The curtain may have come down for President Donald Trump at the Kennedy Center but the tarp stays up for now.

Matt Floca, executive director and chief operating officer of the performing arts venue, told a federal court Saturday that the institution had complied with an order to remove Trump's name from the facade. In a filing, Floca said the board of trustees and the center had removed "all physical signage on the Kennedy Center building and grounds, including the front portico, that purports to rename the Kennedy Center after President Trump."

But for onlookers who have gathered on the plaza in front of the center over the past day hoping to witness a dramatic moment symbolizing the limits of Trump's power, it was virtually impossible to see whether the signage was gone. A tarp hung over the scaffolding constructed for workers to perform that task. It was unclear when the tarp might be removed to reveal the original lettering that had endured for decades: "The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts."

A reporter was able to peer through a slight opening in the tarp, which was pulled tightly against the wall, and saw that the letters for Trump's name were no longer affixed to the building.

By the end, the Kennedy Center's leadership had dug in against a federal judge's order to erase Trump's name from the building. Two courts rejected the institution's last-minute request to retain Trump's name pending an appeal. After severe thunderstorms raked Washington on Friday evening, the Kennedy Center sought one more extension before complying with a noon Saturday deadline.

Those who pushed for the scrubbing of Trump's name were in a celebratory mood. Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex officio member of the board who sued to remove references to the president from the building and the center's operations, was spotted in the plaza late Friday and Saturday morning. She posted a video to social media that purported to show her performing the "Trump dance" in one of the Kennedy Center's great halls.

"Today's victory is the beginning of returning the Kennedy Center to the American people," Beatty said in a statement. "The rule of law prevailed, and that is worth celebrating."

Leo Bartholomaus, a recent graduate of Syracuse University who lives in Virginia, said he was walking by the Kennedy Center on Friday afternoon after visiting the National Mall to see events related to this weekend's UFC match at the White House. He said he was not happy that Trump added his name to the building.

"My grandmother had a big love of the arts," he said. "I've been here to see 'The Lion King.' I wasn't a fan of Donald Trump putting his name on it. I thought it was better as the Kennedy Center."

The removal of Trump's name closes one of the more unusual chapters in the history of the Kennedy Center, which began construction in 1964 and was dedicated to the memory of the slain president, Democrat John F. Kennedy. At what is typically one of the few relatively nonpartisan spaces in Washington, Trump has wielded tremendous influence over the venue during his second term.

Though he rarely discussed the Kennedy Center during his 2024 campaign, Trump moved quickly to oust the institution's leadership when he returned to office in January 2025 and replaced it with a board of trustees that named him chairman. His name was quickly added to the building.

While the removal of his name marks a setback for Trump, he is moving forward with plans to reshape the physical landscape of the nation's capital in ways that have few modern parallels.

As U.S. and Israeli forces pounded Iran, and Tehran and its affiliates retaliated by firing missiles at targets across the Mideast on Monday, the international legal order was caught in the crossfire.

At the heart of the post-World War II global order — United Nations headquarters in New York — Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council on Saturday that U.S. and Israeli airstrikes violated international law, including the U.N. Charter. He also condemned Iran's retaliatory attacks for violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of nations in the Mideast.

Officials in the Trump administration insist that the military campaign is a lawful measure to ensure Tehran does not build nuclear weapons. "It's a matter of global security. And to that end, the United States is taking lawful actions," Trump's U.N. ambassador, Mike Waltz, said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote in a letter to the U.N. on Sunday that the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei "constitutes a grave and unprecedented breach of the most fundamental norms governing relations among States."

On Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth bullishly defended the U.S. military campaign. "No stupid rules of engagement, no nation building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win and we don't waste time or lives," he said at the Pentagon.

The war with Iran comes less than two months after U.S. forces swooped into Caracas to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and fly him to New York to face justice.

David Crane, an American expert on international law and founding prosecutor of a United Nations court that prosecuted crimes in Sierra Leone, wrote in an analysis that U.S. attacks in Iran and Venezuela "highlight a dangerous trend: the normalization of unilateral force as a tool of foreign policy. Even when the outcome is positive, the violation of international law and constitutional limits sets a precedent that threatens global stability and undermines America's own legal foundations."

In Washington, many Democrats have called the strikes illegal. They argue that under the Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war. They say the Trump administration failed to lay out its rationale or plan for the military strikes, and the aftermath.

Congress hurriedly scheduled a war powers debate for Monday over Trump's authority to bomb Iran.

The Trump administration's latest policy of deporting immigrants to "third countries" to which they have no ties is unlawful and must be set aside, a federal judge ruled Wednesday in a case that already reached the nation's highest court.

U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Massachusetts agreed to suspend his decision for 15 days, giving the government time to appeal his latest ruling in the case. Murphy noted that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the administration's favor last year, pausing Murphy's previous decision and clearing the way for a flight carrying several migrants to complete its trip to war-torn South Sudan, where they had no ties.

Murphy said migrants challenging the Department of Homeland Security's policy have the right to "meaningful notice" and an opportunity to object before they are removed to a third country. The policy "extinguishes valid challenges to third-country removal by effecting removal before those challenges can be raised," the judge concluded.

"These are our laws, and it is with profound gratitude for the unbelievable luck of being born in the United States of America that this Court affirms these and our nation's bedrock principle: that no 'person' in this country may be 'deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,'" Murphy wrote.

In June, the Supreme Court's conservative majority found that immigration officials can quickly deport people to third countries. Liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, saying the ruling gives the government special treatment.

Murphy said President Donald Trump's administration has repeatedly violated — or tried to violate — his orders. Last March, he noted, the Defense Department deported at least six class members to El Salvador and Mexico without providing the process required under a temporary restraining order that Murphy issued. DHS issued its new policy guidance for third-country removals on March 30, two days after Murphy's order.

"The simple reality is that nobody knows the merits of any individual class member's claim because (administration officials) are withholding the predicate fact: the country of removal," wrote Murphy, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden.

Murphy said the DHS third-country removal policy has targeted immigrants who were granted protection from being sent back to their home countries, where they feared being tortured or persecuted in other ways.

Eight men who were sent to South Sudan in May had been convicted of crimes in the U.S. and had final orders of removal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have said.