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Trade war chaos, Harvard victory and MAHA mistakes

 
Today's GLOBAL TRADE story

Trump's trade war whipsawed by court rulings

What happened
A federal appeals court yesterday paused a special trade court's nullification of President Donald Trump's signature tariffs, restoring his 10% taxes on all imported goods and higher tariffs on specific countries while the judges consider the merits of Trump's appeal. Adding to the uncertainty over Trump's trade war, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras yesterday blocked those same tariffs for two plaintiffs, calling them "unlawful."

Who said what
Contreras and the U.S. Court of International Trade both said Trump had misused the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, claiming unilateral powers not authorized under the law. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's administrative stay "bought time for judges to begin evaluating the legal core" of Trump's arguments, The New York Times said, but the "head-spinning series of court rulings" left "Wall Street and much of the world trying to discern the future of U.S. trade policy." 

Trump slammed the three trade court judges who unanimously ruled against him Wednesday — one of whom he appointed — in a long, angry social media post that also called conservative judicial mastermind Leonard Leo a "sleazebag" who "probably hates America." Hopefully, Trump wrote, "the Supreme Court will reverse this horrible, country threatening decision, quickly and decisively."

Trump's case for using the 1977 law "was precarious from the start," Ankush Khardori said at Politico Magazine. And although the Supreme Court is "heavily skewed in his favor," it is "far from clear that they will bail him out" here. Trump has "other laws he can use to impose tariffs, though most are more limited than his emergency claims," The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial, but he "would be wiser to heed the trade court's ruling as the political gift it is and liberate his presidency and the economy from his destructive tariff obsessions."

What next?
The Federal Circuit court said it wanted arguments from both sides by June 9, a deadline suggesting the appellate court's 11 active judges are "prepared to move swiftly on the case," the Journal said. Contreras paused his ruling for two weeks to allow the administration to appeal to the separate U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

 
 
Today's HIGHER ED story

Judge blocks push to bar Harvard foreign students

What happened
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs yesterday extended her temporary block of the Trump administration's efforts to bar foreign students from Harvard University and said she would soon issue a preliminary injunction, allowing America's oldest university to enroll foreign students as the litigation proceeds in court.

Who said what
Burroughs said during yesterday's hearing she was concerned that the government was violating her previous order by trying to block students from enrolling. "I want to maintain the status quo," she said. "People are terrified." The stay was a "temporary victory" for Harvard in the Trump administration's "multipronged attack against the school," The New York Times said. 

Harvard was the first university to "reject" Trump's sweeping demands for change and control, arguing they "threatened the autonomy that has long made U.S. higher education a magnet for the world's top scholars," The Associated Press said. The million-plus foreign students at U.S. universities also provide a "crucial financial lifeline" for the schools, NPR said. About 5 miles away from Burroughs' Boston courtroom, Reuters said, Harvard President Alan Garber "received a standing ovation" at the university's commencement when he welcomed graduating students from "down the street, across the country" and "around the world — just as it should be."

What next?
As Burroughs asked both sides to propose language for her injunction, administration lawyers "hinted that the Trump administration was pursuing other ways to bar international students from enrolling at the Ivy League university," the Times said.

 
 
Today's Health Story

White House tackles fake citations in MAHA report

What happened
The White House yesterday acknowledged and scrambled to correct problems with the "Make America Healthy Again Commission" report released last week by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The MAHA report's citations "are rife with errors, from broken links to misstated conclusions," NOTUS reported yesterday morning, and several of the cited sources "don't appear to exist at all." Other news organizations identified further errors.

Who said what
Kennedy "repeatedly said he would bring 'radical transparency' and 'gold standard' science to the public health agencies," The Associated Press said, but he has "refused to release details about who authored the 72-page report." Some of the "numerous garbled scientific references and invented studies" meant to "underpin the science" in the report "appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence," The Washington Post said.

The MAHA report was "developed in little more than three months and contained mainstream ideas combined with highly controversial elements," Axios said, "including doubts about the current childhood vaccine schedule." White House and HHS spokespeople said the "transformative" report's minor "formatting" errors did not affect its "substance." Several updated versions of the report were uploaded yesterday.

What next?
The "false references" to "fictitious studies" did "not necessarily mean the underlying facts in the report are incorrect," The New York Times said. But "if these really basic citation practices aren’t being followed," said Columbia University epidemiologist Katherine Keyes, one of the authors cited for a study she did not write, that "makes me concerned about the rigor of the report."

 
 

It's not all bad

A new type of contact lens uses nanoparticles that absorb infrared light, allowing wearers to see in the dark. Scientists from China's University of Science and Technology combined nanoparticles with "flexible, nontoxic polymers" found in soft contact lenses, said The Independent. When trial participants put on the contacts, they could see the "flickering of the infrared light," even with their eyes closed, said study senior author Tian Xue. This technology could one day be used to enhance vision in low-visibility conditions.

 
 
Under the radar

Aviation experts are warning that the system used on airplanes to warn pilots of impending collisions could be hacked. The alert injects another element of concern into an airline industry already reeling from February's fatal crash in Washington, D.C., and a series of air traffic control blackouts at New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport.

The Traffic Collision Avoidance System is required on all U.S. passenger airplanes and "alerts pilots when two aircraft come dangerously close to each other," said The New York Times. If the two planes come within a certain proximity, TCAS will alert pilots and instruct them to "redirect their aircraft, either by climbing or descending." The system is not perfect, but TCAS has been "in use for decades, and experts say it has significantly reduced collisions."

If hackers were to gain access to an airplane's TCAS, the "successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to manipulate safety systems and cause a denial-of-service condition," said the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Hackers may be able to generate "spoofed location data" that could "lead to the appearance of fake aircraft on displays and potentially trigger undesired" TCAS warnings.

The idea of a TCAS hack "scares the shit out of me," one pilot said to The Telegraph. But not everyone believes a hack is all that likely, while others don't see the point. Pilots "know these attacks exist," said Matt Smith, who performed a TCAS study for Britain's Oxford University, "but we don't know what would happen if they occurred."

 
 
On this day

May 30, 1911

The first running of the Indianapolis 500 was held. The inaugural open-wheel car race was won by driver Ray Harroun. The Indy 500 has since become one of the most prestigious racing events in the world. Spain's Álex Palou won the most recent race, held last Sunday.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

"Appeals court lets tariffs stand for now" as "White House devises Plan B on trade policy," The Wall Street Journal says on Friday's front page. "Rulings on tariffs clash, clouding trade outlook," The New York Times says. "Trump trade gambit hobbled by setbacks," The Washington Post says, and his "efforts to ban foreign students blocked." For Harvard grads, "pride, resolve" as a "joyous day takes on a different flavor in the shadow of Trump," The Boston Globe says. "ICE resumes courthouse arrests," the Arizona Republic says. "Police let white nationalists go 'unbothered,'" says The Kansas City Star, citing witnesses.

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Gatoñera

A Houston woman who threw her cat a quinceañera raised enough money to save her local cat shelter. Miranda Gonzalez's 15-year-old cat, Holly, loves "being the center of attention," so she knew the feline would enjoy having a traditional Mexican coming-of-age party, Gonzalez told People. The elaborate shindig, which included a mariachi band, went viral, and enough donations came in from fans and party attendees to save the Almost Home Cat Haven from bankruptcy.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Sarah L. Voisin / The Washington Post via Getty Images; Josh Reynolds / For The Washington Post via Getty Images; Photographer Name / Alamy; Illustration by Marian Femenias-Moratinos / Future