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11:35 AM ET, April 17, 2025

memeorandum

 Top Items: 
CNN:
IRS making plans to rescind Harvard's tax-exempt status  —  The Internal Revenue Service is making plans to rescind the tax-exempt status of Harvard University, according to two sources familiar with the matter, which would be an extraordinary step of retaliation as the Trump administration seeks …
RELATED:
Washington Post:
Trump administration asks IRS to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status  —  The directive to the IRS is a significant escalation of President Trump's feud with Harvard University and other Ivy League institutions and other nonprofit groups his administration views as “woke.”
Ismail Shakil / Reuters:
US IRS planning to rescind Harvard's tax-exempt status amid Trump feud, CNN reports  —  The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is making plans to rescind the tax-exempt status of Harvard University, CNN reported on Wednesday, citing two sources familiar with the matter.
Discussion: The Gateway Pundit
Claire A. Michal / The Harvard Crimson:
DHS Threatens To Revoke Harvard's Eligibility To Host International Students Unless It Turns Over Disciplinary Records
Discussion: Yale Daily News
Department of Homeland Security:
Secretary Noem Terminates $2.7 Million in DHS Grants; Orders Harvard to Prove Compliance with Foreign Student Requirements
The Harvard Crimson:   Joe Biden Applauds Harvard's Resistance at Private Kennedy School Event
Courtenay Brown / Axios:
Trump says Powell's “termination can't come fast enough”  —  President Trump blasted Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell on Thursday with the strongest suggestion yet of intentions to try to fire the nation's most powerful economic policymaker.  —  Why it matters: Trump's attack comes …
RELATED:
Colby Smith / New York Times:
Trump Says Fed Chair Jerome Powell's ‘Termination Cannot Come Fast Enough’  —  The president said that Jerome Powell has been too hesitant to cut interest rates, and “he should certainly lower them now.”  —  President Trump lashed out at Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve …
Phillip Inman / The Guardian:
ECB cuts rates for third time this year as Europe braces for Trump tariffs  —  Quarter-point cut in cost of borrowing aimed at combating slowing eurozone growth and impact of US border taxes  —  The cost of borrowing fell across the 20-member euro area for the third time this year on Thursday …
Kevin Breuninger / CNBC:
Markets will ‘crash’ if Trump can fire Fed's Powell, Elizabeth Warren warns
Discussion: Raw Story
Alan Feuer / New York Times:
Boasberg Finds Probable Cause to Hold Trump Officials in Contempt Over Deportation Flights  —  The move was a remarkable attempt by a jurist to hold the White House accountable for its apparent willingness to flout court orders.  —  A federal judge in Washington threatened on Wednesday …
RELATED:
Luc Cohen / Reuters:
Trump challenges judges' probes of compliance with deportation orders
Discussion: Baltimore Sun and Persuasion
Susan Page / USA Today:
Trump in trouble? Stagflation, judicial contempt, and sagging polls
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Trump brushes aside courts' attempts to limit his power
Discussion: New York Times and CNN
CNN:
Trump's pick to be DC's top prosecutor failed to report nearly 200 appearances on far-right media outlets to Senate  —  Ed Martin, the Trump administration's nominee to serve as US attorney for Washington, DC, failed to report hundreds of media appearances he's made in the past few years …
RELATED:
Tom Nichols / The Atlantic:
The Russian TV Darling Gunning for U.S. Attorney  —  Ed Martin's appearances on Russian state television should end his nomination to be a U.S. attorney.  —  The United States of America is still a free country, and every private citizen has the right to speak to anyone, anywhere in the world, about anything.
Marisa Kabas / The Handbasket:
GOP photos at El Salvador prison evoke Abu Ghraib—and worse  —  Members of Congress visited CECOT for some torture tourism—and to prove loyalty to Trump. … A row of Latino men with shaved heads and stoic expressions wearing identical white boxer shorts stand behind thick metal bars.
Reuters:
Exclusive: Musk's SpaceX is frontrunner to build Trump's Golden Dome missile shield  —  Elon Musk's SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of President Donald Trump's “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, six people familiar with the matter said.
Greg Sullivan / Bloomberg:
Russia Lifts Ban on Taliban Amid Deepening Ties With the Group  —  Russia's Supreme Court lifted a ban on the Taliban, the latest step in growing relations between Moscow and the Islamist group in Afghanistan.  —  “The decision comes into legal force immediately,” the court said on Thursday …
RELATED:
Reuters:   Russia removes Afghan Taliban from list of banned terrorist groups
Andrew Solender / Axios:
Scoop: Democrats seek probe of DOGE's Social Security meddling  —  House Democrats are pressing the Social Security Administration's inspector general to open a probe into DOGE's tinkering with the agency, Axios has learned.  —  Why it matters: Social Security is an extremely sensitive issue …
RELATED:
Jennifer Rubin / The Contrarian:   Fiscal Disaster Awaits
The Harvard Crimson:
Can Harvard Use Its Endowment To Make Up For Federal Cuts?  It's Possible, but Not That Simple.  —  Harvard's endowment is not a $53.2 billion pile of cash.  But as the University sits on the precipice of historic financial losses, it has increasingly faced calls to draw from endowment funds to make up the difference.
Discussion: KRDO and CNN
Mark Joseph Stern / Slate:
The Most Damning Aspect of the Supreme Court's Latest Trump Dodge  —  The story of Kilmar Abrego Garcia—the Maryland father wrongly deported to a Salvadoran prison—has captivated the nation and spurred Democratic lawmakers into action, with Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen flying to El Salvador on Wednesday to try to get him freed.
Discussion: NBC News
Carl Zimmer / New York Times:
Astronomers Detect a Possible Signature of Life on a Distant Planet  —  Further studies are needed to determine whether K2-18b, which orbits a star 120 light-years away, is inhabited, or even habitable.  —  The search for life beyond Earth has led scientists to explore many suggestive mysteries …
Heather Cox Richardson / Letters from an American:
April 16, 2025  —  In El Salvador today, authorities denied Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) a meeting or a phone call with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man the Trump regime sent by “administrative error” to the terrorist prison CECOT.  Abrego Garcia is Van Hollen's constituent …
RELATED:
USA Today:
Abrego Garcia updates: Defiant senator 'won't rest' until he brings deported man home
Tom Pappert / Tennessee Star:
Biden's FBI Ordered TN Highway Patrol to Release ‘Maryland Man’ Recently Deported to El Salvador After He Was Detained in 2022 Traffic Stop on Suspicion of Human Trafficking  —  The Tennessee Star learned on Wednesday that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an alleged member of the Central American gang Mara Salvatrucha …
Hunter Walker / Talking Points Memo:
Trump Is Sending People To The Camps  —  This is your TPM evening briefing.  —  Extraordinary times call for extraordinary and strong language.  President Trump's plan to have migrants — and potentially U.S. citizens — rounded up, flown to El Salvador, and confined there in a maximum security facility …
Discussion: The Independent and New Republic
Joe Sommerlad / The Independent:
CDC autism report disputes RFK Jr's claims about why the condition is on the rise  —  Experts attribute increase in case numbers to improved diagnostics as Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr insists ‘epidemic’ underway  —  The number of U.S. children diagnosed with autism continues to rise …
Bloomberg:
HUD Building Put Up for Sale as Trump Looks to Unload Properties  —  The Trump administration is offering the Washington, DC headquarters of the Department of Housing and Urban Development for sale as it seeks to reduce its real estate footprint for a shrinking federal workforce.
Matt Lavietes / NBC News:
American doctor receives email from immigration officials telling her to leave the country immediately  —  Dr. Lisa Anderson, 58, was born in Pennsylvania and is a U.S. citizen.  —  A doctor born in the United States says she received an email from federal immigration authorities demanding that she leave the country immediately.
Discussion: ABA Journal
Carolyn Y. Johnson / Washington Post:
Women, minorities fired in purge of NIH science review boards  —  Scientists, with expertise in fields that include mental health, cancer and infectious disease, typically serve five-year terms and were not given a reason for their dismissal.  —  Thirty-eight of 43 experts cut last month …
New York Times:
Texas Is Poised to Create a $1 Billion Private School Voucher Program  —  The Texas House approved the plan, part of a push by President Trump's allies to offer up to $10,000 for private school, home-school or virtual learning.  —  The Texas House of Representatives voted early Thursday morning …
Hana Kiros / The Atlantic:
‘In Three Months, Half of Them Will Be Dead’  —  Elon Musk promised to preserve lifesaving aid to foreign children.  Then the Trump administration quietly canceled it.  —  After Elon Musk made a public show of remedying an apparent error in DOGE's massive cuts to foreign aid …
National Environmental Satellite …:
Notice of Changes  —  Estuarine Bathymetry  —  Name of product or service:  —  Estuarine Bathymetry  —  Type of change:  —  Product will be decommissioned  —  Description of change:  —  Estuarine Bathymetry is being decommissioned and will no longer be available.
Lisa Needham / Public Notice:
White guy DEI  —  Affirmative action, Trumper style. … 📚 🧑‍🏫 📚  —  Republicans have spent decades howling about how affirmative action led to unqualified minorities taking jobs away from well-qualified straight white men.
 
