Good morning. In this edition:

• 📈 The Trump admin’s dispute with Harvard is escalating
• 💥 When screens, sleep, and social media collide
• 🌐 The history of the Internet

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.70-minute read (1,250 words).

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“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”

–Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

On Monday, the Trump administration froze ~$2.3 billion worth of federal grants and contracts to Harvard after the school rejected a list of government demands related to claims of antisemitism and ideological capture.

President Trump also threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status if the school continues to resist his administration’s demands to change its governance structure.

A breakdown

Last Friday, the Trump admin sent a letter to Harvard calling for broad reforms at the university, with ~$9 billion in federal grants and contracts at risk if Harvard doesn’t comply. They include:

• Adopting new “merit-based” hiring and admissions policies that eliminate preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
• Shuttering all DEI programs, positions, initiatives, etc.
• Having each department submit to an external audit for “viewpoint diversity.” If a unit is found lacking, it must hire or admit a “critical mass” of new faculty/students “who will provide viewpoint diversity.”
• Adopting a new policy prohibiting student groups that promote criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment—with an explicit focus on those that have engaged in “anti-Semitic activity” in the past year-and-a-half.

The arguments: President Trump and his top officials say major reforms are necessary after several universities allowed antisemitism to go unchecked at protests last year against Israel’s war in Gaza. They also argue that granting federal funding to Harvard “only makes sense if Harvard fosters the kind of environment that produces intellectual creativity and scholarly rigor, both of which are antithetical to ideological capture.”

• But Harvard president Alan Garber says the Trump admin’s demands are really about imposing "direct governmental regulation" of higher education, rather than official claims of fighting antisemitism.
• “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Garber said.

Looking ahead…Garber has signaled that Harvard is open to negotiation with the Trump admin over its funding demands. Other schools could soon join Harvard at the negotiating table, with the Trump admin recently freezing funding for five other Ivy League schools and Northwestern over various allegations.

📊 Flash poll: Which of the following parties do you more strongly support in this situation?

• The Trump administration
• Harvard University
• Unsure/other

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The company whose name frequently appears next to “and chill” recently called all of its knights to the round table and laid out an ambitious quest.

According to a new Wall Street Journal report citing internal company targets, Netflix by 2030 wants to:

• Achieve a $1 trillion market cap, up ~2.5x from its current value.
• Double its revenue (currently ~$39 billion).
• Triple its operating income (~$10 billion last year).

The growth levers

In order to achieve these targets, the company can:

Go international: Netflix had ~302 million global subscribers in December 2024, and wants to end the decade with ~410 million. And with the US largely tapped out, the streamer plans to focus on driving signups in international markets with high broadband penetration such as India and Brazil, the WSJ reports.

Sell more ads (a high-margin biz): Netflix wants to generate ~$9 billion in ad revenue by the end of the decade, per the WSJ, up from current estimates of ~$2.1 billion (the streamer doesn’t report ad revenue). Ways to get there include: increasing ad-tier signups and adding more live events, where everyone is forced to watch commercials.

Raise prices: The streamer’s most-recent price-hike was in January—six months after its last price hike, which saw the least expensive, ad-free option go away.

Big picture: Netflix shares are up more than 50% over the past year, and have so far been mostly insulated from tariff uncertainty.

Screen time right before bed isn't the best idea for achieving great sleep—but if you do partake, it may be better to throw on your favorite Netflix show than doomscroll for eternity.

That's according to a new study suggesting screen time alone isn't to blame for poor sleep, but rather how often people check social media—and how emotionally engaged they are while scrolling.

Sleep screening

Led by social psychologist and sleep researcher Brian N. Chin, the study examined 830 young adults to determine how different types of social media engagement impacted sleep problems. In addition to measuring overall time on social media, the researchers also gauged how emotionally connected participants felt and whether this had a subsequent effect on their sleep.

The results: Frequent social media visits and higher emotional investment were stronger predictors of poor sleep compared to overall screen time, researchers found. The emotional investments that most impacted sleep patterns were social comparison, reading emotionally charged news, and fear of missing out (FOMO).

But other scientists disagree. Recent research into sleep, screens, and social media has produced more mixed signals than a Tinder situationship. A similar 2022 study found screen use itself is the main factor that leads to sleep disruption—regardless of whether it comes from scrolling social media, streaming, gaming, etc.

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That feeling when you become bigger than the rival that once tried to buy you: 😏. Hermès International’s valuation reached ~$281 billion as of market close yesterday, surpassing the ~$276 billion of LVMH—owner of Christian Dior, Tiffany & Co., Givenchy, and others—to make it the most valuable company on France’s benchmark CAC40 index.

