The Department of Justice has subpoenaed New York Times journalists after they reported on security concerns involving the new, Qatari-gifted Air Force One, marking a dramatic escalation of President Donald Trump's campaign against the media that has drawn condemnation for eroding a fundamental freedom of American democracy.

The new jet, a present from the U.S. ally that the administration spent $400 million on to retrofit and upgrade, entered service last week. But Trump used an older model Air Force One jet to leave a NATO summit in Turkey and later referenced threats against him made by Iran.

The subpoenas seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan next week, the Times said, adding that federal agents delivered some subpoenas to the reporters at their homes. The subpoenas were issued after FBI Director Kash Patel and other Justice Department officials met at the White House on Friday to talk about the matter, according to a person familiar with the discussions who was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Times journalists who received subpoenas included Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt, the Times reported.

"The appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects," David McCraw, a lawyer for the Times, said in a statement.

Bruce D. Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said Trump's "war on the press is looking for another victim."

He said in a statement that the subpoenas "break from longstanding Justice Department practice to protect the public interest and press independence by requiring prosecutors to only seek information from reporters as a last resort when all other avenues have been exhausted."

The department said that "to be clear, reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are."

Its statement said "we value and appreciate the important role that the press plays in this country, but DOJ also plays an important role to make sure that the people entrusted with our nation's secrets do what they're supposed to do with that information, which means not sharing classified information."

While recognizing "there may always be natural tension there," the department said "we are not going to ignore the law and stop investigating the people who work in the administration and think it's okay to leak classified information impacting national security."

Issuing subpoenas represents further ramping up of Trump's effort to threaten independent news organizations by leveraging the power of the federal government against them. It is also part of a systematic pattern by the Republican president to attempt to undermine press freedom in order to shield him from negative coverage.

Earlier this year, the Justice Department issued subpoenas seeking to compel testimony from reporters at The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. In both cases, the department later withdrew the subpoenas, though.

In January, FBI agents searched the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, who has been covering Trump's transformation of the federal government, as part of a leak investigation into a Pentagon contractor accused of taking home classified information.

During his first term, Trump suggested that the press constituted an "enemy" of the American people. Since returning to the White House last year, he has waged an aggressive campaign against the media unlike any in modern U.S. history.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday refused to block the Pentagon from blacklisting artificial intelligence laboratory Anthropic in a decision that differed from the conclusions reached in another judge's ruling on the same issues.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., rejected Anthropic's request for an order that would shield the San Francisco company from the fallout stemming from a dispute over how the Pentagon could deploy its Claude chatbot in fully autonomous weapons and potential surveillance of Americans while the panel is still collecting evidence about the case.

But the setback in Washington came after Anthropic already had prevailed in separate case focused on the same issues in San Francisco federal court. In that case, a judge forced President Donald Trump's administration to remove a label tainting the company as a national security risk.

Anthropic filed the two separate lawsuits in San Francisco and the Washington appeals court last month, asserting the Trump administration was engaging in an "unlawful campaign of retaliation" because of its attempt to impose limits on how its AI technology can be deployed. The Trump administration blasted Anthropic as a liberal-leaning company trying to dictate U.S. military policy.

In the San Francisco case, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ruled that the Trump administration had overstepped its bounds by labeling Anthropic a supply chain risk unqualified to work with military contractors and issuing other directives that could cripple a company locked in a race for AI supremacy against rivals such as ChatGPT maker Open AI and Google.

That decision prompted the Trump administration to remove the stigmatizing labels from Anthropic and take other steps clearing the way for government employees and contractors to continue using Claude and other chatbots, according to court filing made in San Francisco earlier this week.

The president of a Christian college in Springdale pleaded guilty to a fraud charge Wednesday, admitting he took part in what prosecutors called a kickback scheme involving his school.

Oren Paris III had faced a trial Monday with former state Sen. Jon Woods and consultant Randell Shelton. Instead, the president of Ecclesia College pleaded guilty in federal court.

Prosecutors say Paris paid kickbacks to Woods and then-Rep. Micah Neal in return for $550,000 in state grants in 2013-14, using Shelton's consulting firm as a go-between. Neal pleaded guilty last year but has not been sentenced.

Woods, a Republican, faces 15 fraud counts while Paris and Shelton were named in 14 counts. Paris pleaded guilty to a fraud charge Wednesday. All had been charged with conspiracy, and Woods also faces a money-laundering charge.

