President Trump has signed a new travel ban barring citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States. A similar ban during Trump’s first administration sparked major protests at U.S. airports and numerous lawsuits. The new ban targets visitors from Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and the Republic of Congo, which is also known as Congo-Brazzaville, not to be confused with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. New travel restrictions will also be placed on visitors from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. Amnesty International criticized the ban as “discriminatory, racist, and downright cruel.” The White House released a video of Trump speaking about the ban.

President Donald Trump: “The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas. We don’t want them.”

We will have more on this story after headlines. 

At the United Nations, the United States on Wednesday vetoed another Security Council resolution calling for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza. The vote was 14 to 1, with the other permanent members of the Security Council — Russia, China, France and the U.K. — all supporting the ceasefire. Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour responded to the U.S. veto.

Riyad Mansour: “This draft resolution had a simple goal: demanding a ceasefire that would allow the beginning of the monumental work needed to end the horrific humanitarian situation, to stop the genocide, to release hostages and prisoners, and to get the Israeli occupying forces out of Gaza before they get a chance to implement their plans to destroy our people.”

Hours after the U.N. vote, Israel attacked the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City. Three Palestinian journalists were killed; a fourth journalist was seriously wounded. This marks the eighth time Israel has targeted the hospital. Meanwhile, the shadowy new U.S.- and Israel-backed aid group the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has suspended operations for a second straight day, after over 100 Palestinians were shot dead while seeking aid earlier this week. This is a survivor.

Survivor: “We only wanted to feed our children. They’re the ones who need food, not us. We’re used to going without, like during Ramadan. That’s why we rushed to the aid distribution site. They tempted people with promises of help, but in the end, they opened fire. Why? What did we do to deserve this?”

A new CNN investigation backs up eyewitness reports Israeli troops opened fire near an aid distribution site on Sunday, contradicting denials by Israel. Meanwhile, in southern Gaza, the Israeli military has recovered the bodies of two Israeli Americans — Judi Weinstein Haggai and her husband Gadi Haggai — who had been killed in the October 7 attack.

On Capitol Hill, seven members of the group Doctors Against Genocide were arrested Wednesday inside the Hart Senate Office Building. The doctors said they were attempting to deliver to lawmakers what they called a “prescription” to end the forced starvation of children in Gaza. 

Here in New York, a group of veterans and peace activists have begun their third week on hunger strike outside the United Nations. We will speak to one of the hunger strikers, Kathy Kelly, later in the show.

And in London, pro-Palestinian protesters formed a red circle around the British Parliament on Wednesday. Iyas AlQasem of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign took part in the protest.

Iyas AlQasem: “Palestinian lives do matter. And everybody here is saying that if you’re a human with a conscience, you cannot watch a genocide. And worse than that, you cannot continue to arm a genocide. And that’s why they’re here.”

In Ukraine, Russian drone strikes killed five people and wounded six others in the northern city of Pryluky. The dead included a 1-year-old child found under the rubble. Elsewhere, Russian bombs struck the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, heavily damaging a government administrative building and injuring two people. And at least 18 people were injured when Russian drones struck apartment buildings in Kharkiv overnight, with two children among those injured.

The attacks came after President Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to retaliate for Ukraine’s drone strikes on military airfields, which reportedly struck more than 40 Russian aircraft. Putin’s threat came during a 75-minute phone call between the two leaders, their second call in recent weeks. Trump wrote afterward, “It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace.”

On Tuesday, Ukraine announced saboteurs had successfully set off explosives planted underwater at the foundations of a key bridge connecting Russia and the occupied Crimean Peninsula. The explosion briefly halted traffic. It was Ukraine’s third attack on the bridge since Russia’s invasion in 2022. 

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has rejected a key demand of the Trump administration’s proposed nuclear deal, saying Iran must be allowed to continue enriching uranium for peaceful purposes. Over the weekend, the Trump administration proposed a deal that would have allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium, but only temporarily — something Khamenei called unacceptable.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: “If we have 100 nuclear power plants but no enrichment, it won’t help us, because nuclear power plants require fuel. If we can’t produce this nuclear fuel within the country, we’ll have to turn to America. They may set 10 conditions for supplying nuclear fuel.”

Human Rights Watch is calling for an investigation into the U.S. bombing of an oil port on Yemen’s Red Sea coast on April 17 that killed 84 people and wounded more than 150 others. Forty-nine of the dead were port workers. Also killed were several truck drivers, two civil defense workers and workers’ family members, including three children. Human Rights Watch said the U.S. government’s decision to strike the oil facility while hundreds of workers were present shows a “callous disregard for civilians’ lives.”

The Trump administration has escalated its attacks on Columbia University. In a letter to the nonprofit that accredits Columbia, the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights asks for the school’s accreditation to be canceled and accuses Columbia of violating the rights of Jewish students by “acting with deliberate indifference” toward reports of harassment during campus protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Meanwhile, President Trump on Wednesday moved to block nearly all international students from attending Harvard University — taking a separate approach this time, after a federal court in Boston blocked a similar effort by the Department of Homeland Security last week. Trump’s new effort invokes national security as a rationale. In a statement, Harvard officials rejected the freeze on international scholars as “yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the Administration in violation of Harvard’s First Amendment rights.”

The Trump administration has proposed cutting funding for tribal colleges and universities by nearly 90%, a move that would likely force most — or all — of the nation’s 37 tribal schools to shut down. ProPublica reports that even before Trump’s proposed cuts, tribal colleges were receiving a quarter-billion dollars per year less than the inflation-adjusted amount they should receive. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights once called tribal colleges “the most poorly funded institutions of higher education in the country.”

President Trump’s order doubling tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from 25% to 50% took effect Wednesday. In response, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum accused Trump of violating the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and said Mexico would soon announce countermeasures.

President Claudia Sheinbaum: “If there is no agreement, we will be announcing measures next week, because our responsibility is, first, to protect employment, Mexican workers, and, second, the steel industry.”

The Congressional Budget Office reported Wednesday that President Trump’s sprawling domestic policy bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. The CBO projects nearly 11 million people will lose health insurance if the proposal becomes law. 

In New Jersey, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has filed a federal lawsuit claiming false arrest, malicious prosecution and defamation over his arrest last month by masked federal agents outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement jail.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are calling on Republican Chair Jim Jordan to condemn the actions of Homeland Security agents last week when they handcuffed and detained a staffer for New York Democratic Congressmember Jerry Nadler. The incident began when Federal Protective Service agents knocked on the door of Nadler’s Manhattan offices demanding to be let inside, saying they were searching for “protesters.” One agent accused Nadler’s aides of “harboring rioters.” Staffers had been observing protests outside an immigration court in the same building and had invited two protesters inside their office. Congressmember Nadler later told CNN the agents handcuffed and detained his staffer even though they lacked a warrant.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler: “The tactics were totally unacceptable, and they needed a warrant. And my office is a congressional office. It’s a completely separate branch of government, a coequal branch of government with the executive, for which they work. And they had no right to come in. They had no right to disregard the coequal branch of government, which is to say the Congress.”

In El Salvador, a judge has ordered the detention of prominent anti-corruption lawyer Ruth López for six months while she awaits trial. She was arrested last month over allegations of embezzlement — charges she says are trumped-up. On Wednesday, López shouted to reporters as she was led into a courtroom in handcuffs for a closed-door hearing.

Ruth López: “I want a public trial! The people deserve to know. Whoever doesn’t owe, doesn’t fear.”

Ruth López is the head of the anti-corruption and justice unit at Cristosal, a leading Salvadoran human rights group that has frequently criticized the policies of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.