s lawyer, Politico reported that Suri’s wife is a US citizen of Palestinian descent, and that the couple believes they are being targeted because the government suspects they oppose US policy on Israel.

The head of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Thursday accused Maryland authorities of negligence ahead of last year’s collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, near the Port of Baltimore.NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy told a press briefing that the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) should have “conducted a vulnerability assessment” of the bridge in case a ship collided with it.On March 26, 2024, the Singapore-flagged M/V Dali lost power and plowed into a support column of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing it to collapse and killing six road workers who had been filling potholes overnight.If the assessment had been completed “the MDTA would have been aware that this critical, essential bridge was above the AASHTO threshold of risk for catastrophic collapse from a vessel collision,” Homendy said, referring to a guide by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).An NTSB investigation determined the assessment would have found the bridge “was almost 30 times greater than the risk threshold” for bridges deemed critical and essential.Homendy also warned that many other bridges across the United States were at risk of a similar catastrophe.”The 30 owners of 68 bridges over navigable waterways frequented by oceangoing vessels are likely unaware of their bridges’ risk of catastrophic collapse from a vessel collision,” she said.Homendy urged the bridges’ owners to reassess “the potential need to implement countermeasures to reduce the bridges’ vulnerability.”The list of bridges at risk includes the nearby Chesapeake Bay Bridge outside Baltimore. Preparations for rebuilding the Key Bridge — an estimated $2 billion endeavor — are already underway, according to the MDTA, with the new bridge expected to reopen to traffic by 2028.

US President Donald Trump demanded Thursday that courts stop blocking his agenda, edging closer to a constitutional showdown after a judge suggested the administration ignored an order to block summary deportations.A federal judge, in a strongly worded order, gave the Justice Department until Tuesday to explain why it went ahead with flights to prison in El Salvador of Venezuelan migrants, some of whom say they committed no crime and were targeted only for their tattoos.Trump, in a scathing attack on the judiciary that would have been unthinkable coming from most presidents, demanded that the Supreme Court intervene.”It is our goal to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and such a high aspiration can never be done if Radical and Highly Partisan Judges are allowed to stand in the way of JUSTICE,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post aimed at Chief Justice John Roberts.”STOP NATIONWIDE INJUNCTIONS NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” Trump wrote in all capital letters.”If Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court do not fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY, our Country is in very serious trouble!”Roberts, who was nominated by Republican George W. Bush, a day earlier issued a rare rebuke by the country’s top justice to remarks of the president after Trump called for the impeachment of the judge who ruled on the immigration case.”For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a brief statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”James Boasberg, the chief judge of the US District Court in Washington, on Saturday had issued an emergency order against the deportation of Venezuelans as they sought legal recourse.He said that two flights in the air needed to turn around. El Salvador’s President Nayyib Bukele, who has offered to take in prisoners on the cheap in Latin America’s largest prison, responded on social media: “Oopsie… Too late.”In a new order on Thursday, Boasberg said that an acting field office director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement explained that the Trump administration was considering justifying its actions by saying the issue was a matter of “state secrets.””This is woefully insufficient,” Boasberg wrote, saying that “the Government again evaded its obligations.”He said that a regional official in charge of immigration enforcement was not in a position to attest to cabinet-level arguments against a federal court.He gave the Trump administration until Tuesday to explain why it did not violate his restraining order.

