A federal court on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs from going into effect, ruling that the emergency-powers law invoked by the administration doesn’t give the president authority to impose duties on goods from nearly every US trading partner.

The three-judge panel at the New York-based US Court of International Trade concluded that Congress has exclusive authority to regulate commerce with other countries and that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 — the crux of Trump’s argument to impose the tariffs — doesn’t give the president «unbounded» authority to impose the duties.

«An unlimited delegation of tariff authority would constitute an improper abdication of legislative power to another branch of government,» the court wrote in its opinion. «Regardless of whether the court views the president’s actions through the nondelegation doctrine, through the major questions doctrine, or simply with separation of powers in mind, any interpretation of IEEPA that delegates unlimited tariff authority is unconstitutional.»

«The challenged Tariff Orders will be vacated and their operation permanently enjoined,» the panel ruled.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said that trade deficits amount to a national emergency «that has decimated American communities, left our workers behind, and weakened our defense industrial base — facts that the court did not dispute.» He added that «the administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness.»

Trump has repeatedly said the tariffs would bring back manufacturing jobs to the US and help reduce the federal budget deficit. But since Trump announced his «Liberation Day» tariffs in April, global financial markets were left upended and many business leaders sounded alarms about the economic damage they would cause. 

Since then, the president has repeatedly delayed the enforcement of certain rates, most recently kicking a 50% duty against the European Union to July at the earliest, leaving a lot of uncertainty in the present moment. 

Wednesday’s ruling was handed down by a panel comprised of Timothy Reif, a Trump appointee; Jane Restani, who was named to the bench by President Ronald Reagan; and Gary Katzman, an appointee of President Barack Obama.

The ruling came in response to a pair of lawsuits, one filed by the Liberty Justice Center, a nonpartisan organization representing five small US businesses that said they were harmed by the president’s tariffs, and another filed by a group of 12 states, led by Oregon.

«This ruling reaffirms that our laws matter, and that trade decisions can’t be made on the president’s whim,» Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said in a statement.  

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Connections: Sports Edition might be tough today. You’ll see a bunch of single and double letters. See if you can figure out how they’re related. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.  

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Play ball!

Green group hint: Championship.

Blue group hint: Sunny California city.

Purple group hint: Watch over or protect.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Baseball/softball positions, abbreviated

Green group: WCWS

Blue group: San Diego teams.

Purple group: ____ guard.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is baseball/softball positions, abbreviated. The four answers are 

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is WCWS. The four answers are college, series, women’s and world.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is San Diego teams. The four answers are Aztecs, FC, Padres and Wave.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ____ guard. The four answers are mouth, point, shin and shooting.

Under a deal announced Wednesday, Elon Musk’s xAI chatbot, Grok, will be available to Telegram users for one year starting sometime in the summer. Telegram is a cloud-based social media and instant messaging service that is free but offers a paid tier.

According to Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, who announced the partnership on X, Telegram users will be able to pin Grok to the top of their chats. Users will be able to ask questions, create stickers, write suggestions and summarize chats, links and documents.

An X user asked Durov about the security of user data.

«User privacy is paramount,» he responded. «To be clear, xAI will only access data that Telegram users explicitly share with Grok through direct interactions. That’s expected — you can’t message anyone (including a chatbot) without sharing what you write.»

Telegram, with an estimated 1 billion active users, will receive $300 million in cash and equity from xAI to integrate Grok into Telegram apps for the 12-month duration. Durov’s company will also get half of the revenue from xAI subscriptions purchased through Telegram apps.

Telegram premium users have already had access to Grok since early 2025.

Until now, X has trained Grok’s responses through public posts, except in the EU. It is unclear whether the Telegram-xAI partnership will leverage Telegram user posts to further train Grok.

Cloud security platform Netskope estimates that about 25% of EU firms have banned Grok. The bans come amid a string of controversies, including Musk’s involvement with DOGE and the US government, and Grok’s responses about «white genocide» in South Africa and doubts over Holocaust death numbers.