Heard on the Street Thursday Recap: The Breakup
Tesla's stock fell as Musk and Trump feuded. A war of words between Elon Musk and President Trump escalated. Trump threatened on social media to cut off federal funding for Musk's businesses, which include Tesla and SpaceX. Tesla ended the day down 14%.
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Washington Post
24 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Trump vs. Harvard has international athletes scrambling for answers
Not long after President Donald Trump's first attempt to bar Harvard from enrolling international students last month, the school's men's soccer team, along with athletic teams all over campus, received a note from the coaching staff. They were monitoring the situation, the coaches said. The school was monitoring it, too. Everyone, it seemed, was monitoring a situation that had gone haywire in mid-May, but that provided no immediate clarity on what it meant for athletes with student visas. Could they stay at Harvard, for their classes and for next season? Could the seniors graduate? How about going home to visit their families this summer? 'It's the type of thing that creates this general feeling of uncertainty and unease and tension around campus,' said Jan Riecke, who was a senior captain on last season's team and graduated last month. (Riecke lived in Switzerland and Germany before attending Harvard, but he was born in the United States to German parents and is a U.S. citizen). 'It's a tension among students, among professors, because it's not just the people who are directly affected, the international students and athletes, but also your teammates and coaches, right? You play and train next to them, so you obviously feel for the fact that they are worried. They are worried about their futures.' A day after the coaches sent that message, Harvard sued the Trump administration to maintain its ability to enroll international students. A judge twice ruled in Harvard's favor, most recently blocking the Department of Homeland Security's order while the legal process plays out. But on Wednesday evening, Trump doubled down, suspending entry into the United States for any new Harvard students or exchange visitors with F, M or J visas. The next steps came in a now-familiar rhythm: By Thursday, Harvard had amended its legal complaint. By Friday morning, a federal judge had ruled with Harvard again, blocking the president's latest order, which attempts to reject Harvard-sponsored visas. The back-and-forth continues. But despite any temporary relief, the political battle has clouded the present and short-term future for some of Harvard's athletes and teams. For the 2024-25 academic year, 139 athletes listed international hometowns on team rosters, accounting for 17 percent of all athletes on those squads, according to a Washington Post analysis. The analysis included only Harvard's NCAA championship sports, plus women's rugby, which is one of the NCAA's emerging sports meant to provide opportunities to women. Harvard has several other programs, such as squash and sailing, meaning the uncertainty reaches even further. Some athletes listing international hometowns could, like Riecke, be U.S. citizens and therefore not dependent on the status of student visas. Based on hometowns, in the past two semesters, Harvard athletes represented roughly three dozen countries, Canada and Britain by far the most common. Ten out of 30 men's soccer players last season had international hometowns listed. Other teams, including women's soccer and field hockey, had even more athletes from abroad. On seven Harvard teams in The Post's analysis, athletes with international hometowns accounted for more than 30 percent of the roster. Those teams would struggle to compete without them. An athletic department spokesman declined to make any officials available for an interview, pointing The Post to university statements calling Trump's attacks illegal and retaliatory. More than a half dozen coaches and dozens of current and recently graduated Harvard athletes did not respond or declined to comment, including several who cited fears of retaliation from the Trump administration. Across NCAA sports in 2023-24, roughly 7 percent of D-I athletes were not U.S. citizens, according to the NCAA's demographics data. And while international athletes still fill a small fraction of D-I rosters, their share has grown by more than 40 percent since 2011-12, the first academic year included in the NCAA's public data, which is self-reported by schools. In the eight-school Ivy League, the share of NCAA athletes who are not U.S. citizens has nearly doubled since 2012, jumping to 6 percent in 2024. But the proportion of international athletes in the conference slightly trails the overall Division I mark. (The NCAA does not publish demographic data aggregated by school, and Harvard declined to provide data on how many of its athletes are not U.S. citizens.) 'This is not exclusively a Harvard issue,' said Ksenia Maiorova, a leading sports immigration attorney. 'This is something that has the potential to have tentacles in other spaces. What we're seeing is that the administration feels comfortable weaponizing the student visa for its goals of political retribution against a particular institution.' As much as possible, Harvard treats its athletes like all other students on campus, meaning any pressing visa questions have been routed to the school's international office. 'We don't have an academic services office just for student-athletes, we don't have housing just for student-athletes, so we also don't have an international office just for student-athletes,' said one school official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss this issue. 