The NBA’s Boston Celtics are being sold to the head of a California private equity firm for $6.1 billion, a record price for a US sports franchise, the club’s owners confirmed Thursday.Boston Basketball Partners LLC said in a statement it had agreed to sell the iconic team to William Chisholm, managing director and co-founder of Symphony Technology Group.”If approved, the new ownership group will buy a majority of the team this summer at an initial valuation of $6.1 billion,” the statement said, confirming the purchase price reported by US media.That’s the highest ever offered for a North American sports team, surpassing the $6.05 billion paid for the NFL’s Washington Commanders in 2023.The sale of the Celtics, the current NBA champions, still requires the approval of the NBA Board of Governors.The team is one of the most storied in the league’s history, with a record 18 championships.Chisholm, a Massachusetts native, said in a statement he has been “die-hard fan Celtics fan my entire life.””I understand how important the Celtics are to the city of Boston — the role the team plays in the community is different than any other city in the country,” Chisholm said. “I also understand that there is a responsibility as a leader of the organization to the people of Boston, and I am up for this challenge.”The new ownership group also includes current Celtics co-owner Robert Hale; Bruce Beal Jr, president of Related Companies; and the global investment firm, Sixth Street.The Grousbeck family and Steve Pagliuca purchased the Celtics for $360 million in 2002.Wyc Grousbeck will continue in his roles of chief executive officer and Governor, overseeing team operations, through the 2027-28 season.Chisholm said he was looking forward to learning from Grousbeck along with Celtics president Brad Stevens and head coach Joe Mazzulla.The Boston Globe reported that three other buyers had been under consideration: Celtics co-owner Pagliuca; Stan Middleman, a co-owner of Major League Baseball’s Philadelphia Phillies; and The Friedkin Group.Pagliuca released a statement after news of the pending sale broke, saying he “worked tirelessly to put together a strong bid” and was “saddened” that his offer to buy the team was not selected.”We made a fully guaranteed and financed offer at a record price, befitting the best sports fans in the world, and with all the capital coming from individuals who are fully committed to winning on and off the court,” Pagliuca said in his statement.”We had no debt or private equity money that would potentially hamstring our ability to compete in the future. We have felt it was the best offer for the Celtics.”I will never stop being a Celtic, and if the announced transaction does not end up being finalized, my partners and I are ready to check back into the game and bring it home, to help continue what the Celtics do best — win,” he added.Three NBA teams were sold in 2023: the Phoenix Suns for $4 billion, the Milwaukee Bucks for $3.5 billion and the Dallas Mavericks for $3.5 billion.

Do American students really rank at the bottom of international comparisons and does the United States really spend more per pupil than any other country? Those are the false claims made by President Donald Trump and his backers to justify shutting the Department of Education. Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to close the department, which was created in 1979. While it cannot be shuttered without the approval of Congress, the department will likely be starved of funds and staff by the order.The Trump administration had already sought to gut the department in early March by shedding almost 1,800 jobs, or about half of its staff, which according to Education Secretary Linda McMahon would help “our scores go up.”  – Do US students really rank last? False -“No matter how you cut it, the US is not scoring at the bottom of the international rankings,” Nat Malkus, senior fellow and the deputy director of education policy at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, told AFP. “The US ranks in the middle of the pack on most international assessments.”Fifteen-year-old US students placed above average in reading and close to average in math on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test.Two other international tests, the PIRLS in 2021 for reading and the TIMSS in 2023 for science and mathematics, also place American kids within the average of the countries tested.National tests did show a drop off after 2019, but that was partly attributed to disruptions caused by Covid shutdowns, with similar patterns seen in other countries.But the picture is nowhere near as catastrophic as many of Trump’s conservative supporters claim.Nationally, in 2024, 76 percent of fourth-grade students (ages 9-10) and 61 percent of eighth-grade students (ages 13-14) met or exceeded the expected baseline in mathematics, according to National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results. In reading, they were 60 percent and 67 percent above the minimum, respectively.It is also false that students “have fallen behind” since the creation of the DoE, a claim made by Republican Representative Byron Donalds of Florida.For example, the average math proficiency of fourth-graders has increased by 24 points since 1990, and the average reading proficiency has not changed since 1992, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).Malkus at the AEI said the “Department could improve how it supports US education” but cannot “be held responsible for student outcomes.”- Highest cost per student in the world? False -Trump has claimed “we spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, and we’re ranked at the bottom of the list.” He says his “dream” is to “move education into the states so that the states instead of bureaucrats working in Washington can run education” — as proposed in the conservative “Project 2025″ program that has guided the new administration. But that’s already the case. Each US state runs its own education system, with the DoE primarily responsible for administering student loans offered by the federal government, assisting disadvantaged students and enforcing rights. While it does spend more per student than most countries, the United States ranked fifth in 2019 and sixth in 2021 in the OECD ranking for spending per primary and secondary student, far behind Luxembourg and Norway. And that spending is the responsibility of the states, with the federal government representing only about 13 percent of total funding.”In the US only 4 percent of total federal spending is devoted to education, compared to about 10 percent on average in the countries in the OECD,” said Fernando Reimers, a Harvard professor specializing in international education.Several Democratic states, parents associations and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) have all filed appeals against the dismantling of the department.The AFT said in a press release that shutting the department will hurt “ten million students who rely on financial aid to go to college or pursue a trade” as well as “millions of students with disabilities and students living in poverty.” 