 
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 More Items: 
ProPublica:
Trump Team Eyes Politically Connected Startup to Overhaul $700 Billion Government Payments Program
Chris Cillizza / The Daily Beast:
What Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Planning?
Erin Doherty / CNBC:
Trump's tariffs are ‘inviting corruption,’ Democrats tell Bessent, Lutnick
Jonathan Lambert / NPR:
Destroying endangered species' habitat wouldn't count as ‘harm’ under proposed Trump rule
Claire Heddles / NOTUS:
A Supreme Court Ruling on Labor Boards Could Let Trump Take Over the Federal Reserve
Discussion: CBS News
Bill Scher / Washington Monthly:
The Next Frontier of Plutocracy
Discussion: Blue Virginia
 Earlier Items: 
NBC News:
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro says he hasn't heard from Trump since the arson attack
Nick Miroff / The Atlantic:
We're About to Find Out What Mass Deportation Really Looks Like
 

 
From Techmeme:

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
Netflix agrees to acquire WBD's studios and streaming business in an $82.7B cash-and-stock deal, including debt, to close after WBD splits in two in Q3 2026

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
The EU fines X €120M for breaching online content rules, the first fine under the DSA, citing issues like its deceptive blue checkmarks, after a two-year probe

Echo Wang / Reuters:
Meta acquires Limitless, which makes a pendant-style AI wearable that records and transcribes real-world conversations; Limitless has raised more than $33M

 
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