Good morning. In this edition:

• 📝 Funding battle: Columbia agrees to Trump admin demands
• 🤧 It’s sneezy season
• 🍝 Big pasta

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.80-minute read (1,276 words).

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“A person is but the product of their thoughts. What they think, they become.”

–Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

On Friday, Columbia University agreed to a series of reforms demanded by the Trump administration. It’s the first step in negotiations over $400 million in federal funding revoked due to allegations of antisemitism.

A breakdown

This month, the Education Department canceled $400 million in federal grants and contracts with Columbia – the epicenter of pro-Palestinian protests last spring that disrupted several US campuses – due to “the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”

The Trump admin laid out nine demands as a pre-condition to negotiations over restoring the funds – to which Columbia has now agreed.

• Among other things, the school will ban identity-concealing masks on campus (with religious and health exemptions), adopt a formal definition of antisemitism, and hire an internal security force that will be empowered to arrest students.
• Columbia also agreed to appoint a non-faculty member to head its Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department, as well as the Center for Palestine Studies; both were previously run by faculty.

Higher education is in the spotlight

Columbia’s situation is widely seen as a turning point in US colleges’ relationship with Washington, where the Trump admin has pledged to address what it sees as longstanding culture problems on campuses by using federal education funds to enact change.

• Last week, it paused $175 million in federal funding to UPenn for allowing a transgender athlete to compete on its swim team.
• The administration has also warned 60 colleges their federal funds could be cut if allegations of on-campus antisemitic harassment aren’t addressed, while the Education Department is investigating 45 colleges over allegations they participated in "race-exclusionary practices."

In the know: Almost all colleges – public and private – depend on the US government for access to federal student loans and grants for low-income students. Research universities also rely on additional government contracts and grants worth billions each year.

Looking ahead…Columbia and the Trump admin “are on the right track now to make sure the final negotiations to unfreeze that money [$400 million] will be in place,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said yesterday.

📊 Flash poll: In general, do you agree with the Trump admin’s recent moves to address what it sees as longstanding culture problems on US college campuses?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

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George Foreman, Hall of Fame boxer, preacher, and grill pitchman-extraordinaire, passed away on Friday at the age of 76, his family announced. No cause of death was given.

A boxing legend

The man who shares his last name with the leader of a construction crew came from bleak beginnings, dropping out of school at the age of 15 and becoming a "mugger and brawler" on the streets of Houston.

Foreman found his way to boxing at 16, then won an Olympic gold medal at 19. He also won two heavyweight titles throughout his career.

• The first was secured in a historic match against Joe Frazier in 1973, which included Howard Cosell's iconic call: "Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!"
• The second occurred more than twenty years later, in 1994, when Foreman – after 10 years spent away from boxing as a preacher – knocked out Michael Moorer to become the oldest world champion in history at 45.

Other notable fights of Foreman’s include a 1974 match against Muhammed Ali known as the “Rumble in the Jungle,” which culminated in Ali winning in an 8th-round knockout.

Outside the ring…Foreman landed a gig pitching smokeless indoor grills (beating out Hulk Hogan). The George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine – aka the George Foreman Grill – has sold 100+ million units since its introduction in 1994, generating ~$200 million in earnings for the retired boxer (more than he made competing in the age-old sport of fisticuffs).

It’s time to stock up on Claritin and Flonaze: allergy season is here and getting longer and more intense in many parts of the country, according to the National Phenology Network, which uses the First Leaf and First Bloom Indices to track the official start of the season each year.

The First Leaf index is based on the leaf out of lilacs and honeysuckles, which are among the first plants to show their leaves in the spring; the First Bloom coincides with the actual blooming of the flowers on those same plants.

Per the indices:

• Spring arrived over a week ahead of schedule in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, and two weeks earlier than usual in several Midwestern states.
• In the eastern half, spring is coming sporadically, arriving later than the long-term average in some areas and earlier in others.
• It’s also variable in California and the Southwest, depending on location and rainfall levels, while the Pacific Northwest is one to two weeks late.

Big picture: Regardless of the official onset of the season, the Climate Prediction Center believes that much of the country will experience temps above their yearly average, resulting in an increase in pollen levels due to blossoming trees.

On a positive note…Parts of the US will gain three hours or more of sunlight between last Thursday’s spring equinox and the summer solstice on June 20.

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When it comes to this year’s men’s March Madness, Cinderella should have no problem making it home by midnight. No team seeded #13 or higher advanced past the first round for the first time since 2017, while only one double-digit seeded team remains heading into the Sweet 16 (#10 Arkansas).

The games haven’t been particularly close, either. Only four of the 32 first-round games were decided by two possessions or less, the fewest since 1997.

Behind the upset drought: NIL-era transfer portal rules have turned mid-major programs into feeder schools for high-major programs, with top players continuously leaving for greener ($) pastures. It’s also been an all-time season when it comes to offensive efficiency, with teams at the top scoring at historic rates, according to The Athletic.

