Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

One of Britain’s largest police forces is mandating “equity training” for officers, focusing on “white privilege”, “micro-aggressions” and the distinction between “non-racist versus anti-racist.”

The Telegraph reports that Thames Valley Police is putting officers through the training despite a tribunal last year finding that the force positively discriminated against white officers.

As we highlighted, the force appointed an Asian detective inspector without considering white officers for promotions.

The three officers who won the case, had all been working for the force for between 19-26 years and were actively blocked from applying for the position.

Now the rest of the force is being put through the “equity training,” which according to an independent review of the case “can often be seen as demonising white people and therefore building barriers to the learning.”

🔴 Police officers being taught they have white privilegehttps://t.co/pD4tWRSSlj

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) April 11, 2025

Former assistant chief constable Kerrin Wilson, who led the review, notes that some officers expressed “strong feelings of frustration” at the training.

“As white males they felt disadvantaged and … they had the perception that unfairness was allowed for minority groups but not for majority populations,” she writes.

The review also notes that minority officers were also annoyed by the training which they said was harmful to meaningful diversity efforts. 

The review states that minorities don’t want to participate in such schemes in which “the damage to their reputation is greater than the opportunity they may have been afforded.”

“A number of minoritised [sic] staff have declared openly that they will not seek promotion or specialist moves in the foreseeable future as this has left them feeling that even if they did succeed in securing promotions their efforts would not be accepted by some as genuine,” it states.

The review continues, “Some staff have stated that despite being in the force for many, many years they now feel that [it] has become a hostile environment and they would not advocate for the force as an employer of choice for those from a minoritised background.”

The review also highlighted there has been a “very strong, at times bordering on aggressive” response from white officers, who feel “they have no support within the force” and want to see repercussions for higher ups pushing ‘positive discrimination’.

“There is a tangible feeling of being overlooked which is reflected in the wider societal discourse that is emerging around the UK and so cannot be ignored,” the review further proclaims.

“If this is not addressed, this may well lead to even greater divides within the force as cultural attitudes become more hostile,” it adds.

Former government advisor and ex police officer Rory Geoghegan, commented “Police officers and staff deserve far better from their leaders than to be crudely categorised by skin colour and subjected to reductive, divisive ideologies.”

“The independent review exposes this troubling practice, but it fails to identify or confront the underlying issue: the unthinking acceptance of critical race theory – a deeply political framework that has no place in an impartial police service,” Geoghegan added.

Thames Valley Police issued a statement declaring “Our staff and officers represent a diverse group with a range of views on many issues – but it’s our shared values that bring us together to protect our communities.”

“We are committed to learning from this employment tribunal and independent review to improve how we work together,” the statement further suggests, adding “We strive to be fair and courageous in how we serve our colleagues and the community.”

This latest development comes as it has also emerged that West Yorkshire Police is permitting Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) candidates to submit job applications all year round, but making White people wait for specific recruitment drives.

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Bloomberg reports Wednesday that the United States is currently in talks with Saudi-supported Yemeni forces (who have long fought the Houthi rebels) to cobble together a possible new land offensive to send against the Shia militant group which is allied to Iran.

“Yemeni forces opposed to the Houthis are in talks with the US and Gulf Arab allies about a possible land offensive to oust the militant group from the Red Sea coast, according to people involved in the discussions,” Bloomberg writes.

The report follows with, “The conversations come about a month into a US-led aerial assault against the Houthis ordered by President Donald Trump, an operation yet to achieve its aim of ending the Iran-backed group’s attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, a vital trade route, and Israel.”

And The Wall Street Journal first reported Monday that the US is considering a ground assault, given the Houthis have proven impossible to dislodge merely through airstrikes, which have been intense and ongoing since March 15.

The group in question is the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) of former Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The PLC is the ‘internationally recognized’ government, but which is now based in Saudi Arabia (in exile), given the Houthis have de fact control over most of the country.

The Saudi-UAE-US coalition had already waged an aerial as well as proxy ground war from 2015 to 2022, which killed hundreds of thousand of people and blocked vital resources for the starved population, but the whole campaign did nothing to oust the Houthis – in fact quite the opposite as they became entrenched in the most important strategic sites.

