Wednesday Briefing: A Trump-Harvard Showdown

Trump escalated a feud with Harvard

After freezing $2.2 billion in funding to Harvard University, President Trump turned up the pressure yesterday and threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status.

The fight between the Trump administration and the nation’s oldest and most elite university was headed for a showdown that could affect other U.S. institutions.

Harvard has rejected the administration’s demands that it make changes to the university’s policies and programs related to diversity hiring and the tolerance of anti-Israel protests.

Details: With an endowment of $50 billion, Harvard is uniquely positioned to withstand the funding freeze. The university’s strong refusal of Trump’s demands has injected energy into other universities fearful of the president’s wrath.

Scenes from Ukraine, where a truce seems far away

Two of our reporters and a photographer traveled to Sumy, a city in northern Ukraine, a day after Russian airstrikes hit a central neighborhood on Palm Sunday, killing 34 people. They witnessed another Russian attack on Monday.

The Palm Sunday attack has become an argument that peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv are failing. In Sumy, the attack has set off preparation for a possible new Russian ground assault in the region.

The feeling in Sumy “is of fear, ceaseless tension and frayed nerves,” our reporters wrote. For residents, there are no signs of a cease-fire.

Autopsies showed some Gaza medics were shot in the head

The paramedics and rescue workers killed in an Israeli shooting in Gaza last month died mainly from gunshots to the head or chest, according to autopsy reports obtained by The Times.

The autopsy reports said that 11 of the men had gunshot wounds and that most had been shot multiple times. Three others had shrapnel wounds. Israel’s military said it was investigating.

Related: An Israeli strike killed a security guard and wounded 10 patients at a field hospital in southern Gaza, the hospital’s director said.

MORE TOP NEWS

• Iraq: A severe sandstorm forced two airports to suspend flights and sent thousands of people to hospitals with respiratory problems.

• Tech: At Meta’s antitrust trial, Mark Zuckerberg said he bought Instagram and WhatsApp because “building a new app is hard.”

• South Korea: Operators of the airport where the Jeju Air flight crashed failed to follow guidelines intended to prevent bird strikes, a Times investigation found.

• France: The government said it would “symmetrically” expel 12 Algerian officials, as tensions rose over the arrest of an Algerian official.

• Jordan: The Jordanian security services said that they had arrested 16 people accused of plotting threats to national security.

• The Netherlands: A national sperm donor registry identified 85 mass donors: men to whom more than 25 descendants can be traced.

• France: Attackers targeted prisons across the country, firing shots at walls. The justice minister blamed drug traffickers.

• New York: Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood mogul, was back in court for the start of a new trial for sex crimes.

• Syria: When Bashar al-Assad fell, so did his images around the country, offering catharsis for millions.

• U.K.: A dispute at a Chinese-owned steel mill could upend the government’s efforts to cultivate warmer ties with Beijing.

• Vatican: Pope Francis placed Antoni Gaudí, who was once called “God’s architect” for his work on the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, on the path to sainthood.

SPORTS NEWS

• F1: George Russell finished second in the Bahrain Grand Prix despite a malfunctioning car.

• Soccer: Here are the new and unexpected favorites of the Champions League.

• Basketball: Paige Bueckers’s arrival at the Dallas Wings as the No. 1 W.N.B.A. draft pick marks a new era.

MORNING READ

The small Finnish city of Rovaniemi has branded itself as “the Official Hometown of Santa Claus,” with a tourist season that runs from October to March. Local residents are anything but jolly, with many complaining of out-of-control development.

Our reporter traveled to the city, where tourism brings in more than 400 million euros a year. “The people who benefit are happy,” a man in a red suit and a long white beard told him. “Those who don’t — they’re jealous.”

Lives lived: Elsa Honig Fine, an art historian who published textbooks on Black and female artists, died at 94.

CONVERSATION STARTERS

The fight over Van Gogh’s roots

Auvers-sur-Oise, a village near Paris, is where Vincent Van Gogh spent his final days. There, art experts in 2020 identified some gnarled tree roots on a hillside as those depicted in his final painting “Tree Roots.” There has been strife in the village ever since.

The owners of a property near the roots have been locked in a fight with the municipality, which has claimed part of their land for a historic site. The knotty dispute has unsettled residents just as the new tourism season heats up.

RECOMMENDATIONS