The United States said Thursday it refused a request from Mexico for water due to shortfalls in sharing by its southern neighbor, as President Donald Trump ramps up a battle on another front.The State Department said it was the first time that the United States has rejected a request by Mexico for special delivery of water, which would have gone to the border city of Tijuana.”Mexico’s continued shortfalls in its water deliveries under the 1944 water-sharing treaty are decimating American agriculture– particularly farmers in the Rio Grande valley,” the State Department’s bureau handling Latin America said in a post on X.The 1944 treaty, which governs water allocation from the Rio Grande and Colorado rivers, has come under growing strain in recent years due to the pressures of climate change and the burgeoning populations and agriculture in parched areas.The treaty sets five-year cycles for water deliveries by Mexico, with the latest set to end in October 2025.US farmers and lawmakers complain that their southern neighbor has waited until the end of each cycle and has been coming up short in the latest period, as Mexico struggles with drought, while the United States has sent its share of water regularly.A year ago, the last sugar mill in southern Texas shut down, with operators blaming a lack of water deliveries from Mexico.After 18 months of negotiations, the United States and Mexico reached an agreement in November, days after Trump’s election, to improve deliveries.Hailed by the then administration of Joe Biden, the understanding calls for Mexico to work with the United States to deliver water in a more timely way, including earlier in each five-year cycle.Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday before the State Department announcement that the water issue was “being dealt with” through the two countries’ boundary and water commission.”There’s been less water. That’s part of the problem,” she told reporters.- Water worries on both sides -Tijuana, a sprawling city on the border with the US state of California that has become a hub for manufacturing, depends on the Colorado River for about 90 percent of its water and has suffered waste from creaky infrastructure.The Colorado River, also a major water source for Los Angeles and Las Vegas, has seen its water levels shrink due to drought and heavy agricultural consumption in the southwestern United States, with around half of its water going to raise beef and dairy cattle.In southern Texas, farmers have voiced fear for the future of cotton, citrus and other farming products without more regular water deliveries from across the border in Mexico.US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Wednesday announced $280 million in relief funds for Rio Grande Valley farmers.”Texas farmers are in crisis because of Mexico’s noncompliance,” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas wrote on X, praising the State Department’s water decision.”I will work with the Trump administration to pressure Mexico into complying and to get water to Texas farmers.”The water dispute comes as Trump takes a tough approach to Latin American nations, especially on migration.Trump has vowed to end arrivals of undocumented migrants, who largely come from Central America and Venezuela but transit through Mexico.Trump deployed troops to the border and announced painful tariffs on Mexico, although he has since put them on hold until April 2.

Hollywood filmmaker Carl Rinsch was hired by Netflix to make a new science-fiction series. Instead, federal prosecutors say, he embezzled more than $11 million from the streaming giant and spent it on luxury cars and crypto. Rinsch, known for the 2013 film “47 Ronin” starring Keanu Reeves, was indicted this week on charges of wire fraud and money laundering and could face decades in prison if convicted in connection with the alleged scam. The indictment was filed in a federal court in New York and unsealed on Tuesday. The 47-year-old filmmaker was arrested the same day. “Carl Rinsch allegedly stole more than $11 million from a prominent streaming platform to finance lavish purchases and personal investments instead of completing a promised television series,” FBI Assistant Director Leslie Backschies said in a statement.Although Netflix is never named in the filing, Rinsch was previously reported to be in a dispute with the company over a planned series initially titled “White Horse” and later renamed “Conquest.”The indictment says the show was meant to focus on a scientist who created a group of powerful clones “banished to a walled area in a Brazilian city, where they began developing advanced technology and came into conflict with humans and each other.”It features still photos from “six short-form episodes” that were apparently completed by Rinsch to pitch the show. He ultimately entered into a deal with Netflix to create a full season of episodes.That deal was reached “in or about 2018,” the indictment says. Netflix then paid “approximately $44 million” for the show’s production between 2018 and 2019, during the peak of the streaming boom.Those funds were transferred to Rinsch’s production company, and his request for an additional $11 million to purportedly finish the project was granted.But Rinsch allegedly quickly transferred the money through a number of accounts for his own personal use.Among the purchases Rinsch allegedly made were luxury clothing and furniture, a Ferrari and five Rolls-Royces, dodgy stock market buys, investing in cryptocurrency, and paying for lawyers to sue the streamer and handle his divorce.”The FBI will continue to reel in any individual who seeks to defraud businesses,” Backschies said.Netflix declined to comment when contacted by AFP about the case. 