The prior WSJ report mentioned that US mercenaries are already being used to coordinate with anti-Houthi factions on the ground:

Private American security contractors provided advice to the Yemeni factions on a potential ground operation, people involved in the planning said. The United Arab Emirates, which supports these factions, raised the plan with American officials in recent weeks, the U.S. and Yemeni officials said.

The U.S. is open to supporting a ground operation by local forces, the U.S. officials said, while noting that a decision on whether to back the effort hasn’t been made yet. The U.S. isn’t leading the talks for a ground operation, the officials added. The discussion involves empowering the local factions allied with the internationally recognized government in Yemen to take charge of the country’s security, they said. 

But again, this has been tried before and utterly failed. This time the Houthis are even more emboldened given they possess ballistic missiles and drones capable of reaching both Israel and US warships deep in the Red Sea.

And throw in private American contractors to the mix, attempting to do what the US-Saudi coalition in Yemen couldn’t accomplish for a half-decade, and you have a half-baked plan which is sure to be a mess, quagmire, and losing proposition.

👉Buzz about US supporting another proxy ground war in #Yemen is getting louder. @stavroulapabst https://t.co/BLCNFHCCBn

— Kelley B. Vlahos (@KelleyBVlahos) April 16, 2025

The US should also look back on its experience in Afghanistan. But this is no doubt why it is mulling greater use of proxies and mercenaries, and not regular US forces. Even if committed to a ‘limited’ ground operation using proxies, there’s always the potential for serious escalation which leads to direct Pentagon boots on the ground. The whole Yemen campaign seems a ‘no win’ situation, and is ultimately to the greater benefit of Israel – and not necessarily Washington.

Via Remix News,

The imbalance between the Russian and Ukrainian militaries will deepen and may even lead to the fall of Kyiv, believes Dominique Delawarde, a retired French army general.

“Russia is certainly continuing to recruit more troops, at a rate of about 1,000 per day, which is more than it is losing on the battlefield. That is why it is becoming stronger,” Delawarde said.

At the same time, he said that Ukraine is losing more soldiers on the front line than it is able to recruit. “Since they have repeatedly mobilized their forces, they are increasingly short of reserves,” he argued.

According to him, “the visible imbalance between Russian and Ukrainian troops will deepen and may even lead to the fall of Kyiv.” As he emphasized, Russia has not yet used its full potential in the war against Ukraine.

In the opinion of the French general, time is on Moscow’s side, and not only in terms of the military aspect. 

In his opinion, Russia is in no hurry to achieve peace, further weakening Kyiv’s NATO allies, who “have pumped colossal amounts of money into the bottomless pit of Ukraine, while at the same time leading to financial ruin and falling into economic chaos.”

However, as the war in Ukraine has shown, the war is not purely a matter of who has the larger army and more soldiers. 

Ukraine has leaned heavily upon drones to wage its battles and has other advantages in terms of intelligence, communications, and certain weapons made available through its Western partners. 

Nevertheless, a lack of recruits has severely harmed Ukraine’s war efforts.

“Europe’s economic weakness will ultimately benefit Russia,” Delawarde said, as quoted on Wednesday, April 16, by the Russian news agency TASS.

On the same day, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine extended martial law and general military mobilization for 90 days – until August 6, 2025. 

This is the fifteenth such decision of the Ukrainian parliament since the beginning of the full-scale war.

Most analysts do not believe Russia has the resources to take Kyiv, as evidenced by the slow pace of Russia’s progress in retaking even a small share of the country’s territory in the east. However, if Ukraine were to lose military support from the West, then Putin may be able to do so.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been ongoing since February 24, 2022, and has turned into the largest armed conflict in Europe since the end of World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945.

Read more here…

Authored by Edward Ring via American Greatness,

By the time this is published, everything may have changed, and that is to be expected. Throughout his career, well before and since becoming a politician, Trump has explicitly stated that he does not think it is always a good strategy to be predictable. And while markets love predictability, sometimes markets, and the systems propping them up, need disruption. This is such a moment.

Nobody should deny that the anxiety is genuine. An older friend of mine, well into his 70s, still working but ready to retire, is wondering how he and his wife will survive if their savings are wiped out. That’s true for all of us, but it begs the question: What if the painful restructuring we may be about to endure, and which may last for many years, is necessary to avoid an even worse fate?