'And that international office, as you can imagine, is very, very busy providing support to all students.' But it's not just Harvard's current international athletes who are affected by the confusion and escalating policies. Incoming freshmen from other countries are feeling uneasy. So, too, are international recruits who were considering Harvard and are now having second thoughts. Lars Blenckers is a co-founder of Plus31 Sports, a company that mostly guides international field hockey and soccer players through the recruiting process with U.S. colleges. While he's not working with any current Harvard athletes, he does have two field hockey players who are supposed to enroll and begin training in August. One is from South Africa, the other from New Zealand. Naturally, on the same day Harvard coaches were scrambling to contact their international athletes, Blenckers started hearing from the players' parents. His phone has been buzzing almost nonstop since. The parents are asking whether their daughters can still attend Harvard, he said. If not, they're wondering whether they could defer a year and try again next summer, when the political turmoil will have hopefully died down. The athlete from South Africa has secured her student visa. The athlete from New Zealand, however, is still trying to schedule an appointment, another major complication. In late May, the U.S. State Department paused appointments for student or exchange visitor (F, M and J) visas. 'That system is just completely blocked now, so you cannot even go online and book any appointment,' Blenckers said of his athlete from New Zealand. 'So it's also very uncertain that even if Harvard is allowed to accept international students, can these athletes get their visas in time?' Pedro Mol is the CEO of Slamstox, a Netherlands-based company that also helps international athletes land opportunities with U.S. colleges. In the past few months, many families he works with have soured on not just Harvard but all Ivy League schools. Columbia remains in Trump's crosshairs. Maiorova, the sports immigration attorney, listed California-Berkeley, Michigan and the Ivies as the archetype of schools that could lose high-level athletes because of clashes with the president. Mol, a Netherlands native and a former Division I athlete, said he had a male tennis player flip his choice from Harvard to Georgia Tech this year. At Georgia Tech, the athlete would receive an athletic scholarship, which Ivy League schools don't offer. There would also be a better chance of earning name, image and likeness (NIL) money, because the Ivy League has been slow to warm to athletes earning money beyond small endorsement deals. 'And there just isn't the same political uncertainty there,' Mol said. 'The media here in Holland is pretty obsessed with Trump. Everything he does right now, it is blasted all over, so we obviously get a ton of questions. We do a monthly newsletter, and recently we did one on how Trump's orders affect our athletes. It was our most read ever by far.' After graduation in late May, Riecke, the former men's soccer captain, set out on a European trip with some of his teammates. As a last hurrah, they wanted to show each other the countries they grew up in. It has made Riecke think about the efforts to remove international students and athletes from Harvard, which would have made it impossible for him to make lifelong friends from other cultures. He hopes the worst developments have passed. 'It's brought people together as well,' Riecke said. 'You feel like you just pat someone on the shoulder once more than you would before, tell them: 'Hey, hopefully it's going to be all right. We're here for you.' I think that's the response we've gotten from a lot of the community.'
Washington Post
24 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Corbin Burnes needs Tommy John surgery. Prepare for aftershocks.
When Arizona Diamondbacks ace Corbin Burnes left a pitch up to CJ Abrams last Sunday and immediately motioned for trainers, everyone at Chase Field understood what it might mean. And when cameras caught Burnes appearing to express concern about his elbow, there was little reason to doubt his self-diagnosis. Burnes has been one of the game's most durable starters since the start of the 2021 season. He knew this would change that. Diamondbacks Manager Torey Lovullo on Friday confirmed what Burnes and others had already suspected: The ace to whom Arizona committed $210 million over the next six years will miss the rest of the 2025 season and most of 2026 because he needs Tommy John surgery. Burnes, 30, will have the procedure next week. All injuries spur ripples — sometimes through a team's active roster, sometimes deep into an organization's minor league depth. But an injury to Burnes, one of the game's preeminent starting pitchers anchoring the rotation of a would-be playoff team fighting for its life, will have aftershocks near and far. The first jolt, of course, will be felt in the desert, where the Diamondbacks are hovering around .500 while trying to steady a pitching staff that was disappointing even with Burnes. Their other ace, Zac Gallen, has been uncharacteristically mediocre. Promising righty Brandon Pfaadt has been getting pummeled and lefty Eduardo Rodriguez only returned from injury Friday, meaning the Diamondbacks cannot be sure what he will give them. As such, if they intend to contend, they will likely need to add a starter at or before the trade deadline. Demand was already high, and with several teams still weighing their commitment to 2025, supply