See the latest brackets here: Men’s | Women’s

P.S. Zero perfect brackets remain across all major online men’s bracket challenges (ESPN, CBS, Yahoo, USA Today, and X's BCG). 141 are still left for the women’s tourney, which concludes its second round action today.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 US markets rose last week (S&P: +0.5%; Dow: +1.2%; Nasdaq: +0.2%).
• 🚫✈️ London’s Heathrow Airport shut down nearly all day Friday after a fire at a nearby electrical substation caused a massive power outage; airlines are projected to lose $80+ million accommodating and rerouting the ~200,000 stranded travelers.
• 📝 Tesla's capex over the last six months is ~$1.4 billion higher than the value of the assets that money was spent on, potentially signaling an anomaly, per the Financial Times. | 🏭 Johnson & Johnson plans to spend $55+ billion to build four plants in the US.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with NoNetz

• 🍎 Snow White led the domestic box office with~$43 million in its opening weekend; though it's Disney’s lowest-earning remake since the company began producing live-action versions of its animated classics 15 years ago.
• 📺 Adolescence, Netflix's newest crime drama, garnered ~24.3 million views in the first four days after its release.
• 🏎️ McLaren’s Oscar Piastri won the F1 Chinese Grand Prix; Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and both Ferrari drivers (Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc) were disqualified for technical reasons.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 👶🧠 Babies are able to form memories – but they become inaccessible later on in life, explaining why people can’t remember those experiences, per a new study.
• ✈️ Boeing was tapped by the Pentagon to build the F-47, a next-gen fighter jet.
• 🇨🇳🌳 China is home to ~142.6 billion total trees, or 100 per inhabitant, per a new study using LiDAR data from drones.

MISCELLANEOUS

in partnership with Finance Buzz

• ⛪ Pope Francis was discharged from the hospital yesterday following a five-week stay for bronchitis and other medical complications.
• 🇨🇦 New Canadian PM Mark Carney called for a snap election on April 28; Carney’s Liberal Party is expected to face a close battle with Conservatives for control of Parliament.
• 🌍 Israel’s military continued to launch airstrikes at Hamas targets in Gaza, killing the militant group’s top political leader; Gaza’s death toll surpassed 50,000 since the war began, per Hamas-run health authorities.

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👆 The Italian American St. Joseph Society in New Orleans prepared what it says is the world’s largest bowl of pasta; the massive dish, which contains 80-100 gallons of sauce and 1,000 pounds of fresh pasta, fed 400+ people as part of the city’s St. Joseph's Day celebrations last Wednesday.

🤔 Did You Know? The “Where Do We Go Now?” ending of Guns N’ Roses’ Sweet Child of Mine actually came to be by the band not knowing what to sing in that section. As the band recorded the original demo of the song, producer Spencer Proffer suggested adding a breakdown at the end. Agreeing to the idea but not sure exactly what to do, lead singer Axl Rose began playfully singing, "Where do we go? Where do we go now?," which made it into the final song.

📰 Worth a Read: A piece of glass thinner than a credit card could solve America’s $25B energy problem

🖱️ Clickbait: Is Golf Cool Now?

Monday: US and Russian diplomats resume Ukraine peace talks in Saudi Arabia

Tuesday: Tolkien Reading Day

Wednesday: American Red Cross Giving Day

Thursday: MLB Opening Day; Men’s Sweet Sixteen tips off

Friday: Women’s Sweet Sixteen tips off

On Friday, we covered how Florida lawmakers proposed plans to sharply reduce or eliminate property taxes, in an effort to reduce the soaring costs of homeownership across the state.

❓ Our question to you: In general, how do you feel about the movement to reduce or eliminate property taxes as a way of lowering costs associated with homeownership?

• 👍 Agree: 44%
• 👎 Disagree: 35%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 21%

Click here to read some of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 2,398 votes and 252 longform responses.

😃 This year’s World Happiness Report found 70% of the world’s population did at least one kind thing in the last month. Benevolent acts are up 10% compared to 2017–19 across all generations and almost all global regions.

🚴 Sixty-six-year-old Li Dongju took her first international trip ten years ago. The grandmother now spends her time solo biking around the world – and so far, she’s ridden to 12 countries across three continents.

📖 A copy of Wild West by Bertrand W. Sinclair is returning to circulation after being returned to an Ohio library 98 years past its due date.

Guess the definitions of the following Greek/Latin root words:

1. Cord
2. Fatu
3. Lact
4. Migr
5. Nov

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1. Cord = Heart (e.g., cordial)
2. Fatu = Foolish (infatuation)
3. Lact = Milk (lactose)
4. Migr = Wander (migrate)
5. Nov = New (novel, innovate)