Hard Times at Harvard: Enemy of the educated, President Donald Trump, announced the newest tactic in his war against Harvard. The Trump administration, through Department of Homeland Security director and murder of dogs Kristi Noem, halted Harvard's ability to enroll international students. Not only that, but the administration said all existing international Harvard students must transfer or lose their legal status. This ongoing battle with Harvard stems from Trump's claims that the university didn't comply with his orders and was guilty of "fostering violence, antisemitism and coordinating with the Chinese Communist party on its campus." This punishment is a way for the Trump administration to "root out the evils of anti-Americanism and antisemitism in society and campuses," Noem's letter to Harvard read.
How Timely: Unrelated to this recent Trump tantrum, a federal judge in California issued an order blocking the Trump administration from "terminating the legal statuses of international students at universities" across the US. Additionally, the injunction "prohibited the administration from arresting or detaining any foreign-born students on the basis of their immigration status."
In a Shocking Turn of Events: Harvard is suing the Trump administration over the international students block. "We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action,” Harvard president Dr. Alan M. Garber wrote in a letter. He expressed that this action by the Trump administration “imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams.” The Trump administration is at war not just with the elite schools, but with higher education in general. If we are stupid and incurious, then they can roll right over us.
Ummm, ramifications please? So, what does this move by Trump do? According to what Pippa Norris, a lecturer in comparative politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, told The Guardian, this "is basically cutting off international knowledge to American students, he is reducing soft power, and therefore weakening America."
Happy Memorial Day Weekend: Don't forget to check road closures and ferry schedules. Plus, good weather and a long weekend mean the people will be out!
Is that...? Bah gawd! That's Paint Map's music! THEY'RE BAAAACK.
It's Memorial Day Weekend, so expect heavy traffic everywhere. While we pause most of our road work during the holiday weekend, you should expect delays because there's (gestures broadly) a LOT happening.
— WSDOT Traffic (@traffic.wsdot.wa.gov) May 22, 2025 at 3:39 PM
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A Bit of a Pickle: An Interbay parking lot used as the only safe lot for RV dwellers and permanent car campers is no more. The space was the only one of its kind in a city where 15 percent of homeless people are living in their cars. Now it's slated to become a giant, three-story pickleball complex. So, Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) must move on and find another space. LIHI's use of the site (which helped connect 60 percent of people living there with housing) was always meant to be temporary; they signed a five-year lease with the lot owner in 2023 with an early termination option if another development came along after two years. The bright side, aside from possibly alleviating the pickleball onslaught on public courts, is LIHI has sited a potential new space which will could host even more RVs, cars, and tiny homes.
Quilcene School Board Sucks Rocks: Out somewhere on the Olympic Peninsula is the Quilcene School District. They have one school. It has 93 students. For whatever reason (probably bigotry), the school board voted to ban transgender athletes from school sports. Students will only be allowed to participate in sports based on their sex assigned at birth. The measure, which directly violates state law and the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association rule book, passed 3-2.
Bleakest Headline of the Week: "Mahmoud Khalil permitted to hold newborn son for the first time despite government objections." Columbia alum and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is still being wrongfully detained for his role in pro-Palestine protests on Columbia's campus last year—in other words, for exercising his First Amendment rights. Khalil was arrested while his wife was nine months pregnant. Authorities would not allow him out of detention to see the birth of his child. One month later, Khalil held his son for the first time, against the government's wishes. Apparently, Khalil was only allowed to hold his child because a judge blocked the Trump administration order to keep Khalil and his newborn baby separated by plexiglass. The inhumanity makes my insides roil.
Life on Mars: NASA's Perseverance rover is self-obsessed. Here is its latest selfie from the Red Planet. I gotta admit, it seems peaceful. Our billionaires could be pretty happy there. Maybe they should get a head start on the apocalypse they're all so jazzed for and pack up and ship off to beautiful, sandy Mars.
The latest selfie by NASA’s Perseverance rover at Mars has captured an unexpected guest: a Martian dust devil.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) May 21, 2025 at 11:00 PM
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Holy Ship! In Sweden, construction crews are tunneling under the historic city of Varberg as part of the aptly-named Varberg Tunnel railway project. So far, the construction process has unearthed six shipwrecks that date from the 17th century to as far back as the medieval era. Usually, I expect a good tunnel project to unearth at least one centuries-old shipwreck, but six! Wow!
Chat, Is This Good? The number of white nationalist groups is down in the US! Yay! Wait. Oh, no. The drop in hate groups is because they think their views have gone mainstream and been normalized by the government so they don't feel the need to organize.
Sorry to the Bots: It's not time for us to care about your humanity, robots. Save that for the plot of I, Robot. A Florida court has ruled AI chatbots aren't protected under the First Amendment. The mother of a 14-year-old child who died by suicide after developing a relationship with an AI chatbot sued the company, Character Technologies, for wrongful death. The company tried to use a freedom of speech defense for whatever its chatbot said. (The bot was speaking to the 14-year-old as Daenerys Targaryen and Rhaenyra Targaryen from the Game of Thrones universe) That didn't fly in court.
It's in the 60s and sunny—do you know where your clams are? Sunning themselves, probably.
Seattle is beautiful.
— Ryan Packer (@typewriteralley.bsky.social) May 22, 2025 at 12:34 PM
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King of the Economy: Trump says his trade discussions with the European union are "going nowhere." As the international trade genius that he is, Trump threatened to chuck 50 percent tariffs on European imports. In the same Truth Social flurry, Trump also said he would put a 25 percent tariff on iPhones manufactured outside the US—so, uh, all iPhones. The stock market did not like this news.
RIP to a Real One: The College Inn Pub, a favorite haunt of many Huskies, is closing on June 15 after over 50 years. The pub tried to shutdown five years ago during the pandemic before a group of people flew in to save it. Hopefully this will happen again.
A song for your Friday: Seattle band Coral Grief has new tune just in time for a perfect late spring weekend. It feels sun-drunk.