remains limited. But the Burnes injury could also change more than just the Diamondbacks' 2025 calculus; Arizona's owner, Ken Kendrick, has invested in winning recently but could seize the whiff of mediocrity to balance his recently bloated budget. If the Diamondbacks fall out of contention — and without Burnes, the chances of that increase — they could seek trades for first baseman Josh Naylor (making $10.9 million this year), third baseman Eugenio Suarez ($15 million), Gallen ($13.5 million) and right-hander Merrill Kelly ($7 million), all of whom would represent significant savings even with just the post-deadline portions of their salaries gone. Any savings could be crucial, because Burnes's injury also complicates Arizona's offseason. Gallen will be a free agent for the first time, and he will almost certainly want to test the market. Kelly will be a free agent, too. So is Jordan Montgomery, who also underwent Tommy John surgery this year. That leaves Arizona with only three sure things in next year's rotation: Rodriguez, Pfaadt and Ryne Nelson, who was in Arizona's bullpen but has started three games for the Diamondbacks this year. They will need more to contend in the National League West, which means they might need to be major players in this year's offseason starting pitching market, even though they just gave Burnes the largest pitching contract in their history. Fortunately for anyone seeking starting pitching this winter, options abound. Gallen, Framber Valdez and Dylan Cease headline a class that will also include Ranger Suárez, Chris Bassitt and Zach Eflin, not to mention the dozen or so strong starters who could opt out of deals if they so choose. But one more team on the prowl increases demand this winter — just like one more seller changes the entire trade deadline a few months earlier. For that reason, the aftershocks of the Burnes injury will also be felt in New York and Los Angeles and Chicago and beyond. If the Diamondbacks do decide to sell, even an underperforming Gallen would be one of the more coveted assets available — a potential fate-alterer for any postseason team. Suarez, too, offers the kind of clubhouse pep and on-field power that would make him a highly sought after deadline option. The Yankees, for example, have been hunting for a third base solution all year. Naylor has plenty of pop and postseason experience, too. Kelly has proven himself to be as tough as they come. If the Diamondbacks sell, any one of those players could change a team's October trajectory, if the stars align. Arizona is currently one of several teams that expected to contend and are underachieving. The Boston Red Sox, Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles and Texas Rangers are all hoping to stave off a deadline sale by rejuvenating their chances over the next two months. The more that do so, the higher demand for Arizona's assets will be. The Diamondbacks have not been ones to cave in recent years, in large part because few teams know better how quickly fates can change. In 2023, they found themselves two games under .500 on August 11. They ended up in the World Series. But rallies like those are hard to engineer even with an annual Cy Young contender in the rotation. Without one … well, the contending vultures are starting to gather in the desert.
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Sometimes a Parade Is Just a Parade
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. President Donald Trump has gotten his way and will oversee a military parade in Washington, D.C., this summer on the Army's birthday, which also happens to be his own. Plans call for nearly 7,000 troops to march through the streets as 50 helicopters buzz overhead and tanks chew up the pavement. One option has the president presiding from a viewing stand on Constitution Avenue as the Army's parachute team lands to present him with an American flag. The prospect of all this martial pomp, scheduled for June 14, has elicited criticism from many quarters. Some of it is fair—this president does not shy away from celebrating himself or flexing executive power, and the parade could be seen as an example of both—but some of it is misguided. Trump has a genius for showmanship, and showcasing the American military can be, and should be, a patriotic celebration. The president wanted just such a tribute during his first term, after seeing France's impressive Bastille Day celebrations. Then–Secretary of Defense James Mattis reportedly refused, effectively threatening to resign by telling the president to ask his next secretary of defense. Three secretaries of defense later, Trump has gotten enthusiastic agreement from current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Criticism of the display begins with its price tag, estimated as high as $45 million. The projected outlay comes at a time of draconian budget cuts elsewhere: 'Cutting cancer research while wasting money on this? Shameful,' Republicans Against Trump posted on X. 'Peanuts compared to the value of doing it,' Trump replied when asked about the expense. 'We have the greatest missiles in the world. We have the greatest submarines in the world. We have the greatest army tanks in the world. We have the greatest weapons in the world. And we're going to celebrate it.' [Read: The case for a big, beautiful military parade] Other prominent critics of the Trump administration have expressed concern that the parade's real purpose is to use the military to intimidate the president's critics. The historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote on her Substack, 'Trump's aspirations to authoritarianism are showing today in the announcement that there will be a military parade on Trump's 79th birthday.' Ron Filipkowski, the editor in chief of the progressive media company MeidasTouch, posted, 'The Fuhrer wants a Nuremberg style parade on his birthday.' Experts on civil-military relations in the United States also expressed consternation. 