HARVARD MAN: Ratcheting up President Trump’s campaign to crush Harvard University, the administration sent a letter to all federal agencies instructing them to re-assign contracts with the school to other entities, depriving Harvard of about $100 million and essentially severing the government’s relationship with the university.

  The Trump administration has frozen about $3.2 billion in grants and contracts with Harvard and is attempting to block the university’s ability to enroll foreign students.

  The letter from the general services administration accuses Harvard of racial discrimination in admission and hiring policies. What they’re talking about is  Harvard’s affirmative action and diversity, equity programs to increase racial and ethnic diversity on campus.

  The GSA letter says; “Harvard now has to offer a remedial math course, which has been described as ‘middle school math’, for incoming freshmen. These are the direct results of employing discriminatory factors, instead of merit in admission decisions.

  The letter also charges that Harvard “has a disturbing lack of concern for the safety and wellbeing of Jewish students.”

  The letter concludes, “We look forward to assisting you with terminating or transitioning these contracts.”

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE:

— A federal judge in Washington rejecteded the Trump administration’s attempt to use government power to punish WilmerHale, a law firm associated with former special counsel Robert Mueller, who led the investigation into Donald Trump’s possibly illegal connections with Russia. It is the third victory for a law firm that resisted a Trump order that would cripple a law firm by cancelling its security clearances and forbidding it to take federal cases.

  Judge Richard Leon in the District of Columbia ruled that the Trump order was unconstitutional and “must be struck down in its entirety,” saying that the President appeared intent on driving the firm to the bargaining table by imposing “a kitchen sink of severe sanctions.”

  Other law firms have bowed to Trump and agreed to perform $100 million each in pro bono work for Trump supported-causes.

— Elon Musk said Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” which increases the federal deficit undermines his spending cuts.

— The state department has stopped visa interviews for foreign students.

—  President Trump pardoned a former nursing home executive who pleaded guilty to cheating on taxes but whose mother had raised millions of dollars for the Trump presidential campaign.

  Paul Walczak’s application for a pardoned leaned on his mother’s work for Trump and other Republican candidates. The application argued that Walczak’s criminal prosecution was politically motivated because of his mother’s efforts for Trump rather than by his diversion of employee tax money to pay for extravagant personal expenses.

  Walczak’s mother, Elizabeth Fago, attended a $1-million-per-person fund-raising dinner last month at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and three weeks later he signed the pardon for her son.

  Trump pardons the truly guilty and unrepentant. He announced that as soon as today he plans also to pardon former reality show stars Todd and Julie Chrisley of “Chrisley Knows Best” who were convicted of tax evasion and bank fraud. Trump called the couple “terrific people” and also said he doesn’t know them.

— The Covid vaccine will no longer be recommended for healthy children or healthy pregnant women. Orders from the vaccine-skeptic Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy posted on Twitter/X says that; “Bottom line: it’s common sense and it’s good science. We are now one step closer to realizing  @POTUS’s promise to Make America Healthy Again.”

  Recommendations on vaccines are normally made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

— Britain’s King Charles opened the Canadian parliament yesterday as a thumb in the eye to President Trump, declaring Canada is “strong and free.” Without mentioning Trump or his trade war, Charles said, “Canada is ready to build a coalition of like-minded countries that share its values, that believe in international cooperation and the free and open exchange of goods, services and ideas.”

THE BITCOIN AFFAIR: Police in New York arrested a second suspect in the kidnapping and torture of an Italian man in order to get the password to his Bitcoin account worth millions of dollars. The second suspect, William Duplessie, 33, surrendered after negotiating with the NYPD. The first suspect, John Woeltz, 37, a cryptocurrency investor, was arrested at his rented townhouse where the crime is reported to have occurred.

  The victim, Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan, told police he was taken May 6^th when he went to visit at a posh townhouse in NoLIta neighborhood of Manhattan. He said he was bound, pistol-whipped, his feet placed in cold water, and shocked with a Taser. During his three week ordeal he was also held over the parapet at the top of the building, he told the cops. Eventually he escaped and flagged down a traffic officer.

THE OBIT PAGE: Rick Derringer, the rocker whose hits included “Hang On Sloopy” and “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” died Monday in Ormond Beach, Florida. He was 77 and no cause was given.

  “Rock and Roll” was on the soundtrack of the 1993 movie “Dazed and Confused” about high school stoners. One of Derringer’s more enduring pieces was his collaboration on the instrumental “Frankenstein” with Edgar Winter.

 THE SPIN RACK: Elon Musk’s SpaceX booster blew up several minutes into flight yesterday and the space capsule broke up on re-entry. — Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, a Republican, former football coach at Auburn University, devout Trump ally, and possibly one of the stupidest members of Congress, announced that he’s running for governor of his state.  — Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino, who has written extensively about honesty, was stripped of her tenure following findings that she had falsified data in her research. She studied how small changes can influence behavior, including research showing that counting to 10 before deciding what to eat can lead to choosing healthier food.

BELOW THE FOLD: Belgium’s picturesque city of Bruges has asked tourists to stop stealing the cobblestones from its medieval streets. They lose 50 to 70 a month.

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