The criss-cross comes after LVMH fell as much as 8.4% on the day, following disappointing Q1 results due to slowing demand and threats of an escalating trade war.

Big picture: Hermès’ supply-constrained biz model targeting the wealthiest buyers has allowed it to weather a downturn in the luxury-goods market, with demand for its Birkin and Kelly bags far outstripping supply. These bags can sell for ~$11,000 in Paris, with much higher prices seen on the resale market.

On the other hand, LVMH may be suffering from what some analysts call a conglomerate discount, with its Sephora brand seeing lower margins compared to its Louis Vuitton brand.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📉 US markets fell across the board (S&P: -0.2%; Dow: -0.4%; Nasdaq: -0.05%).
• ✈️ American Airlines plans to offer free inflight WiFi across most of its fleet in 2026. | United Airlines reported Q1 results that beat analysts' expectations on earnings but missed on revenue; the airline also offered two 2025 profit outlooks, calling the economy “impossible” to predict.
• 🤖 Nvidia will mass-produce AI chips in the US for the first time; it announced an up to $500 billion investment in the US over the next four years. | The chipmaker also said it will take a quarterly charge of $5.5 billion tied to exporting graphic processing units to China and other destinations.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with The Knowledge

• 🧑‍⚖️ Harvey Weinstein’s retrial on New York sex crime charges began yesterday in Manhattan.
• ✊ The Breakfast Club stars reunited for the first time since the film’s 1985 release.
• ⛳️ The Masters’ final round on Sunday was the most-watched golf broadcast on any network since 2018, averaging 12.7 million viewers, according to CBS. | 🏀 The NBA Play-In Tournament tipped off last night.

*From our partners: 🧠🗞️ News that thinks, so you don't have to...The Knowledge delivers global updates and sharp commentary with intelligence and humor, all in a 5-minute read. Join the 140k+ subscribers who get London's smartest news free daily.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🍄 A new mushroom-derived compound is the most bitter substance known on Earth, per a new study.
• 🦕 The first known footprints of armored dinosaurs with tail clubs have been identified in the Canadian Rockies.
• 🥽 A new wearable AI system for blind and partially sighted people, developed by Chinese researchers, can improve walking distance and navigation time by ~25% compared to a cane.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

in partnership with Surfshark

• 🥤 The USDA is reportedly fast-tracking state requests to remove soda and/or candy from food-stamp programs, with Arkansas and Indiana first on the list.
• 🧑‍⚖️ A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump admin from revoking a Biden-era migration program allowing ~530,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to live in the US.
• 🇺🇸🇸🇻 The Trump admin said it’s looking into the legality of sending US citizens who are “the most violent, egregious, repeat offenders of crime” to foreign prisons, including those in El Salvador. | 🇭🇺 Hungary approved a constitutional amendment to ban LGBTQ+ public gatherings.

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👆 The percentage of TV viewing in March that went to streaming reached an all-time high, per new Nielsen data; the high mark came despite several big live TV events, including March Madness and the Oscars.

🤔 Did You Know? A “condor” score in golf—which signals someone shot four-under par, AKA hit a hole-in-one on a par-5 or two on a par-6—has only been achieved six times in recorded history. (Unsurprisingly, none belong to Kim Jong Un.)

📰 Worth a Read: The ‘panzoic effect’: the benefits of thinking about alien life

🖱️ Clickbait: What is your state's median household income?

💸❤️ When Pittsburgh TikToker Tamie Konzier realized her waitress was 81 and unable to retire, she posted a plea asking for donations. $300,000+ later, the 81-year-old Betty's life was changed forever. 

🤠✈️ A petition to rename Nashville's International Airport after country star Dolly Parton has amassed 50,000+ signatures. 

💍🛸 A Las Vegas wedding chapel is offering Star Wars-themed weddings for May 4th. Available packages include "YODA One For Me" and "Love Star."

🔐 Interesting: This website summarizes companies’ terms of service and rates them for privacy.

🌐 Explore: Ars Technica is putting together a three-part series on the history of the Internet. Read part one here.

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*A message from our partners

How it works: We provide an incorrect stat. Then you guess whether the actual number is over or under the given value.

1. 🗣️ 10,000: Number of letters in the longest English-language word
2. 👩‍🎤 500 hours: Length of the longest concert in history
3. 🍉 90%: Amount of a watermelon that is water

k

e

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p

s

c

r

o

l

l

i

n

g

1. 🗣️ Over; the longest word contains 189,819 letters
2. 👩‍🎤 Under; the longest concert lasted just under 438 hours
3. 🍉 Over; watermelons are ~92% water