THERE WILL BE BLOOD: While the President played golf in Florida, administration officials were on the airwaves yesterday defending his steep import tariffs, but market futures indicate another major selloff today. Futures on the Dow Jones are down nearly 700 points. Foreign markets are down steeply; Hong Kong, 13.22%; Japan, 7.83%; London, 3.48%. 

  A universal 10 percent tariff went into effect Saturday and the President’s “reciprocal” tariffs go into effect Wednesday. President Trump is sticking to his game. The White House says more than 50 countries have been on the phone and the President said aboard Air Force One, “They are coming to the table, they want to talk, but there’s no talk unless they pay us a lot of money on a yearly basis.”

  Trump claimed this morning on his Truth Social feed, “Oil prices are down, interest rates are down (the slow moving Fed should cut rates!), food prices are down, there is NO INFLATION, and the long time abused USA is bringing in Billions of Dollars a week from the abusing countries on Tariffs that are already in place.”

HANDS OFF!: Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered at 1300 locations in all 50 states Saturday to protest the reign of Trump and Elon Musk. The protests were gathered under the umbrella name, “Hands Off.”

  Protesters came out against federal employment cuts, mass deportations, you name it. If the Trump administration did it they were against it. Whether the protests will have any influence on Trump is doubtful, but it is significant to have such mass vocal dissent only two months into a new presidency.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE:

— A senior Justice Department lawyer was suspended after admitting in open court that a Salvadoran immigrant with legal residence in the US should not have been deported. Erez Reuveni, the acting deputy director of the department’s immigration litigation division, was suspended for failing to “follow a directive from your superiors,” according to a letter obtained by The New York Times.

  Reuveni had been praised as a “top-notched” prosecutor by his superiors in an email announcing his promotion just two weeks ago.  Now he’s the latest career official to be suspended, demoted, transferred or fired for failing to keep the party line.

  Nonetheless, the DOJ and ICE are under court order to return Kilmar Abrego García to the US by midnight tonight. The Justice Department continues to insist, without evidence, that the immigrant in question is a gang member.

  Judge Paula Xinis wrote in a decision yesterday that, “This is not about Defendants’ inability to return Abrego García, but their lack of desire.” She said, “his detention appears wholly lawless.”

  Despite Reuveni’s admission of the truth, Attorney General pam Bondi issued a statement saying, “At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States,” and that, “Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”

— The Trump administration is not burning books … not yet … but they are removing them from library shelves. The Naval Academy in Annapolis removed a list of 381 books from its library named for the heroic WWII Admiral Chester Nimitz. What they removed are books about some of the more uncomfortable topics in American life and history. Most of the books are about race and racism, but they also removed books about gender, white nationalism, feminism, diversity-equity, and the holocaust. They removed Maya Angelou’s autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” about growing up Black in America.

— Attorney General Pam Bondi said yesterday on Fox News that the true Constitutional crisis in America is the lawsuits filed against the Trump administration and the President’s actions. “He was overwhelmingly elected by an overwhelming majority of the United States citizens to be our commander in chief and that’s what he’s been doing,” Bondi said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Just since January 20, we’ve had over 170 lawsuits filed against us. That should be the constitutional crisis right there.”

— The Trump administration has cancelled the visas of hundreds of foreign students without explanation, although it appears to be because of their disagreement with US support of Israel’s war in Gaza. 

HOOP DREAMS: The University of Connecticut women routed South Carolina 82-59 to win their 12^th national championship and their first since 2016. Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong led the scoring for UConn with 24 points each.

  In the men’s division, Houston toppled the No. 1 seed Duke 70-67 Saturday night to win a spot in tonight’s final.  

 Earlier Saturday evening, Florida came from eight points down at the half to beat Auburn 79-73. Florida’s guard Walter Clayton Jr. scored 30 points, 15 of them on 3-pointers.

THE BREAKAWAY: Washington Capitals’ captain Alex Ovechkin, after playing 20 years in the National Hockey League scored his 895th goal yesterday, surpassing the record of “The Great One,” Wayne Gretzky, set in 1999. Gretzky’s record had been thought to be unbreakable

  Ovechkin, 39, is a master at what’s known as the “one timer,” taking a pass from a teammate and rifling it into the goal.

THE SPIN RACK: At least 18 people have died in spring tornados, storms, and flooding in several southern states. One of those killed was a 9-year-old boy swept away by floodwaters as he walked to his school bus stop in Frankfort, Kentucky. —- A second child, this time an unvaccinated 8-year-old girl, died in the Texas measles outbreak. The West Texas outbreak has grown to 480 cases with 54 people in other states also diagnosed. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime opponent of vaccination, came out and said the best way to avoid measles is to get vaccinated.  

BELOW THE FOLD: A poster on a London bus stop portrays Tesla billionaire Elon Musk emerging from the roof of one of his cars delivering a straight-armed salute with the message,  “Goes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds.” 

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