Our earliest years are a time of rapid learning, yet we typically cannot recall specific experiences from that period — a phenomenon known as infantile amnesia.A new study published in Science on Thursday challenges assumptions about infant memory, showing that young minds do indeed form memories. The question remains, however, why these memories become difficult to retrieve later in life.”I’ve always been fascinated by this mysterious blank spot we have in our personal history,” Nick Turk-Browne, professor of psychology at Yale and the study’s senior author, told AFP.Around the age of one, children become extraordinary learners — acquiring language, walking, recognizing objects, understanding social bonds, and more. “Yet we remember none of those experiences — so there’s a sort of mismatch between this incredible plasticity and learning ability that we have,” he said.Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, hypothesized that early memories are repressed, though science has since largely dismissed the idea of an active suppression process. Instead, modern theories focus on the hippocampus, a part of the brain critical for episodic memory, which is not fully developed in infancy.Turk-Browne, however, was intrigued by clues from previous behavioral research. Since babies cannot verbally report memories before acquiring language, their tendency to gaze longer at familiar things provides important hints.Recent rodent studies monitoring brain activity have also shown that engrams — patterns of cells that store memories — form in the infant hippocampus but become inaccessible over time — though they can be artificially reawakened through a technique that uses light to stimulate neurons.But until now, pairing observations of infants with brain imaging had been out of reach, as babies are famously uncooperative when it comes to sitting still inside a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) machine — the device that tracks blood flow to “see” brain activity.- Psychedelic patterns -To overcome this challenge, Turk-Browne’s team used methods his lab has refined over the years — working with families to incorporate pacifiers, blankets, and stuffed animals; holding babies still with pillows; and using psychedelic background patterns to keep them engaged.Still, inevitable wiggling led to blurry images that had to be discarded, but the team accounted for this by running hundreds of sessions.In total, 26 infants participated — half under a year old, half over — while their brains were scanned during a memory task adapted from adult studies.First, they were shown images of faces, scenes, or objects. Later, after viewing other images, they were presented with a previously seen image alongside a new one.”We quantify how much time they spend looking at the old thing they’ve seen before, and that’s a measure of their memory for that image,” said Turk-Browne.By comparing brain activity during successful memory formation versus forgotten images, the researchers confirmed that the hippocampus is active in memory encoding from a young age.This was true for 11 of 13 infants over a year old but not for those under one. They also found that babies who performed best on memory tasks showed greater hippocampal activity.”What we can conclude accurately from our study is that infants have the capacity to encode episodic memories in the hippocampus starting around one year of age,” said Turk-Browne.- Forgotten Memories -“The ingenuity of their experimental approach should not be understated,” researchers Adam Ramsaran and Paul Frankland wrote in an accompanying Science editorial.But what remains unresolved is what happens to these early memories. Perhaps they are never fully consolidated into long-term storage — or perhaps they persist but become inaccessible.Turk-Browne suspects the latter and is now leading a new study testing whether infants, toddlers, and children can recognize video clips recorded from their own perspective as younger babies.Early, tentative results suggest these memories might persist until around age three before fading. Turk-Browne is particularly intrigued by the possibility that such fragments could one day be reactivated later in life.