Paris plead guilty to transferring $50,000 of a $200,000 in grant money from Woods and Neal to Shelton. Shelton sent $40,000 of the money to Woods as a kickback, according to Paris' plea.

In addition to pleading guilty, Paris quit as the college president and resigned from the board of the school his father founded. Woods and Shelton have each pleaded not guilty.

His lawyer, Travis Story, said Paris was allowed to retain the right to appeal the judge's refusal to dismiss the case against him. If Paris wins on appeal, the indictment and guilty plea would be voided, Story said. Paris said Woods' indictment alleged wrongdoing that didn't involve Ecclesia and that he shouldn't stand trial with him. The judge denied his request for a separate trial.

Paris remains free on bond but cannot travel beyond three northwestern Arkansas counties.

Shelton was present as Paris pleaded guilty, but his lawyer, Shelly Hogan Koehler, declined comment.

Ecclesia had received money from the state General Improvement Fund, which was controlled by legislators until the state Supreme Court declared last fall that the method of distributing money was unconstitutional.

Neal, a Republican, said he took two kickbacks totaling $38,000. The indictment doesn't detail what Woods is accused of receiving, as prosecutors say part of it was paid in cash.

The Supreme Court sided with e-cigarette companies on Friday in a ruling making it easier to sue over Food and Drug Administration decisions blocking their products from the multibillion-dollar vaping market.

The 7-2 opinion comes as companies push back against a yearslong federal regulatory crackdown on electronic cigarettes. It’s expected to give the companies more control over which judges hear lawsuits filed against the agency.

The justices went the other way on vaping in an April decision, siding with the FDA in a ruling upholding a sweeping block on most sweet-flavored vapes instituted after a spike in youth vaping.

The current case was filed by R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co., which had sold a line of popular berry and menthol-flavored vaping products before the agency started regulating the market under the Tobacco Control Act in 2016.

The agency refused to authorize the company’s Vuse Alto products, an order that “sounded the death knell for a significant portion of the e-cigarette market,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion.

The company is based in North Carolina and typically would have been limited to challenging the FDA in a court there or in the agency’s home base of Washington. Instead, it joined forces with Texas businesses that sell the products and sued there. The conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the lawsuit to go forward, finding that anyone whose business is hurt by the FDA decision can sue.

The agency appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that R.J. Reynolds was attempting to find a court favorable to its arguments, a practice often referred to as “judge shopping.”

The justices, though, found that the law does allow other businesses affected by the FDA decisions, like e-cigarette sellers, to sue in their home states.

In a dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said she would have sided with the agency and limited where the cases can be filed.  

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids called the majority decision disappointing, saying it would allow manufacturers to “judge shop,” though it said the companies will still have to contend with the Supreme Court’s April decision.

Attorney Ryan Watson, who represented R.J. Reynolds, said that the court recognized that agency decisions can have devastating downstream effects on retailers and other businesses, and the decision “ensures that the courthouse doors are not closed” to them.

Ukraine ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, taking a step toward membership that Kyiv says will increase chances of prosecuting war crimes by Russians and boost victims’ chances of receiving compensation.

Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, voted Wednesday to ratify the founding treaty of the ICC, which currently has 124 member states.

“We are trying to take real steps on all of the fronts of international justice to bring the Russian Federation to justice,” said Deputy Justice Minister Iryna Mudra.

“The ratification of the Rome Statute will increase the chances of victims receiving compensation for Russian war crimes,” she added.

Ukraine is not a member of the court but has accepted its jurisdiction dating back to 2013. The court’s prosecution office opened an investigation in 2022.

In 2023 the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, over allegations of war crimes involving the forced deportation of Ukrainian children. The following year, more warrants were issued for Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Army, Gen. Valery Gerasimov.

Membership of the ICC also is a requirement for joining the European Union, which Ukraine hopes to do. It was formally accepted as a candidate in June 2022, four months after Russia began its full-scale invasion.

The document was initially signed by the Ukrainian government in 2000, but the Constitutional Court blocked ratification in 2001 and declaring it unconstitutional to authorize the ICC to rule on Ukraine’s actions.

The question of ICC membership resurfaced in 2014, after Russia illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and occupied parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

However, many Ukrainians feared that ratification of the Rome Statute could allow the ICC to prosecute Ukrainian citizens participating in the armed conflict on Ukrainian territory.

To reflect those concerns, the legislation contains a clause that says Ukraine will not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction in cases where the crimes may have been committed by Ukrainian nationals.