A politically motivated hacker breached Columbia University’s data systems last week, stealing troves of student documents while briefly shutting down the school’s computer systems, a university official said. The June 24 cyberattack prompted widespread network outages on campus, locking students and staff out of their email accounts, coursework and video conference software for several hours. On the same day, images of President Donald Trump’s smiling face appeared on several public monitors across the Manhattan campus. A spokesperson for Columbia declined to elaborate on the political motivations behind the attack. But they described a highly sophisticated “hacktivist” who had gained access to private student records in an attempt to further a political agenda.

Dick Tracy got an atom-powered two-way wrist radio in 1946. Marty Cooper never forgot it. The Chicago boy became a star engineer who ran Motorola’s research and development arm when the hometown telecommunications titan was locked in a 1970s corporate battle to invent the portable phone. Cooper rejected AT&T’s wager on the car phone, betting that America wanted to feel like Dick Tracy, armed with “a device that was an extension of you, that made you reachable everywhere.” Fifty-two years ago, Cooper declared victory in a call from a Manhattan sidewalk to the head of AT&T’s rival program. His four-pound DynaTAC 8000X has evolved into a global population of billions of smartphones weighing mere ounces apiece.

A federal judge said Wednesday that an order by President Donald Trump suspending asylum access at the southern border was unlawful, throwing into doubt one of the key pillars of the president’s plan to crack down on migration at the southern border. But he put the ruling on hold for two weeks to give the government time to appeal. In an order Jan. 20, Trump declared that the situation at the southern border constitutes an invasion of America and that he was “suspending the physical entry” of migrants and their ability to seek asylum until he decides it is over. U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington said his order blocking Trump’s policy will take effect July 16, giving the Trump administration time to appeal.

U.S. stocks ticked higher on Wednesday to hit another all-time high. The S&P 500 rose 0.5% and set a record for the third time in four days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down by 10 points, or less than 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.9%. Tesla helped drive the market higher and rose 5% after saying it delivered nearly 374,000 of its Model 3 and Model Y automobiles last quarter. That was better than analysts expected, though the electric-vehicle maker’s overall sales fell 13% from a year earlier. Worries have been high that CEO Elon Musk’s involvement in politics is turning off potential Tesla buyers. Constellation Brands climbed 4.5% despite reporting a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani previously sponsored legislation that would penalize New York shuls and other nonprofits donating to Israeli organizations involved in settlement activity, potentially subjecting them to million-dollar fines or civil lawsuits. The bill, titled the “Not on Our Dime!: Ending New York Funding of Israeli Settler Violence Act,” was first introduced by Mamdani in May 2023 in the New York State Assembly. It sought to prohibit New York–based not-for-profit corporations from providing what it calls “unauthorized support” to Israeli settlement activities, including aid to groups operating in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or Gaza.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump will meet at the White House on Thursday with Edan Alexander, the last living American hostage in Gaza, who was released in May. “The President and First Lady have met with many released hostages from Gaza, and they greatly look forward to meeting Edan Alexander and his family in the Oval Office tomorrow,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. Alexander, now 21, is an American-Israeli from New Jersey. The soldier was 19 when militants stormed his base in Israel and dragged him into the Gaza Strip. Alexander moved to Israel in 2022 after finishing high school and enlisted in the military. He was released on May 12 by the militant group Hamas after 584 days in captivity.

A former FBI agent who was charged with joining a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol and cheering on rioters is now working as an adviser to the Justice Department official overseeing its “weaponization working group,” which is examining President Donald Trump’s claims of anti-conservative bias inside the department. The former FBI supervisory agent, Jared Lane Wise, is serving as a counselor to Justice Department pardon attorney Ed Martin Jr., who also serves as director of the working group, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss a personnel matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. A department spokesperson declined to comment. The New York Times was first to report on Wise’s appointment.

Israel’s Defense Ministry Directorate of Defense Research and Development (MAFAT) has cleared for publication new data on the country’s war with Iran, revealing unprecedented intelligence-gathering efforts and highly effective air defense results. According to MAFAT, Israeli intelligence captured tens of millions of square kilometers of imagery from space during both the lead-up to and the course of the war. This included more than 12,000 satellite images taken over Iranian territory, day and night, providing critical information to support Israeli strikes inside Iran. During the conflict, Israel’s air defense systems intercepted 86% of the Iranian ballistic missiles launched toward its territory, MAFAT reported.

Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty to murder Wednesday in the brutal stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students in 2022 that stunned and terrified the campus and set off a nationwide search, which ended weeks later when he was arrested in Pennsylvania. Kohberger, who was a criminal justice graduate student at nearby Washington State University, admitted to the slayings before entering a formal guilty plea in a deal with prosecutors that will allow him to avoid the death penalty. He had ben set to go to trial in August. The small farming community of Moscow, in the northern Idaho panhandle, had not had a homicide in about five years when Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen were found dead at a rental home near campus on Nov. 13, 2022.

Police are warning of a sophisticated ATM scam preying on elderly New Yorkers, after at least nine reported thefts on the Upper East Side left seniors more than $70,000 poorer in recent weeks. Authorities say a trio of suspects — two men and a woman — were caught on surveillance cameras during three of the incidents, which occurred between May 8 and June 26 at branches of Chase Bank, Bank of America, Capital One, and Citibank. Among the hardest hit was an 86-year-old woman who lost nearly $24,000 from her account around 11:30 a.m. on June 19 at the Chase branch on York Avenue near East 79th Street. That same location was hit at least three times, police said.