Trump’s abrupt escalation of import tariffs goes well beyond violating the principles of comparative advantage, but we can start there. “Comparative advantage” is not all it’s cracked up to be. Repeated in business schools as if it were gospel since the 1980s, it goes something like this: “Wool is cheaper in Scotland, and wine is cheaper in France, so France should sell their wine to Scotland, and Scotland should sell their wool to France.” Everybody wins. Period. That’s the extent of it. That is the essence of free trade theory.

In the real world, though, policies that rely on “comparative advantage” doctrine as their moral justification have gotten pretty ugly. While overall economic growth may be maximized when every nation exports products that it produces most cost-effectively, the local impacts are not always benign. Nations that produce coffee at competitive global prices, for example, end up with valuable cropland converted from food production to coffee plantations. These coffee plantations are typically owned by multinational corporations that repatriate profits to low-tax nations elsewhere while buying off a small local elite that streamlines the regulatory environment. Meanwhile, the nation becomes dependent on imports for everything except coffee, and even the coffee ends up priced out of reach for the average citizen. Replace “coffee” with any specialty product, and all too often, the “gains of trade” translate on the ground into nations with seething, destitute populations dependent on accumulating debt and foreign aid.

These examples aren’t restricted to foreign nations, nor are they restricted to commodities. While American multinationals moved manufacturing overseas, in the process destroying millions of jobs and thousands of communities in America, it wasn’t just cheap wool, cheap wine, and dirt-cheap flat-screen TVs that were pouring into the country in exchange. We offshored our production of steel, our chip manufacturers, our pharmaceutical industry, and much more.

And even that devastation was tolerated for decades because its effects were mostly felt in what we now call rust belt states. Our service economy and tech sectors boomed, along with what was left of manufacturing, satiating a majority of the population that loved buying cheaper foreign imports. But this whole scheme could never go on forever. America’s trade deficit in 2024 was up to $918 billion, a new record. America’s cumulative trade deficit, nearly all of it incurred since 2000, is now estimated in excess of $17 trillion.

To balance the trade deficit, there is what economists call the “current account.” If dollars flow overseas for us to purchase foreign imports in excess of foreign nations spending dollars to purchase our exports, the surplus dollars are repatriated in the form of foreigners bidding up the prices for assets they purchase in America. A slight oversimplification would be that trade deficits equate to cheap flat screens and unaffordable homes. But there is another reason America has huge trade deficits. It floods the world with dollar-denominated transactions, and by permitting foreigners to buy American assets, we effectively collateralize our currency. And so long as America is for sale in this manner, that helps sustain the dollar as a hard currency.

That comes in handy. For 46 out of the last 50 years, Americans have logged federal budget deficits. So far, the dollar’s status as the dominant transaction and reserve currency of the world gives America’s federal government the ability to borrow money by selling Treasury Notes.

This is all well known and rehashed beyond the need to elaborate further. So, why are people acting like this was sustainable? How long can the global economic model rest on American trade deficits funding the military and industrial development of nations that, in some cases, aren’t even allies, with all of it balanced through foreign purchases of American assets? And how long will international demand for dollars finance federal budget deficits?

To understand why this had to come to a head, consider federal budget trends in recent years. 

In 2019, the last year of Trump’s first term, the federal budget was $4.4 trillion, with interest payments of $400 billion. For 2025, the first year of Trump’s current term, the projected federal budget is $7.0 trillion, with interest of just under $1.0 trillion.

What changed? While the COVID pandemic was used to justify massive infusions of stimulative federal cash into the economy, much of it probably necessary, why hasn’t spending been reduced since the pandemic’s impact has been over for at least two years? Are we supposed to just expect massive federal budget deficits year after year? Is it sustainable to log a federal budget deficit that has grown from an alarming $900 billion in 2019 to $1.9 trillion in 2025, more than twice as much?

A roughly accurate summary of the economic reality we confront is federal budget deficits of $2 trillion per year and trade deficits of $1 trillion per year. Trade deficits translate into growing foreign ownership of American assets. Federal budget deficits add up in the form of accumulating, interest-bearing national debt. In 2019, the interest payments on what at the time was $22 trillion in national debt had already reached $575 billion, at an average interest rate of 2.5 percent. By 2024, the national debt had skyrocketed to $35 trillion, an increase of $13 trillion in just six years. Interest payments in 2024 were $1.1 trillion, and the average interest rate had risen to 3.3 percent.

