Here's the latest crisis at Harvard.

If you're an especially talented graduate student in STEM, you can get a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to help pay for graduate school.

These are competitive, much sought-after awards called NSF GRFPs.

—> 2/ You apply as you head to grad school. NSF awards about 4,000 a year—but each fellowship is for 3 to 5 years of funding.

The award is tuition + a small stipend to reduce the need to TA.

Students get the grants, but in practice, they go straight to universities from NSF.

—>

If you’re curious when fascism arrives in the US, it has. A US President attacking individual companies & institutions by name—and threatening ‘punishment’ if they don’t comply with his whims.

6 days ago: Walmart
Yesterday: Harvard
Today: Apple — *must* make iPhones in US

—> 2/ That’s not the way American democracy & capitalism work. Trump doesn’t get to decide what Walmart charges for back-to-school supplies.

Trump doesn’t get to decide who enrolls at Harvard.

Trump doesn’t tell Apple where to make products.

This is the test.

Right. Now.

—>

We got nothing.

In the trade 'deal' with China, the US got nothing.

We're mostly back to where we were before the global trade war started—before Donald Trump started the global trade war.

The Chinese conceded nothing.

Indeed, from the outside, China won this round.

—> 2/ An economist from Hong Kong explains:

'From China’s perspective, the outcome of this meeting is a success, as China took a tough stance on the US threat of high tariffs & eventually managed to get the tariffs down significantly without making concessions.'

The chaos…

—>

You know how sometimes, you follow the weather & you know the blizzard is coming tomorrow morning, but today it's 39º & crystalline sunshine, & you can't quite believe the blizzard's coming?

But you can look at the radar and, yup, it's coming.

That's where we are now.

—> 2/ We know that in the next month, almost nothing is coming by ship to US from China & Chinese factories.

Ships full of merchandise, not coming.

The Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach has said cargo for the next couple weeks is down 36%.

—>

cnbc.com/2025/04/22/bus…

Fascinating element of Harvard's refusal to buckle to the Trump Administration today.

Who are Harvard's lawyers in this matter?

#1 is Robert K. Hur.

Sound familiar? Trump named him US Attorney for Maryland.

—> 2/ Then Robert Hur was the special counsel who investigated Pres. Biden's mishandling of classified documents. Hur as the one who said Biden was 'an elderly man with a poor memory.' And declined to charge Biden.

That's Harvard lawyer #1.

—>

CNBC anchor & reporter Becky Quick opens a key interview this morning:

'When you've got a crisis like this...'

And you have to stop and say, Crisis. Crisis? What's the 'crisis'?

• Recession coming on fast
• Layoffs beginning
• Inflation likely coming back

—> 2/ Also...

• Economic partners everywhere furious & looking to work with others
• Global economy fragile, nation by nation, now at risk of global recession

That is a crisis. But we created it for ourselves and for everyone else.

In fact, one person alone created it.

—>

Could Trump's tariffs spark a US factory & manufacturing renaissance?

Let's say they do.

Here's the problem, even if we double the number of factories the US has now. Even if we—somehow—start making microwave ovens and pleated-front chinos and pillow cases in the US again.

—> 2/ There won't be many jobs.

Factory automation for routine, repetitive manufacturing is very far along.

It's so widespread that there's a phrase in the manufacturing world:

'Lights-out factories.'

…Factories with so few people, they keep the lights off.

—>

There is a critical fraud at the heart of the Trump tariffs.

They are not reciprocal tariffs.

The tariffs are *not* based on the tariffs each nation imposes on us.

They are calculated using each nation's trade deficit with the US.

That's totally different.

List below.

—> 2/ Switzerland doesn't have a 61% tariff on US goods.

The EU doesn't have a 39% tariff on US goods.

Vietnam—Vietnam!—doesn't have a 90% tariff on goods from the US.

Those numbers aren't 'barriers' to US goods. It's *exactly the opposite.*

It's how much stuff they sell us.
—>

Here's the thing that might happen with Trump's tariffs.

It's not 1893. It's not 1933.

We—the United States—have spent 50 years creating a web of global trade, an interwoven global economy.

Now, Trump is using garden shears to cut the US out of that network.

—> 2/ We've been the indispensable trade partner—the US is 26% of global GDP, and a great place to sell your stuff. We have well-off consumers with plenty of disposable income.

But if Trump is unbending, the world could simply comply—and trade among themselves.

—>

On the bridge of the container ship Dali, 4 minutes from disaster, there's one critical moment we haven't heard about yet.

The very moment the ship lost power the 1st time.

What did the pilot do, right then?

His first thought, apparently, was safety — the bridge looming ahead.

—>

⤵️ NTSB photo of the bridge of the Dali... 2/ The 1st 'event' leading up to the collision that the NTSB notes in its timeline is 1:24:59—when alarms on the bridge indicate power failure.

The ship was without electricity, engine power, lights, navigation, radio.

Dali was dark, literally & in terms of communications.

—>

Sam Bankman Fried sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for the FTX crypto fraud.

Below from ⁦@WSJ⁩ — a great chart comparing him to other major white collar criminals.

SBF gets a decade more than Jeff Skilling from Enron. Twice as long as Elizabeth Holmes. 2/ Here's the WSJ account of this morning's sentencing hearing.

