BAD TRADE: A panel of  judges for the US Court of International Trade ruled that President Trump overstepped the law declaring an economic emergency to impose steep tariffs on foreign imports. The decision blocks Trump from imposing some of his biggest tariffs on China and other US trading partners including Mexico and Canada.

  Wall Street futures rallied on the news.

  The court noted that the  1977 federal economic emergency law cited by the administration to impose tariffs does not specify tariffs as a tool available to the president to protect the United States from economic threats.

KICK ASS: President Trump bragged yesterday that in his campaign against Harvard, he’s going to make the university “great again.”  He said, “They’ve got to behave themselves, you know. I’m looking out for the country and for Harvard.” 

  Trump has sequestered billions of dollars in research funding to Harvard, much of it for long term medical research. He says he’s curbing Harvard’s campus antisemitism and “racist” diversity equity initiatives.

  Harvard is fighting back, going to court to keep their research money and the ability to enroll foreign students, who account for 27 percent of the student body.

  Trump said, “But Harvard wants to fight. They want to show how smart they are, and they’re getting their ass kicked.” 

— Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last night that the Trump administration will work to “aggressively revoke” the visas of Chinese students in the US, including those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in “critical fields” … something he did not define, but it’s probably physical sciences.

  The family of communist party leaders have previously been allowed to study in the US. Even Chinese leader Xi Jinping sent a daughter off to Harvard.

PARDON ME?: Answering questions yesterday about a spate of pardons and clemency orders, President Trump said he’s considering pardons for men convicted in the 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer.

  Trump said he had watched the trial and “it looked to me like somewhat of a railroad job.” He suggested that the plot was really just a bunch of guys hanging around, “You know, they were drinking, and I think they said stupid things.” 

  Thirteen men were part of the plot, about half of them affiliated with a militia group angry about Covid pandemic restrictions. Members of the group surveilled Whitmer’s home and movements and discussed blowing up a bridge to slow police response.

  Trump also granted pardons or clemency to at least eight other people. Including former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, a Republican who pleaded guilty to fraud, and Michael Grimm, a former Republican representative from Staten Island who served seven months in prison for tax fraud about 10 years ago. 

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE:

— Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday that he might bar government scientists from publishing in leading medical journals like the Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine and instead  create “in-house” publications.  Kennedy said on the “Ultimate Human” podcast that the long established medical journals are corrupt and  under the control of pharmaceutical companies.

— The Justice Department has moved to kill a federal affirmative action program that set aside $37 billion to be awarded to women and minority-owned contracting businesses. The DOJ motion filed in federal court sides with two white-owned businesses challenging the program’s constitutionality.

  “Over the past five decades, the federal government imposed a policy of race discrimination in the roadbuilding industry,” said Dan Lennington, deputy counsel at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which represents the plaintiffs. “Thousands of workers and small businesses have been victimized, and hundreds of billions have been spent, distorting the market and inflating construction costs for the taxpayers. That ends now.”

— Tesla billionaire Elon Musk says he’s disillusioned by Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that would vastly increase the national debt and that he’s leaving Washington and even ceasing to give money to politicians.

  Musk told CBS News, “I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”

— Despite chicken flocks decimated by bird flu and fears that the virus could evolve to infect humans, the Department of Health and Human Services said it is cancelling a $766 million contract with the vaccine company Moderna to develop a vaccine against flu viruses that could cause a pandemic, including bird flu. 

— Asked in the oval Office yesterday whether he thinks Vladimir Putin wants to end the Ukraine war President Trump said,  “I can’t tell you that, but I’ll let you know in about two weeks.” The President says “two weeks” any time he doesn’t have a plan or never thought about the subject. 

ON ICE: The Florida Panthers beat the Carolina Hurricanes to reach their third straight Stanley Cup finals. In the Western Conference, the Edmonton Oilers lead the Dallas Stars three games to one. 

 THE SPIN RACK: The Swiss village of Blatten, home to 300 people,  was partially destroyed after a huge chunk of glacier collapsed into the valley. The town had been evacuated but one person was reported killed. Climate change is causing glaciers to melt and in this case, collapse.  —  A former surgeon who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing 299 people, most of them children, was sentenced yesterday in a French court to the  maximum of 20 years in prison in what is considered the largest pedophilia case in the country’s history. — Charlie Woods, the 16-year-old son of the great golfer Tiger Woods, won his first junior golf tournament yesterday.  

BELOW THE FOLD: A witness in the Sean “Diddy” Combs racketeering trial testified that the music mogul used to call his girlfriend Cassie Ventura such names as  “baby girl, CC, bitch, slut, and ho.” But you know, he really loved her.

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