'Having tanks rolling down streets of the capital doesn't look like something consistent with the tradition of a professional, highly capable military,' the scholar Risa Brooks told The New York Times. 'It looks instead like a military that is politicized and turning inwardly, focusing on domestic-oriented adversaries instead of external ones.' Even the military leadership has been chary. During Trump's first term, then–Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Paul Selva reflected that military parades are 'what dictators do.' But these critics may well be projecting more general concerns about Trump onto a parade. Not everything the Trump administration does is destructive to democracy—and the French example suggests that dictatorships are not the only governments to hold military displays. The U.S. itself has been known to mount victory parades after successful military campaigns. In today's climate, a military parade could offer an opportunity to counter misperceptions about the armed forces. It could bring Americans closer to service members and juice military recruitment—all of which is sorely needed. The American military is shrinking, not due to a policy determination about the size of the force needed, but because the services cannot recruit enough Americans to defend the country. In 2022, 77 percent of American youth did not qualify for military service, for reasons that included physical or mental-health problems, misconduct, inaptitude, being overweight, abuse of drugs or alcohol, or being a dependent. Just 9 percent of Americans ages of 16 to 24 (a prime recruitment window) are even interested in signing up. In 2023, only the Marine Corps and Space Force met their recruiting goals; the Army and Navy recruited less than 70 percent of their goals and fell 41,000 recruits short of sustaining their current force. Recruiting picked up dramatically in 2024 but remains cause for concern. One possible reason for this is that most Americans have little exposure to men and women in uniform. Less than 0.5 percent of Americans are currently serving in the military—and many who do so live, shop, and worship on cordoned military bases. Misperceptions about military service are therefore rife. One is that the U.S. military primarily recruits from minority groups and the poor. In fact, 17 percent of the poorest quintile of Americans serve, as do 12 percent of the richest quintile. The rest of the military is from middle-income families. Those who live near military bases and come from military families are disproportionately represented. The Army's polling indicates that concerns about being injured, killed, or suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder are major impediments to recruitment. Women worry that they will be sexually harassed or assaulted (the known figures on this in the U.S. military are 6.2 percent of women and 0.7 percent of men). Additionally, a Wall Street Journal–NORC poll found that far fewer American adults considered patriotism important in 2023 (23 percent) than did in 1998 (70 percent)—another possible reason that enthusiasm for joining up has dampened. [Read: The all-volunteer force is in crisis] A celebratory parade could be helpful here, and it does not have to set the country on edge. Americans seem comfortable with thanking military men and women for their service, having them pre-board airplanes, applauding them at sporting events, and admiring military-aircraft flybys. None of those practices is suspected of corroding America's democracy or militarizing its society. Surely the nation can bear up under a military parade once every decade or two, especially if the parade serves to reconnect veterans of recent wars, who often—rightly—grumble that the country tends to disown its wars as matters of concern to only those who serve in them. The risk, of course, is that Trump will use the occasion not to celebrate the troops but to corrode their professionalism by proclaiming them his military and his generals. This is, after all, the president who claimed that Dan Caine, his nominee to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wore a MAGA hat and attested his willingness to kill for Trump, all of which Caine denies. This is also a president known to mix politics with honoring the military, as he did in Michigan, at Arlington National Cemetery, at West Point's commencement, and in a Memorial Day post on Truth Social calling his opponents 'scum.' Even so, the commander in chief has a right to engage with the military that Americans elected him to lead. The responsibility of the military—and of the country—is to look past the president's hollow solipsism and embrace the men and women who defend the United States. Being from a military family or living near a military base has been shown to predispose people toward military service. This suggests that the more exposure people have to the military, the likelier they are to serve in it. A big celebration of the country's armed forces—with static displays on the National Mall afterward, and opportunities for soldiers to mix with civilians—could familiarize civilians with their armed forces and, in doing so, draw talented young Americans to serve. A version of this essay originally appeared on AEIdeas from the American Enterprise Institute. Article originally published at The Atlantic