“Average” interest rate requires explanation. Ten-year treasury notes currently pay 4.4 percent. Interest rates have risen over the past few years. Imagine if that continues, and $35 trillion (or more) in treasury notes mature and are reinvested at 4.4 percent. That would raise the annual federal interest payment on the national debt to $1.5 trillion.

At what point does this become a crisis? 

And if we wait until there is another financial crisis, will we be able to borrow our way out of it again? No wonder Trump’s team is cutting bureaucracy and hoping to eliminate massive entitlements fraud. By every metric that matters, the size and obligations of the federal government have exploded in the last six years, and it can’t go on.

Which brings us to the geopolitical reality we must confront: the rise of China. No other nation has done more to finance the rapid industrialization of China than the United States. But now, the United States depends on China for critical minerals, electronic equipment, machinery, iron, steel, medical apparatus, organic chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and much more. Every year, the biggest percentage of our trade deficit is with China, over $300 billion in 2024. The Chinese invest this surplus in Treasury Notes but also use it to purchase strategic assets in the United States. And how has China treated us as we finance the meteoric rise of its economy?

Here is a transcript of comments made by noted investor and businessman Kevin O’Leary on CNN last week.

“I do business with China; they don’t play by the rules. They’ve been in the WTO for decades, and they have never abided by any of the rules they agreed to when they came in. They cheat, they steal, they steal IP, I can’t litigate in their courts, they take product, technology, they steal it, they manufacture it and sell it back here. This is not about tariffs anymore. Nobody has taken on China yet, not the Europeans, no administration, for decades. As someone who actually does business there, I’ve had enough. I speak for millions of Americans who have IP that has been stolen by the Chinese. I have nothing against the Chinese people, but the government cheats and steals and finally an administration that puts up and says, ‘enough.’”

O’Leary thinks Trump should impose 400 percent tariffs on China. Maybe that will get their attention. He also suggested that America, with what is still the biggest economy and biggest domestic market on earth, may not have this much economic leverage in the future. He’s right. Now is the time to exert economic pressure on China because a decade from now, it will be too late.

The Trump administration recognizes three realities that softer heads and wishful thinkers try to either deny or bury in nuance. 

(1) We are in a cold war with China, and if we don’t step up, we will lose.

(2) We have hollowed out our manufacturing prowess, and that must change. Fast. 

(3) Federal spending is out of control; the trends are unprecedented and must be reversed.

This is the rest of the story. Tariffs are just the beginning salvos in a fight we can’t avoid any longer.

Back in 1986, Herbert Stein, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, in reference to US federal debt, famously said, “If something can’t go on forever, it will stop.” That was 40 years ago, when America’s epic debt binge was still in its first decade. Since then, it has gone on and on, and as the numbers indicate, it has intensified in the last few years.

It will stop. The only question is when and how. One must forgive the anxiety that is triggered in so many because of our current administration’s attempts to confront the unsustainable. But for those calling themselves economists who now, with unwarranted certainty, decry Trump’s bold gamble as unnecessary or foolish, less charitable sentiments might be appropriate.

Rogue climate activists in Northern California are launching balloons filled with sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere in an effort to manipulate the Earth’s temperature. In exchange, the climate startup behind the operation sells “cooling credits” priced at $30 for a subscription or $5 to offset 1 ton of carbon dioxide. The startup’s unregulated operations are causing a major stir and have drawn the attention of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. 

“Make Sunsets is a startup that is geoengineering by injecting sulfur dioxide into the sky and then selling “cooling credits.” This company is polluting the air we breathe. I’ve instructed my team that we need to quickly get to the bottom of this and take immediate action,” Zeldin wrote on X. 

Make Sunsets is a startup that is geoengineering by injecting sulfur dioxide into the sky and then selling “cooling credits.” This company is polluting the air we breathe. I’ve instructed my team that we need to quickly get to the bottom of this and take immediate action. pic.twitter.com/9b6xPzMf4v

— Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) April 15, 2025

Luke Iseman, the former director of hardware at Y Combinator, launched Make Sunsets a few years ago with the backing of Boost VC, Draper Associates, Pioneer Fund, and angel investors. 

Make Sunsets takes its name from the striking sunsets caused by high-altitude sulfur dioxide particles, like those observed after the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, which temporarily lowered global temperatures by roughly .2°C for about a year.

Allowing rogue activists to play God with the climate is a disaster waiting to happen. These aerosols increase Earth’s albedo (reflectivity), causing temporary global cooling and potentially disrupting jet stream behavior. 

View NOAA form here. 

Here’s more from the EPA:

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) submitted a demand for information to a startup company calling themselves “Make Sunsets,” which is launching balloons filled with sulfur dioxide (SO2) seeking to geoengineer the planet and generate “cooling” credits to sell. This issue was initially identified in 2023 during the last Administration, but no action was taken to find out more about this questionable startup and activity.

Make Sunsets is already banned in Mexico. Their website states they want to scale this activity significantly and have already conducted over 124 deployments. It is unclear where the balloons are launched and where the SO2 is from. Furthermore, it is not known if the company has been in contact with any state, local or federal air agencies. Thus, EPA is submitting a demand for information to get answers and plans to take additional actions as necessary.

A review of public records shows that Luke Iseman and Andrew Song manage operations at Make Sunsets. The entity is also listed as the founder of Insituform Technologies, Inc.

An address listed on Make Sunsets’ publicly available profile shows a mansion in Northern California.

Iseman’s X page is full of Make Sunsets’ latest operations:

10,000 Cooling Credits successfully deployed to stratosphere today via 6 balloons. This guy got put in RV jail while I got another tank of hydrogen to make sufficiently buoyant pic.twitter.com/rjOjBXQ7du

— luke iseman (@liseman) February 27, 2025

Happy New Year! First balloon launches of 2025. We had a special guest, Nick from @freethinkmedia, aka Hard Reset, who helped us launch balloons filled with SO2 and Hydrogen. Follow them for the upcoming video.

We launched 3 balloons that day. Here’s the 1st 🎈🧵 pic.twitter.com/C5dL8QZT3b

— Make Sunsets (@MakeSunsets) January 23, 2025

another 16 pounds of sulfur dioxide successfully delivered to stratosphere today! average altitude: 103,800 feet☁️🌋 pic.twitter.com/4G9AS5fZEq

— luke iseman (@liseman) January 22, 2025

He even boasted about his donation to a far-left climate organization called “Just Stop Oil.”

Just Stop Oil has been a rogue group targeting Tesla with repeated attacks.

Perhaps unregulated solar geoengineering in the hands of leftist climate activists isn’t such a great idea.

We’re confident the rabbit hole of this group’s associations goes much deeper—and even a quick look at the founders’ social media profiles suggests they’re idelogically aligned with the de-growth climate cult that has undermined Western economies while giving China a clear runaway with its coal-powered factories. 

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge on April 15 blocked the Trump administration from freezing the disbursement of funds for climate and infrastructure grants, finding that the pause in disbursing funds was illegal.

Nonprofits suing the administration over the freeze presented evidence that the indefinite freeze of already-awarded money was arbitrary and capricious, in contravention of federal law, U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy said in a 63-page ruling that entered a preliminary injunction against the U.S. Department of Agriculture and five other agencies.

Officials with the agencies earlier this year froze funds awarded under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, two laws passed by Congress and signed by former President Joe Biden. They cited President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 order that directed all agencies to pause the disbursement of money through the laws in order to review whether the funds were consistent with the law and with Trump’s agenda.

The Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council and other groups that have awards sued, alleging in part that the freeze violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which prohibits arbitrary and capricious actions and lets courts set such actions aside.

The freeze “blatantly arbitrary and capricious, including because it fails to account for the significant reliance interests of grantees and other recipients who reasonably expect—and need—to be able to draw on open awards of funding in order to provide services,” the groups said in a motion for an injunction.

Government lawyers told the court that Congress gave agencies the discretion to select among eligible recipients of the funding allocated by the laws, “and therefore Defendants are likewise entitled to temporarily pause funding for current recipients to determine whether they wish to redirect that funding elsewhere.”

“Plaintiffs’ contrary theory—that this Court should compel agencies to continue funding existing grants, even when those grants conflict with the President’s priorities—would raise significant separation of powers concerns,” they said.

McElroy said that courts cannot decide whether a president’s policies are sound, but must weigh in on the lawfulness of the policies when constitutionally required.

“Agencies do not have unlimited authority to further a President’s agenda, nor do they have unfettered power to hamstring in perpetuity two statutes passed by Congress during the previous administration,” she wrote.

The judge also said that agencies are likely able to pause funding on a case-by-case basis, but those “narrower powers cannot justify the broad exercise of authority” that they asserted.

The White House did not respond to an early morning request for comment.

Reuters has cited a UK-based open-source analysis firm to claim that Russia’s military is now relying almost on entirely on artillery shells produced and supplied by North Korea along the Ukrainian front.

“Between September 2023 and March 2025, four Russian-flagged vessels made 64 trips transporting nearly 16,000 containers from North Korea to Russian ports, according to satellite data analyzed by the U.K.-based Open Source Center (OSC),” the Tuesday report said. “The organization estimates the shipments included between 4 million and 6 million artillery shells.”

In 2023, when US intelligence and Western allies began calling out alleged North Korean ammo transfers to Russia, the Kremlin rejected the allegations at the time, saying there was “no proof” of such activity.

But since then it’s become clear that North Korea has actively contributed to Russia’s military needs, including sending some 10,000 DPRK troops to assist Russian troops in retaking Kursk territory, on Russian soil.

War analysts have long acknowledged that Russian forces are able to fire at a rate of some ten times more than the Ukrainians along front line positions. This despite Europe and the US over years donating billions worth of weaponry and ammo to Kiev.

This also ties into Ukraine’s recent assertions saying that there is an ‘axis’ of enemies it is fighting back:

“Without help from the DPRK, the Russian army shelling of Ukrainian defensive positions would have been cut in half,” Ukraine’s military intelligence agency GUR told Reuters.

“Without Chairman Kim Jong Un’s support, President Vladimir Putin wouldn’t really be able to prosecute his war in Ukraine,” added Hugh Griffiths, the former coordinator of the UN panel monitoring North Korea sanctions.

Starting last summer, Western media began highlighting that North Korea was sending containers to Russia that could hold as many as 4.8 million artillery shells. And specifically South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik made the first such accusation in an June interview with Bloomberg.

Seoul’s intelligence services spotted at least 10,000 containers being shipped from North Korea to Russia, according to Won-sik. Pyongyang has also sent dozens of ballistic missiles, reportedly for use against Ukraine.

In exchange for the ordnance Russia is allegedly giving North Korea oil, satellite technology as well as tech to improve their tanks and aircraft.  North Korea’s cheap labor, while ethically abhorrent in nature, is proving useful in the fast manufacture of weapons.

Critics argue that artillery coming from North Korea is “substandard” and far less advanced than western produced artillery, leading to a decrease in effect on target. However, 5 million rounds is an incredible arsenal regardless of technology – and more than enough boom to support a large-scale ground offensive. 

The Trump administration has directed the Internal Revenue Service’s top legal official to consider revoking Harvard University’s tax-exempt status, according to the Washington Post, citing three people familiar with the matter. The move represents a significant escalation in the administration’s conflict with the Ivy League institution over its handling of antisemitism and diversity practices.

The request was made to Andrew De Mello, the IRS’s acting chief counsel, on Wednesday by officials at the Treasury Department. De Mello has not yet decided whether to act on it, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations.

Of note, Harvard – which has a $53.2 billion endowment – dodged “at least $465 million” in 2023 due to the tax exemption, according to a Bloomberg analysis cited by the Free Beacon‘s Peter J. Hasson

A Bloomberg analysis last year found that Harvard’s 501c3 status lets it avoid just under **$500 million** in taxes every year https://t.co/FznTtNU2Rh

— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) April 16, 2025

The directive follows the administration’s broader efforts to pressure higher education institutions it views as “woke,” the sources said. Earlier this month, the Trump administration demanded sweeping authority over Harvard’s admissions, hiring, and curricular decisions, as well as its response to student activism related to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Harvard rejected those demands on Monday. Hours later, the administration announced it would freeze more than $2 billion in federal funding to the university.

Harvard is a tax-free hedge fund with $53 billion in semi-liquid assets, and that doesn’t include its tax-free real estate, which is also worth billions. And it still has the gall to demand even more taxpayer money. If schools are going to act like hedge funds, they should be… pic.twitter.com/DCmRWDAxUY

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) April 15, 2025

The next day, President Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social, “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status,” and falsely claimed the institution has supported terrorism.

The request to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status was first reported by CNN. While nonprofit status is granted to educational institutions under federal tax law, it comes with restrictions – particularly a prohibition on certain political activity. Legal experts say there is no public evidence that Harvard has violated those rules.

According to federal law, the authority to investigate or alter a nonprofit’s tax status rests solely with the IRS, and the president is explicitly prohibited from ordering or influencing such actions against individual taxpayers or entities.

Former House GOP leader Newt Gingrich thinks it’s just the beginning… “I think they’re going to go after a whole bunch of them,” said Gingrich. “I’m not sure why we need to be funding people who aggressively refuse to give up a variety of values and structures that most Americans don’t agree with.”

The Trump administration has taken steps in recent months to increase political control over the IRS. De Mello was appointed acting chief counsel in March after the administration demoted a career IRS lawyer who had reportedly resisted efforts to access confidential tax records in pursuit of undocumented immigrants.

In a separate development, Gary Shapley, appointed by Trump as acting commissioner of the IRS, reportedly told staff that revoking the tax-free status of certain nonprofit groups flagged by Republican lawmakers was one of his top priorities. That includes organizations that oppose Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and a Georgia-based political group aligned with Democratic candidates, according to people briefed on the conversations.

Rep. Jason T. Smith (R-MO), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has called on the IRS to strip nonprofit status from groups opposing Israel’s war effort.

The IRS has previously faced controversy over its treatment of politically active nonprofit groups. In 2013, the agency acknowledged using politically loaded keywords to scrutinize organizations seeking tax-exempt status. Although that process initially drew criticism for targeting conservative groups, an inspector general’s investigation later revealed that liberal organizations were also subjected to increased scrutiny.

In a decisive move to address the nation’s overwhelmed immigration system, the Trump administration has rolled out a new policy directing immigration judges to swiftly dismiss asylum claims deemed legally deficient, a long-overdue measure to alleviate frivolous claims and legal loopholes that has paralyzed the US immigration court system, which has a backlog of nearly four million cases.

The policy, which took effect April 11, empowers judges to deny asylum applications early in the process if they clearly lack a legal basis, bypassing the lengthy and often unnecessary “merits hearing” phase that can drag out cases for years.

“Adjudicators have the duty to efficiently manage their dockets,” wrote Sirce Owen, acting director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), in the policy memo. “It is clear from the almost four million pending cases on E.O.I.R.’s docket that has not been happening.”

For years, critics of the current system have argued that America’s generosity has been exploited by migrants who file dubious asylum claims solely to remain in the U.S. for years while awaiting hearings. Critics of America’s broken immigration system have long argued that it rewards economic migrants who game the asylum process by applying without any real chance of qualifying, then using the backlog to remain in the country for years – often receiving work permits and taxpayer-funded benefits in the meantime.

Judges are now encouraged to take “all appropriate action to immediately resolve cases” that lack a viable legal path – a move that could clear out tens of thousands of meritless claims clogging the courts.

According to the Justice Department memo cited by the NY Times, “No existing regulation requires a hearing when there are no factual issues in dispute, including when the facts underlying the legal claim for asylum are undisputed, but the claim itself is legally deficient.”

The move comes as immigration courts face record-breaking backlogs. Despite efforts to increase the number of immigration judges, staffing has not kept pace with the rising number of illegal border crossings and asylum applications.

With only about 700 judges managing nearly four million cases, each judge now faces a crushing caseload. The Trump administration has proposed adding more judges, but in the meantime, streamlining the process is seen as critical.

The policy could be especially effective in deterring fraudulent claims. Many migrants who arrive at the southern border file asylum claims not because they fear persecution, but because they know the system allows them to stay in the country for years regardless of merit. By allowing judges to quickly reject obviously invalid claims, the policy could reduce the incentive to abuse the system.

And of course, a Democrat judge will block this in 3, 2, 1…

Speaking of which – the move to block migrants at the front door comes as a Democrat judge, Indira Talwani, has ordered the Trump administration to require individual hearings for roughly 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) before deporting them.