US Dist Judge Lewis Kaplan said he thought SBF was a risk to commit future fraud if freed; didn't seem to tell the truth on the stand; and lacked 'any real remorse.'

—>

(Open free link)
wsj.com/finance/curren…

Again, a moment to pause & appreciate the cool professionalism of those in & around the Key Bridge at 1:24 am Tuesday.

Ship’s pilot radios in that ship has lost steerage & will hit bridge.

Someone (maritime control?) transmits urgent alert to Maryland/Balt police dispatch…

—> 2/ Police dispatched with just a few crisp phrases—ship has lost steering, close the bridge to traffic—and race to do just that.

No time for confusion. No time for … ‘What do you mean, close the bridge? Who says?’

4 minutes, alert to collapse.

Bridge successfully closed…

—>

Pause just a moment this evening & appreciate something from 24 hours ago:

An Alaska Air 737 had a hole torn in the side of it in flight.

The plane was 3 miles up, flying at 400 mph.

It stayed intact. The pilots landed in minutes. No one was seriously injured.

Incredible. —> 2/ For the people on board, it was a harrowing, even terrifying, few minutes.

But the training, aircraft design, engineering, safety, inspections — the fail-safe system worked.

Something went wrong. But that failure was stopped.

Great WSJ story…
wsj.com/business/airli…

I was nudged to wear a pink pullover to go see Barbie yesterday evening.

Barbie was a great movie — remarkable balance of camp, satire, serious & storytelling.

Really hard to pull all that off. The actual movie-making—set design, costumes, directing—is artful & absorbing.

—> 2/ Fun movie-making, fun movie-watching, just provocative enough.

Half the people streaming into our DC-area theater were wearing pink. You could spot Barbie moviegoers 3 blocks away.

That was cool. A brief burst of community. 'They're going to Barbie too!'

And…a mystery!

James Cameron is being interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN now...

'It certainly wasn't a surprise today.'

The submersible apparently dropped some ballast weights, Cameron says, in effort to abort dive.

He says pilot must have heard hull starting to delaminate & took action. 2/ Cameron on the carbon composite material as the hull of the submersible:

'It's completely inappropriate for this use.'

Wow. Says carbon composite is wrong material for 'external pressure' vessels — ie, subs — v. internal pressure vessels, like scuba tanks.

—>

US Navy heard Titan submersible implode in real time Sunday morning, using its wide network of advanced undersea listening technology.

…Huge @WSJ scoop.

Story says Navy heard implosion & notified Coast Guard commander managing the search.

Open story…
wsj.com/articles/u-s-n… 2/ Lots of people have asked exactly this question on Twitter:

Did the US Defense Department perhaps hear the Titan implode?

US Navy is always listening — with worldwide net of acoustic devices, and also using technology aboard nuclear subs.

So… —>

Coast Guard is able to offer a lot of detail on the implosion of the Titanic submersible.

• The ROV found two debris fields, and searchers identified 5 specific pieces of the submersible Titan — including both the front and rear curved ends of the pressure vessel

—> 2/ From CG briefing on the catastrophic loss of Titan vessel…

• The ROV that found Titan was the 1st one in water, looking around the Titanic wreckage

• It appears Titan imploded in the water column above Titanic — not caused by striking Titanic itself, for instance

—>

The big takeaways from the Coast Guard briefing on the intense search for the missing Titan submersible:

• Noises were heard more than once, including today, & by more than one search plane.

• US Navy underwater experts are analyzing the noises—but no insights were offered. 2/ Indeed, CG Capt. Jamie Frederick & a Woods Hole official were at pains to point out that the search ships make noises, other ships make noises, sea creatures make noises — and offered no sense what the noises might mean, except that they'd be told the sounded like 'banging.'

It's Tax Day — a little late because of the Empancipation Day Holiday in Wash DC!

Here's some US tax tidbits to brighten filing day:

• 90% of Americans file their individual returns on time, on April 15. Just 10% request the automatic extension to Oct. 15.

—> 2/ (I'm impressed with that timeliness, given we are often a national of procrastinators...)

• 90% of Americans do not actually 'do' their own taxes — they either use a professional or use one of the semi-automated online services.

(A real indictment of US tax complexity.)

Huge moment in spaceflight this morning from SpaceX & Elon Musk.

SpaceX set to test launch huge Starship spaceship & Super Heavy rocket.

If successful—it has 33 huge engines running at launch—this would be a milestone.

T-minus 10 minutes. Watch here:
spacex.com/launches/missi… 2/ Starship is a marvel, once it starts flying.

It does 2 things NASA never has:

• It will be totally resuable — the upper cargo / passenger stage; the lower 'super heavy' rocket launch vehicle. Both fly back to Earth & land.

• Refuelable in orbit.

wapo.st/3ohjlSi

The 1st woman to fly in space was a Russian skydiver & textile worker, Valentina Tereshkova, who orbited in Vostok 6 for 3 days in June 1963.

When she returned, her space-time was more than all 6 (male) US astronauts total to that date.

Tereshkova, 86, is still alive.

—> 2/ Her story is filled with great, small details. See Wikipedia entry below.

She is the only woman to have ever flown in space solo.

She's the youngest woman to have flown in space — she was 26. That record might be broken in the next decade…

—>

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentina…