The Trump administration said on Monday that it was reviewing roughly $9 billion in federal grants and contracts awarded to Harvard, claiming that the university had allowed antisemitism to run unchecked on its campus. In a statement on Monday, the administration said that it was examining about $256 million in contracts, as well as an additional $8.7 billion in what it described as “multiyear grant commitments.” The announcement of the investigation suggested that Harvard had not done enough to curb antisemitism on campus but was vague about what the university could do to satisfy the Trump administration. “While Harvard’s recent actions to curb institutionalized antisemitism — though long overdue — are welcome, there is much more that the university must do to retain the privilege of receiving federal taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars,” Josh Gruenbaum, a senior official at the General Services Administration, said in a statement. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “This administration has proven that we will take swift action to hold institutions accountable if they allow antisemitism to fester,” he added. “We will not hesitate to act if Harvard fails to do so.” In an email message to the Harvard community Monday evening, Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, noted that “we are not perfect” and said that Harvard would work with the federal government “to ensure that they have a full account of the work we have done and the actions we will take going forward to combat antisemitism.” “If this funding is stopped, it will halt life-saving research and imperil important scientific research and innovation,” he wrote. He also referenced his personal experience with antisemitism. “I have experienced antisemitism directly, even while serving as president, and I know how damaging it can be to a student who has come to learn and make friends at a college or university,” he said. He may have been referring to a poster showing him with horns and a tail that was displayed by a student group during Harvard’s encampment last year. Editors’ Picks What a New American Citizen Learned on Route 66 Simple Sandals Are Always a Good Investment Is ‘Reef Safe’ Sunscreen Really Better? Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The Harvard announcement followed the same template as a similar move against Columbia University last month. In its Monday announcement, the government did not fail to note the outsize role that Harvard plays in the public imagination, which makes it all the more tantalizing a target. “Harvard has served as a symbol of the American dream for generations — the pinnacle aspiration for students all over the world to work hard and earn admission to the storied institution,” Linda McMahon, the secretary of education, said in the announcement. “Harvard’s failure to protect students on campus from antisemitic discrimination — all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry — has put its reputation in serious jeopardy.” The statement said the government would collaborate with contracting agencies to assess whether to issue stop-work orders for any of the contracts under review. It was not clear how the government had arrived at the figure of nearly $9 billion in grants for Harvard and its affiliates. But in his message, Dr. Garber indicated that it included money for hospitals affiliated with Harvard’s medical school, like Mass General Brigham, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Harvard and other universities have taken a number of steps in the wake of campus protests against the war in Gaza that some said veered into antisemitism, including highly contested chants by some pro-Palestinian demonstrators such as “from the river to the sea.” For example, Harvard adopted a definition of antisemitism that labels some criticism of Israel as antisemitic, a move praised by some Jewish students and faculty members but condemned by free expression advocates. It clarified that both Jewish and Israeli identities are covered by its anti-discrimination and anti-bullying policies. Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary and former Harvard president, called the review “a pretext for going after truth-seeking institutions that are threatening to would-be authoritarians.” Antisemitism has been a genuine problem at Harvard, he said. “Just because Donald Trump says something doesn’t make it wrong, and Harvard has been way too slow in responding to the antisemitism,” he said. “Harvard has made real errors,” Mr. Summers said. “But Harvard’s flaws do not remotely justify what is being threatened.” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In the case of Columbia, the same three agencies — the Department of Health and Human Services, the Education Department and the General Services Administration — announced an investigation on March 3 into the school’s federal grants and contracts. They said the review was being conducted in conjunction with “ongoing investigations for potential violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.” (Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in programs receiving federal subsidies.) A few days later, the government stripped $400 million in federal funding from Columbia. In an effort to recover that money, Columbia acceded to an initial set of demands by the Trump administration, including strengthening its campus security force and imposing greater oversight of its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies department, among other concessions. Some faculty members fiercely objected to the concessions, and on Friday, the university replaced the interim president who had overseen the negotiations, Katrina Armstrong, with Claire Shipman, a journalist who had been the co-chair of the university’s board of trustees. The government has not said that the university’s funding will be reinstated. Harvard and Columbia were among the 10 universities that a federal task force said in February it was reviewing because of possible antisemitic activity on campuses. Soon after, Harvard said it was placing a freeze on staff and faculty hiring, given the uncertain environment. In a way, the Trump administration’s campaign against antisemitism was inspired by events at Harvard. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Immediately after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, a coalition of Harvard student groups, under the banner of Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups, wrote a letter declaring “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” At the time, Mr. Summers condemned the university’s leadership for not denouncing the student letter. Harvard’s president at the time, Claudine Gay, tried to make amends but was ultimately pressured to resign after testimony in front of a congressional committee. Under questioning, she said that whether students would be punished for antisemitic remarks, like advocating for genocide, depended on the context. In the following months, Harvard adopted a posture of institutional neutrality, saying it would no longer take positions on matters outside the university. Throughout the last school year, Harvard’s campus was rocked by demonstrations and confrontations between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students. At one point the university locked its gates to restrict who could enter Harvard Yard. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Students set up tents in an encampment last spring, and in the fall, the statue of John Harvard was vandalized with red paint. In October, pro-Palestinian demonstrators staged a silent protest at Widener library, the main library, where they taped signs like “free Palestine” and “Harvard Divest from Death” to their laptops. Harvard, like other universities, began to crack down with new rules on protests and speech. In recent months, the protest movement has been quieter. Shabbos Kestenbaum, a recent graduate who is suing Harvard for not taking antisemitism seriously, said he was “elated” on Monday. “This is precisely why I campaigned and voted for President Trump,” said Mr. Kestenbaum, who spoke at the Republican National Convention, said he had been in communication with members of the Trump administration. “If Harvard is not scared,” he said, “it simply means they’re not paying attention, because more accountability is on the way.” Harvard is among the world’s wealthiest institutions, with an endowment fund of more than $50 billion. Just recently, it announced that it was increasing its financial aid package for students, making tuition free for families with income of $200,000 and under. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The administration’s attack on universities has profound implications for the First Amendment and the government’s power to police protests, even when they occur on private campuses. There are also likely to be enormous economic and academic repercussions if, for example, the government cuts off substantial money to Harvard. Although private philanthropy is important, federal funding has long been the lifeblood of American academic research, and university leaders have warned that few institutions can continue marshaling the financial firepower for projects if Washington stops helping with the bills. Shutdowns, even temporary ones, of research programs could lead to new layoffs and hiring freezes that could trickle through local economies. But the administration came to power in January bristling with rage toward the most elite realms of American higher education. As candidates, Donald J. Trump depicted top universities as overrun by “Marxists, maniacs and lunatics,” and JD Vance derided them as “insane.” (Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance both hold degrees from Ivy League universities.) And Mr. Trump himself subsequently vowed on social media that “All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests.” Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education, warned Monday that the government was adopting a pattern of persecution. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “The administration has clearly found a playbook, and we’re seeing it again,” said Dr. Mitchell, who decried what he called the use of “unsubstantiated, amorphous claims of antisemitism against an institution and pre-emptive hostage-taking” tied to funding. The government, Dr. Mitchell noted, had long used a measured, back-and-forth process with colleges to address potential civil rights violations. He said he feared that the Trump administration’s strategy would undermine due process while threatening research and doing little to protect Jewish people on campuses. Other institutions targeted by the antisemitism task force were George Washington University; Johns Hopkins University; New York University; Northwestern University; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota; and the University of Southern California. Although much of the administration’s focus has been on what it sees as endemic antisemitism on American campuses, it also paused about $175 million in funding for the University of Pennsylvania because it had allowed a transgender woman onto its women’s swim team in 2022.

The University of Minnesota graduate student who was detained by immigration agents last week had not participated in campus activism or been outspoken about political issues, according to a lawsuit he filed on Sunday in federal court challenging the legality of his arrest. Instead, the issue that appears to have put the student, Dogukan Gunaydin, on the radar of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is more mundane: a 2023 drunken-driving case in which he pleaded guilty. After the university disclosed in a statement Friday night that a student had been taken into immigration custody, there was rampant speculation that the incident was related to pro-Palestinian activism, as has been the case at several other universities. Top elected officials, including Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and members of Congress, issued statements expressing concern, and students held protests on campus. But no evidence of activism emerged in the case of Mr. Gunaydin, 28, a Turkish citizen who was pursuing a master’s degree in business administration. In an emailed statement, the Homeland Security Department said that Mr. Gunaydin had been arrested after the State Department revoked his visa over the D.U.I. case. “This is not related to student protests,” the statement said. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Immigration lawyers and other experts say they worry that the detention may signal a new front in the Trump administration’s approach to immigration enforcement. The government routinely revokes student visas over criminal cases, but typically the holder has the opportunity to challenge the revocation with the help of a lawyer, or is allowed to leave the country voluntarily. Mr. Gunaydin’s case was different. Another puzzling fact, according to the lawsuit, was that a computer system did not show his visa as revoked until several hours after he was taken into custody Thursday morning. Starting in 2015, the State Department issued guidance making clear that a drunken-driving arrest could be grounds to revoke a visa. Since then, according to Debra Schneider, an immigration lawyer in Minneapolis, many foreigners working or studying in the United States have received letters notifying them about the revocation of a visa after a run-in with the law. Yet, Ms. Schneider said, people on temporary work and student visas often manage to get visas reinstated, particularly if the circumstances of their cases are not egregious. Editors’ Picks What a New American Citizen Learned on Route 66 Simple Sandals Are Always a Good Investment Is ‘Reef Safe’ Sunscreen Really Better? Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “I have never had someone put in custody by ICE over a D.U.I.,” she said. In an emailed statement, the State Department said it would not discuss Mr. Gunaydin’s case, citing privacy considerations. But the department said: “The United States has zero tolerance for noncitizens who violate U.S. laws. Those who break the law, including students, may face visa refusal, visa revocation and/or deportation.” Hannah Brown, Mr. Gunaydin’s lawyer, did not respond to requests for comment on Monday. Mr. Gunaydin was taken into custody at approximately 9:30 a.m. Thursday after he stepped out of his St. Paul, Minn., residence to head to class, according to the lawsuit. The immigration agents drove him to the ICE office in St. Paul, where officials told the student that his visa had been “retroactively revoked,” according to the lawsuit. “Mr. Gunaydin feared he was being kidnapped,” the lawsuit said, adding that officials provided no information on why the visa had been revoked. That afternoon, roughly seven hours after Mr. Gunaydin was taken into custody, the online government registry of international student visa information showed that his visa had been revoked, according to the lawsuit. The system did not provide a clear explanation for the revocation but listed him as having failed to maintain legal status. That evening, Mr. Gunaydin was told that he would be seeing an immigration judge on April 8, and he was later booked into the Sherburne County jail, which is roughly 35 miles northwest of downtown Minneapolis. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT It was not clear on Monday whether Mr. Gunaydin had been formally placed in deportation proceedings. His lawsuit lists President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and several senior officials at Homeland Security as defendants. The suit also seeks Mr. Gunaydin’s release from custody, arguing that his arrest violated his constitutional right to due process, as well as administrative law, because his visa was still valid when immigration agents took him into custody. Carl C. Risch, who oversaw visa matters for most of Mr. Trump’s first term as an assistant secretary of state, said officials revoked visas as a result of arrests with “great frequency” over the years. But he suggested that it was unusual for agents to detain an international student over an old D.U.I. case without warning. Mr. Risch, who is now in private practice at Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli & Pratt, said federal authorities would historically have sought to detain “someone who was considered to be a danger to the community, perhaps somebody with a very serious or concerning criminal background, ties to terrorist organizations.” If the government starts regularly detaining and deporting visa holders over misdemeanors like drunken-driving, Mr. Risch said, that would constitute a “change in policy, an escalation.” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT On Monday, the president of another Minnesota school — Minnesota State University, Mankato — revealed that a student there was also taken into ICE custody last week. The president, Edward S. Inch, said that no reason was given for the arrest on Friday. He said in a statement that he had reached out to state and federal officials “to share my concern and ask for their help in curbing this activity within our campus community of learners.” The statement neither identified the student nor provided details of the events leading up to the arrest. Mr. Gunaydin was arrested on June 24, 2023, after a Minneapolis police officer described seeing a car maneuver erratically around 1:50 a.m., according to a charging document. Mr. Gunaydin told the officer that he had drunk vodka earlier that evening, according to the document. A breathalyzer test showed that he had an alcohol blood level of 0.17 percent — well over the 0.08 percent legal limit to drive. In March of last year, Mr. Gunaydin pleaded guilty to driving while impaired, a misdemeanor, according to court records. A judge ordered him to perform community service, attend a D.U.I. clinic and refrain from future traffic violations. After the conviction, the lawsuit said, Mr. Gunaydin was admitted into business school and awarded a scholarship. “He has maintained a full course load with a high G.P.A. and served in the M.B.A. Student Association,” according to the lawsuit.

Since President Donald Trump has returned to the Oval Office, Social Security—a program which sends retirement and disability benefits to over 70 million people—has been the subject of many conversations. Although Trump initially assured voters that Social Security wouldn’t be touched, there have since been reports of potential staff and office cuts spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). A new policy by the Social Security Administration (SSA) was announced on March 18, with a plan to enforce online and in-person identity proofing as opposed to that which can be done over the phone. This was an attempt to “implement stronger identity verification procedures,” the press release said. The changes were initially scheduled to go into effect on March 31. However, after much confusion and backlash, the SSA backtracked on some of the new measures and also extended the timeline, allowing more time for the system—and Social Security recipients—to prepare for the new identity proofing requirements. Here’s what you need to know ahead of the new Social Security identification policy. What are the new Social Security ID policies? The new SSA ID policy includes a transition to requiring “stronger” identity proofing procedures for both benefit claims and direct deposit changes—identity proofing that can no longer happen over the phone for most beneficiaries of Social Security. Recipients will instead have to verify their identity via an online account, but those who do not have an account will need to prove their identity “in-person” at an SSA field office. People can call 1-800-772-1213 to schedule an in-person appointment. Per the SSA, “the updated measures will further safeguard Social Security records and benefits for millions of Americans against fraudulent activity.” Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is leading the charge with DOGE, previously characterized Social Security as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” claiming that the program is riddled with fraud and waste. Some experts have stated that the levels of fraud within the Social Security system are not as prominent as the Trump Administration says. During a March 29 interview on MSNBC, Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat from Minnesota who serves on the Senate Finance Committee, voiced concerns about the Trump Administration and DOGE’s intentions regarding Social Security. “They’re creating so much chaos and havoc in this system, it’s causing so much anxiety for my constituents and people all over the country,” she said. “I will tell you, I could see my Republican colleagues on the Finance Committee this week, as we were clearing the nominee [Frank Bisignano] for Social Security Administration, reflecting back the anxiety they’re getting from their constituents. But at the same time, are they willing to do anything to stop this? Apparently not.” During Bisignano’s hearing on March 25, Smith declined to ask a question and instead made a statement. “This is a travesty. We can see what’s going on here… this is a wholesale effort to dismantle Social Security from the inside-out. This is not about rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse,” she said. Speaking on MSNBC, Smith said Bisignano was “deflecting” during his hearing, and cast doubt on his assurances that he would protect Social Security. Read More: What Is Happening to Social Security Under the Trump Administration and Should You Be Concerned About Yours? Who will be affected by these new policies and who is exempt? The new policy initially drew criticism from lawmakers and advocates who stated that it alienated those for whom it would be incredibly difficult to make in-person visits to SSA field offices—including those in rural communities far away from offices, those with disabilities, and seniors. AARP, formerly the American Association for Retired Persons, posted a statement, requesting the SSA “rethink” these requirements, pointing out that “requiring rural Americans to go into an office can mean having to take a day off of work and drive for hours merely to fill out paperwork.” During Bisignano’s hearing, he answered questions about these changes from lawmakers worried about the alienation of citizens. Sen. Elizabeth Warren posed a hypothetical scenario to Bisignano in which a senior with a disability has trouble with traveling to a field office and is eventually turned away. She asked him: “Is that a benefit cut?” To which he replied: “I have no intent to have anything like that happen under my watch.” On March 26, the SSA posted an update to these new changes, stating that some people will be exempt from these new rules, allowing people applying for Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicare, or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) to complete their claim by other means. “We have listened to our customers, Congress, advocates, and others, and we are updating our policy to provide better customer service to the country’s most vulnerable populations,” Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, said in the update. “Medicare, Disability, and SSI applications will be exempt from in-person identity proofing because multiple opportunities exist during the decision process to verify a person’s identity.” All other beneficiaries who are unable to use the online portal must still visit an in-person SSA office, that includes “people applying for Retirement, Survivors, or Auxiliary (Spouse or Child) benefits.” However, the agency states that this will not be enforced in “extreme dire-need situations.” These extreme scenarios include terminal cases or prisoner pre-release scenarios—though the agency says it is still working on a process that will allow for these cases to bypass the new policy. When will the new Social Security ID policy go into effect? With the new shift in policy, the update from the SSA announced a delay in the timeline of the new identity proofing requirements, stating the changes will apply to all beneficiaries beginning April 14. This was in part due to an attempt to have more time to train employees. The changes come amid the SSA denying reports that they are closing multiple field offices. “Since Jan. 1, 2025, the agency has not permanently closed or announced the permanent closure of any local field office,” the SSA statement read. “From time to time, SSA must temporarily close a local field office for reasons such as weather, damage, or facilities issues, and it reopens when the issues are resolved.” Still, experts worry that with planned staff cuts, it may be harder for beneficiaries to receive benefits. Pamela Herd, professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, told TIME on March 26 that the effects are already being felt. “People are waiting for hours to get through on the phone and then getting cut off before they can actually talk to a representative. The field offices, that honestly were already a bit overwhelmed [already], are now completely overwhelmed,” she said. “So there's a real disconnect between the statement, ‘I'm not going to cut benefits,’ and in practice, what is going on in the agency.” How to prepare for the new ID policy Those who are not applying for Medicare, Disability, and SSI should prepare for the new ID policy by creating a “my Social Security” account on the SSA website, if they do not already have one. That way, they will not have to provide identification in-person. This option is the “easiest and most secure” way to verify one’s identity, according to the SSA. People can create their account through either one of two credential service providers: Login.gov or ID.me, and they must have a valid email address. For those who are unable to utilize the “my Social Security” account and therefore must go to a field office in-person, the SSA allows for several different kinds of primary and secondary proofs of identity, including a driver's license, passport, alien or voter registration card, or union card to verify your identity.

At least six people were killed and more than 730,000 customers were without power in the Great Lakes region on Monday after a spring storm brought freezing rain and sleet over the weekend. Three children — two siblings and a cousin — were killed after a tree struck their vehicle in Michigan on Sunday afternoon, the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office said. The siblings were a 4-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl. The cousin was an 11-year-old girl. “At this time, it appears weather is the main contributing factor to this accident,” the office said. The identities of the children were not released. On Sunday afternoon, severe crosswinds blew a tractor-trailer on its side, killing the driver, Jagbir Singh, 34, of Ontario, Canada, in Valparaiso, Ind., according to Sgt. Benjamin McFalls of the Porter County Sheriff’s Office. The severe weather also caused an Amish buggy to overturn, killing its driver, Lonnie Yoder, 84, in Elkhart County, Ind., on Sunday afternoon, according to the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office. And in Montgomery County, Ind., a tree that had blown onto a roadway caused a driver to swerve, resulting in a head-on collision that killed one driver, according to the Indiana Department of Homeland Security. On Monday, the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan was closed on Monday because of hazardous ice conditions, the authorities said. There was no timetable for its reopening. A National Weather Service office in Michigan posted photos on social media of trees weighed down with icicles. Accumulations of ice there ranged from half an inch to nearly an inch. In Ontario, images on social media showed downed and ice-encased trees, some of which were making roads impassable. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In Michigan, state officials activated the State Emergency Operations Center after the ice storm downed trees and power lines, making some roads impassable in the northern part of the state. In eastern Canada, the authorities in Quebec on Monday morning warned of the possibility of “several hours of freezing rain” and snowfall until Tuesday morning. This ice storm produced more ice than usual, said Harold Dippman, a meteorologist at the Weather Service office in Gaylord, Mich. A typical one in the region produces up to a quarter of an inch of ice. The storm was also lasting longer than usual. Mr. Dippman said a typical one lasts six to 12 hours, while this one lasted multiple days. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In Michigan, about 300,000 customers were without power on Monday afternoon, according to the monitoring site poweroutage.us, with around 48,000 customers without power in neighboring Wisconsin, and more than 40,000 without power in Indiana. In Ontario, more 340,000 customers were without power on Monday afternoon, according to poweroutage.com. The outages, concentrated in central and eastern Ontario, were largely caused by ice that weighed down tree branches, Hydro One, Ontario’s main power transmission company, said on its website.

Before stepping foot on Howard University’s campus, Skylar Wilson knew she would see more women there than men. But just how many more stunned her: Howard, one of the most elite historically Black colleges and universities in the nation, is only 30 percent men — 19 percent Black men. “I was like, ‘Wow,’” said Ms. Wilson, a 20-year-old junior. “How is that possible?” Howard is not unique. The number of Black men attending four-year colleges has plummeted across the board. And nowhere is this deficit more pronounced than at historically Black colleges and universities, or H.B.C.U.s. Black men account for 26 percent of the students at H.B.C.U.s, down from an already low 38 percent in 1976, according to the American Institute for Boys and Men. There are now about as many non-Black students attending H.B.C.U.s as there are Black men. The decline has profound implications for economic mobility, family formation and wealth generation. Raj Chetty, a Harvard economist who uses large data sets to study economic opportunity, has found that the income gap between America’s Black and white populations is entirely driven by differences in men’s economic circumstances, not women’s. The causes are many. Higher college costs, the immediate financial needs of Black families, high suspension rates in high school and a barrage of negative messages about academic potential all play roles in the decline of Black male enrollment and college completion. Howard estimates that its cost of attendance for undergraduates easily exceeds $50,000 a year. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “If we are serious about reducing race gaps in economic opportunity, household wealth, et cetera, then our attention should be squarely focused on economic outcomes for Black boys and men — period. Full stop,” said Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men.But now programs designed to nurture Black academic achievement may be dismantled by the Trump administration, which deems them “racist” diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Cultural centers, mentorship programs, work force recruitment activities and scholarship programs are all threatened by the White House’s promise to cut funding to universities that do not eliminate what it calls racial preferences. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump asked the Supreme Court to allow him to terminate more than $600 million in teacher training grants, which would decimate two of the Education Department’s largest professional development programs. Both were designed to place teachers in underserved schools and diversify the educational work force. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “It’s a perpetuating cycle,” said Dr. Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, chief executive of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. “If you don’t see other Black male educators, then it’s hard for you to see yourself in that position.”On Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services targeted California medical schools for maintaining what Trump administration officials called “discriminatory race-based admissions,” though bolstering the number of Black doctors has long been a goal of the medical establishment. “Put simply, educational institutions may neither separate or segregate students based on race, nor distribute benefits or burdens based on race,” Craig Trainor, the Education Department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, wrote in a memo to universities in February. Black educators say burdens are already distributed unfairly. Society undermines Black men’s belief in their own potential, starting from early education and continuing through professional development, said Dr. Derrick Brooms, executive director of the Black Men’s Research Institute at Morehouse College, an elite, all-male H.B.C.U. in Atlanta. Colleges like Howard may be the starkest of manifestations. Payton Garcia, a Howard sophomore, recalled being one of three men in his introduction to philosophy class, which has about 30 students. Editors’ Picks What a New American Citizen Learned on Route 66 Simple Sandals Are Always a Good Investment Is ‘Reef Safe’ Sunscreen Really Better? Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “We did a Cuba trip,” he recalled. “I was the only male that was in the class.” Recent shifts in higher education, driven in part by conservative policies in Washington, have wrought large changes in predominantly Black colleges, positive and negative. The Supreme Court’s ban on race-based college admissions drove up interest in some H.B.C.U.s and strengthened the application pool overall, Dr. Brooms said. But he’s still concerned about the long-term trend. Dr. Brooms said at this point, Morehouse may have to re-evaluate its recruitment strategy, including looking abroad: “Perhaps there may be some Black men in Canada who may want to attend.” On campuses like Howard’s, the gender disparity is understood. Women run the place.“Everybody knows that the women dominate this campus,” said Tamarus Darby Jr., a 20-year-old sophomore at Howard. “You see predominantly women out here running for positions, and then you see their friends, young women, showing up for them and supporting them,” he said. “It’s different for the men.” According to students and faculty at Howard, Black male students can have a difficult time finding both themselves and a community. One night last October, young men gathered in small groups on the Howard yard and wrote down what they were most afraid of — “I have a fear of failure,” said Joshua Hughes, a senior who led the “burning of the fears” that night. “I have a fear of letting my family down. I have a fear of not living up to my full potential.” Some read their fears aloud before tossing their writings into a giant firepit as a drum line banged African djembes. In 2019, Calvin Hadley, then a senior adviser to Howard’s president, was asked how Howard could better engage men on campus. He put together a survey of students, faculty and staff, and then hosted several barbershop listening sessions. Something clicked. “We had these very detailed, emotional conversations around manhood, around masculinity, around relationships,” said Mr. Hadley, now Howard’s assistant provost for academic partnerships and student engagement. Male fears can work against college attendance, students said. Fears of failure may deter Black men from higher education, even as fears of letting their families down drive them prematurely into the work force, before their earning potential can be reached. Mr. Darby said many of his friends didn’t have parents or family who attended college, or they thought the costs were prohibitive. “So they were trying to find those other avenues to make money and to be successful, not thinking that college was the number one thing that was going to get you there,” he said. As a middle schooler, Jerrain Holmes, a 20-year-old sophomore, recalled thinking: “College? What is college?” He added, “I knew I just wanted a job.” But in his Detroit-area high school, he enrolled in a college readiness program, and it made all the difference. “As a general proposition, young men are arriving on college campuses less skilled academically than women,” Mr. Reeves said. “That’s even more true of men of color, Black men.” That leads to problems of completion, which are at least as significant as declining enrollment. The first year of college is crucial for male retention, and a lack of services can lead young men to feel isolated or that they don’t belong, Dr. Brooms said. “If you can show you can keep people, that folks can persist to graduation, that becomes a recruitment tool itself,” said Dr. Brooms. On a recent warm, breezy spring day on campus, Howard students lay on blankets, chatting. Some set up tables to sell merchandise, displaying the famed entrepreneurial “Howard hustle.” Others campaigned for student senate or royal court. The gender disparity was on the minds of the students.Christian Bernard, a 22-year-old senior from affluent Potomac, Md., is a third-generation legacy student. He was on the yard selling items from his clothing brand, emblazoned with the slogan “Worth It.” He started the brand amid the turmoil and grief of June 2020, after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and the swell of Black Lives Matter demonstrations. He chose Howard for its soccer program and his family ties. Before injuries derailed his athletic career, he made strong friendships with his teammates. “There’s a lot of male camaraderie here at Howard,” he said. Those studying the challenges that young Black men face are careful to avoid a battle of the sexes. Women have faced historical challenges of their own. Some people perceive female gains as a threat to men in a zero-sum battle for resources and power. Mr. Reeves said that is a mistake, particularly when it comes to family formation. Asking the young men on campus how the gender gap affects dating will draw a sheepish grin. They understand their advantage. Young women are thinking about it too. “Those ratios,” said Nevaeh Fincher, a sophomore, can be “rough.” “A lot of the boys feel like they’ve got options,” Ms. Fincher said, “which, if we’re being honest, they do.” The lack of college-educated Black men could change family structures and bread winning patterns, placing more financial burdens on Black women. College-educated Black women already have higher lifetime earnings than college-educated white women because they work more years over the course of their lives, despite lower annual earnings, according to the Kansas City Federal Reserve. For young women who care about the future of Black America, in general, all of this is alarming. “We see a lot of school programs and districts that are giving up on students and giving up on Black men before they even give them a chance,” said Ms. Wilson. She’s seen it in the male students she mentors, who say their teachers don’t offer much encouragement. “They expect them to be bad,” she said. “They expect them to be problems.”

With under eight minutes left in Duke’s comfortable and convincing 85-65 victory over Alabama in Saturday night’s East regional final of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, Blue Devils freshman phenom Cooper Flagg found himself with the basketball, being hounded by a smaller Crimson Tide player. That Alabama player was the 6 ft. 1 in. Mark Sears, who like Flagg was a first-team All-American this season, and who happened to hit 10 three-pointers—yes, 10 three-pointers—in Alabama’s Sweet 16 game against BYU two nights prior. The nearly 19,000 fans who filed into the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. came to see fireworks from Flagg, who is 6 ft. 9 in., and Sears. And here they were, going one-on-one in a key moment. Alabama trailed by just seven. Flagg hadn’t really found his shooting touch: the freshman finished the game just 6-for-16 from the field, with16 points. And though Flagg has eight inches on him, Sears refused to back down. He tried to push Flagg out of position, but it ultimately didn’t matter: Flagg was able to convert a short jumper over his smaller fellow All-American, to give Duke more breathing room late in the game. A few minutes later, Sears again tried to disturb Flagg while he had the ball: Flagg even fell to the floor. But he kept his dribble, stood up and again drove to the hoop on Sears, again scoring on him, this time giving Duke a 76-58 cushion, with just over three minutes of the game left. Sears dribbled down court, bullied his way into the key for a point-blank, straight- on chip shot—and missed it, adding to a frustrating evening that saw him shoot just 2-12 from the field with a single three-pointer (forget about double-digits). With that miss, Alabama was done for. Flagg beat Alabama when it counted. “It’s not going to be your night every night,” said Flagg, the National Player of the Year in college basketball and likely the top overall NBA draft pick in June. “Don’t hang your head.” Duke, winner of five national championships during the legendary tenure of Hall of Fame former coach Mike Krzyzewski, moves on to its first Final Four since 2022, Coach K’s last season at the helm. It’s the first appearance for his successor, former player and assistant coach Jon Scheyer. Duke will face the winner of Sunday’s Houston-Tennessee Elite Eight game in the national semifinals in San Antonio next Saturday. The deep and talented Blue Devils seem set to collide with Florida, who on Saturday also advanced to the Final Four, thanks to a thrilling comeback win against Texas Tech. Next week, in the other national semifinal, the Gators will face the winner of Sunday’s Auburn-Michigan State regional final. No college player in recent memory has hit more clutch NCAA tournament shots, in key moments, than Florida guard Walter Clayton Jr. Advertisement Still, the focus will be on Flagg in Texas, for good reason: the most well-rounded freshman basketball player in the college game since Kevin Durant in 2007 is still playing for a championship, for the most blue-chip brand (Duke) in the land. Durant, who played for the University of Texas, never made it out of the second round. There’s been a lot of groaning this March about the lack of upsets in the men’s NCAA basketball tournament. But at this point, the griping about Cinderellas—or lack thereof—feels tired. There’s nothing wrong with seeing the best players, and best teams, make it to the last stage of the Big Dance. Duke over Alabama in an Elite Eight prime-time clash, Duke potentially facing top-overall seed Florida in the April 7 national championship: no problems there. Earlier in March, Flagg missed the remainder of the ACC tournament after injuring his ankle in Duke’s opening game: he was placed in a wheelchair, and fans feared the worst. But he made it back for March Madness, and looks quite fine: Flagg, who was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament’s East region, probably turned in the finest freshman performance in NCAA tournament history on Thursday, when he scored 30 points, dished out seven assists, grabbed six rebounds and blocked three blocks in Duke’s 100-93 victory over Arizona. He's the only freshman in history to ever record at least 25 points, five rebounds, and five assists in the Sweet 16 round or later. And even though he missed a few shoots he usually makes on Saturday night, he still grabbed 9 rebounds, went up high to block a shot and dished out three assists, including another alley-oop to center Khaman Maluach: on Thursday, Cooper fed the big man for two-straight alley-oop slams. Advertisement “I get more satisfaction, more energy, more enjoyment throwing a lob to Khaman or Pat [Ngongba II, another Duke center] than I do scoring, shooting three or anything like that,” Flagg told TIME in the Duke locker room after the game. “Setting up a teammate for a dunk like that, it gives me a lot of momentum, it gives me a lot of energy. So those are probably some of my favorite things to do on the court.” Before the game, a young fan shouted “Cooper, can you sign my underwear?” to Flagg during warmups: odd, yes, but a surefire sign of the mania he’s already creating. After the game, his mother Kelly, who played at the University of Maine, beamed as Flagg and his teammates celebrated, while wearing a blue t-shirt with about a dozen or so images of her son on it. Another young fan had made it and sent it to her. Flagg grew up in a small town in Maine, a state not at all known for producing top basketball talent. “This is more than we had ever really dared to dream of,” says Kelly. Advertisement “What I've been trying to prove my whole life, and on this journey I've been on, is that it doesn't matter where you're from or what resources you have, as long as you're dedicated and you give 100%, you can make it out, you can make it,” says Flagg. Flagg continues to stay on message about his future as a pro: he’s promising that he’s living in the moment, cherishing this year in college at Duke, and not at all thinking about next year. With two more wins, he’d finish off what would arguably be one of the best seasons of college basketball in the history of this storied game. Not a bad opening act.

Columbia has drawn ire from all sides of the political spectrum since it was roiled by campus protests last year and deals with the fallout from the Trump Administration this year. Now, its controversy could be impacting the makeup of its future student body. Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science announced Thursday that it received 59,616 applications for the class of 2029, a year-over-year decrease from the previous applicant pool of 60,248 though still larger than the applicant pool from 2023. It’s the first application cycle since the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and pro-Palestinian student protests broke out last spring, which resulted in New York police storming the campus at the behest of university leaders and arresting dozens of students. As a matter of longstanding policy, and out of consideration for the tens of thousands of students who apply to Columbia, we do not discuss our applicant pool mid-cycle as it could impact students and potential applicants,” Samantha Slater, a Columbia University spokesperson, told TIME when reached for comment. “However, we can share that the 2025 admissions cycle ranks among the highest number of undergraduate applications ever. We look forward to welcoming the newest members of the Columbia undergraduate community this fall.” Several other elite colleges, including Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth, all of which saw similar demonstrations by students, also saw decreases in application numbers this year. Others, like Harvard and Cornell, did not share or limited their public admissions data at this time, in the second cycle after the Supreme Court’s ruling ending the practice of affirmative action. But even among those who applied, recent administrative actions at Columbia have some admitted students weighing whether or not to accept their offers. Earlier this month, the Trump Administration cancelled $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia, amid an ongoing Department of Education investigation into reports of antisemitism at Columbia and four other institutions. In a letter addressed to Columbia on March 13, the Administration issued a list of demands to the university, including expelling or issuing multi-year suspensions on students who participated in the encampments, abolishing the school’s judicial board and centralizing disciplinary action through the university president’s office, banning masks and requiring any masked individuals to visibly wear their Columbia ID, and empowering the university’s security force with the authority to arrest “agitators.” The letter also requested that Columbia place the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department under “academic receivership”—in which an external administrator would directly oversee the department—for at least five years. On the same day, Columbia announced that it expelled or suspended some of the students who participated in the occupation of Hamilton Hall, a campus building, and temporarily revoked the degrees of others who have graduated. And on March 21, the university agreed to several other of the demands. In a 4,000-word letter from its interim president, the university said that it would, among other measures, reform its disciplinary process and empower 36 campus officers with the authority to make arrests. A recent series of high-profile immigration actions against Columbia students who participated in pro-Palestinian campus activism have also shaken some people’s confidence in the university. Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate student who led negotiations between student protesters and university officials last spring, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on March 8 and had his green card revoked. ICE has also attempted to arrest and deport Yunseo Chung, a third-year undergraduate, and Ranjani Srinivasan, a fifth-year PhD student. More than 1,400 faculty and students at Columbia and Barnard College signed onto an academic boycott of Columbia University “in response to the university betraying its fundamental responsibility to protect students, defend academic freedom, and promote a climate of open discussion and dissent.” The pledge includes boycotting collaborations with faculty holding administrative positions and academic or cultural events held by Columbia or Barnard. In the past few weeks, a number of social media users have made posts or comments about declining or rescinding acceptance offers, or having withdrawn their applications, to Columbia. (TIME could not verify the authenticity of all the claims in such posts.) One purported admitted student shared a letter they sent to Columbia explaining why they are rejecting their offer of admission in a viral post on X that has since been made private. “While I am honoured and grateful to have been admitted, it is with great disappointment and frustration that I must decline this offer to attend the program,” the letter read. “I would be remiss to not admit that my decision is informed largely by Columbia University’s decision to capitulate to the far-reaching demands of the Trump administration.” Another person shared a letter to Columbia explaining why they withdrew their application: “As someone who is pursuing a legal education for the protection of my community against violations of our civil rights and/or liberties, I do not wish to attend a school that does not protect their own.” In a Reddit post two weeks ago, titled “Situation just went from worse to worser,” a user shared their decision to withdraw their application to Columbia’s law school. “It was my top choice, my dream school,” the user wrote. “Yet, in the case where they would accept me I could not conscionably allow my above median/75th stats to contribute to that institution’s standing.” “I used to think that I shouldn’t have to sacrifice a degree of that caliber in the city that I love due to the actions of university administration, but their most recent actions (including but not limited to degree revocation and expelling their union president a day before negotiations) show me they are irredeemable,” the user added. “They’ve proven they are willing to sacrifice me and [any] other potential student for pennies on their endowment and frankly I do not want to be associated with an institution that will only be remembered for their cowardice during this time.” At least seven others shared across various posts and comments on Reddit that they withdrew their applications, while several said they decided not to apply at all for similar reasons. In several threads posted to Reddit, some admitted students asked for advice on whether or not they should attend given their political views. “I’m a Jewish student, and my research focuses on Jewish students in higher education. At the same time, I’m pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist, which makes my position somewhat complicated,” one user wrote. “Columbia’s recent actions,” the user continued “make me question the university’s commitment to protecting its students. It feels like an environment that may not align with my values, even though I’ve always dreamed of going to Columbia and living in NYC.” Three others commented that they’ve declined their acceptance offers for similar reasons. Others shared concerns that the cut in federal funding might impact their programs, while others still raised concerns about whether the school would do enough to protect international students from possible immigration action. The university’s journalism school released a statement on March 14 affirming its support for students’ right to free speech after Khalil’s arrest and “in defense of First Amendment principles of free speech and free press across the political spectrum.” “Here at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism we are witnessing and experiencing an alarming chill,” the statement reads. “Some of our faculty members and students who have covered the protests over the Gaza war have been the object of smear campaigns and targeted on the same sites that were used to bring Khalil to the attention of Homeland Security. President Trump has warned that the effort to deport Khalil is just the first of many.” Several comments across posts raised their own concerns about antisemitism on campus. Last year, the university’s student-run newspaper, the Columbia Spectator, found that some Jewish students declined their offers from Columbia due to concerns about antisemitism on campus. Several of the university’s top donors pulled funding last year in response to the pro-Palestinian protests, and a coalition of U.S. and Israeli citizens filed a lawsuit on March 24 against organizers and supporters of pro-Palestinian actions at Columbia, alleging that they served as Hamas’ “propaganda arm.” It’s unclear how much concerns about the political climate contributed to the slight dip in Columbia’s applicants this year—and a university official noted to TIME that a handful of social media posts cannot be viewed as statistically representative of broader trends among applicants. Ultimately, whether there’s a significant change in enrollment won’t be revealed until later this year.

At the University of Pennsylvania last fall, someone splattered red paint on a statue honoring Benjamin Franklin, the school’s founder. Within hours, campus workers washed it off. But the university was eager to find the culprit. A pro-Palestinian group had claimed responsibility on social media. The university examined footage and identified a student’s cellphone number using data from the campus Wi-Fi near the statue at the time it was vandalized. Campus police obtained a search warrant for T-Mobile’s call records for the phone, and later a warrant to seize the phone itself. On Oct. 18 at 6 a.m., armed campus and city police appeared at the off-campus home of a student believed to be the phone’s owner. A neighbor said they shined lights into her bedroom window, holding guns. Then they entered the student’s apartment and seized his phone, according to a police filing. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Months later, the student has not been charged with any crime.The Penn investigation, which remains open, is one of several across the country in which universities have turned to more sophisticated technology and shows of police force to investigate student vandalism and other property crimes related to pro-Palestinian demonstrations. (The student who had his phone seized did not respond to an interview request.) The warrants were first reported by The Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn’s independent student newspaper, which filed a lawsuit after police did not initially file the warrants with a local court. Much of it happened even before President Trump returned to office. Since then, he has made clear he will use his power to force universities to take a hard line on protests. His administration has warned 60 universities that they could face penalties from investigations into antisemitism, and has also begun seeking to deport protesters. At least nine current or former students and one professor who were legally in the United States with visas or green cards have already been targeted, with at least one student being detained on the street by officials in plainclothes. And it pulled $400 million in funding from Columbia University, telling the school that it would not discuss restoring the money unless, among other things, campus security agents were given “full law enforcement authority” to arrest students. In response, the university said it had hired 36 “special officers” with that authority. Civil rights lawyers and legal experts said the moves were a fundamental shift in the way universities respond to student disciplinary cases. While arrests and searches are already often within the authority of many campus police agencies, recent tactics go beyond what has been the standard for campus security officers, said Farhang Heydari, an assistant professor of law at Vanderbilt University. Editors’ Picks What a New American Citizen Learned on Route 66 Simple Sandals Are Always a Good Investment Is ‘Reef Safe’ Sunscreen Really Better? Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Historically, Mr. Heydari said, campus police have tended to operate with discretion on matters that could affect students’ futures, in some cases not strictly enforcing the law. Campus officers might look the other way on matters like underage drinking, for example. If they enforced every law strictly, “everyone would be expelled, no one would be admitted to the bar or whatever,” he said, adding, “That would be horrible for the university.” A ‘Fundamental Shift’ The widespread protests and tent encampments of spring 2024 have subsided, but pro-Palestinian demonstrations have continued, often peacefully but sometimes including acts of vandalism. Under pressure from federal officials and community members alike, many universities have moved to embrace tougher and more sophisticated security tactics to quell protest activity. Some experts worry the tactics could endanger free speech and civil liberties, particularly in cases where students have had their property seized even though they have not been connected or charged with crimes. “It really does just seem to be an expansion in law enforcement power that maybe didn’t exist 20, 25 years ago,” said Saira Hussain, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates civil liberties protections online. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Universities have defended their tactics, saying they are necessary to protect students’ safety and combat discrimination. At Penn, the university said the apartment search was necessary to maintain order and safety. “Unfortunately, a small group of individuals, some of whom may be students, continue to take disruptive and at times illegal actions against the university community,” the school said in a statement. “They continue to flout policies and laws that they do not think apply to them, and then blame their own institution when they encounter consequences,” the university added. “Laws must be enforced uniformly and fairly and are not designed to be waived when they do not suit a particular viewpoint.” The New York Times reviewed documents in seven vandalism cases that involved search warrants to investigate student protesters. One has resulted in criminal charges.In one episode involving campus graffiti in November, a dozen law enforcement officers searched the family home of two George Mason University students who are sisters. Authorities said they found Hamas and Hezbollah flags and other materials displaying anti-American rhetoric and an expression indicating “Death to America,” as well as four weapons and ammunition. But the authorities indicated that the materials and guns belonged to other family members living at the home, according to court filings. The two women were barred from campus, but no charges have been filed. In an open letter to George Mason authorities, 100 faculty, students, politicians and political groups protested the decision to bar the students. The university’s president, Dr. Gregory Washington, said the search findings suggested that “something potentially more nefarious” was going on, according to an email he wrote to faculty obtained by The Times through a public records request. He also said the university was actively collaborating with “a number of three-letter agencies aimed at keeping our campus and quite frankly our country safe.” Dr. Washington also posted a public letter, and the university said it would have no additional comments on the case. In a statement it said that, in general, “when it becomes necessary for the university to bar a student from entering campus, or impose an interim suspension on a student organization, such actions are taken carefully, with cause, and as precautions to preserve the safety of the university community environment.” Concerns About Privacy At Penn, following a public outcry about the search, a committee review found that the police had behaved professionally. But the review raised questions about how such a search might cause “discomfort and even fear.” University police have sometimes cited social media posts to justify their warrant requests. But the posts are constitutionally protected speech, said Zach Greenberg, a First Amendment lawyer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech group. He said the tactics could chill free expression. Most students involved in surveillance cases were reluctant to talk about their experiences. Many students involved in protests have had their identities exposed or faced harassment. “I’ve been doing legal work related to the right to protest for over 35 years, and I haven’t seen this kind of thing on college campuses,” said Rachel Lederman, senior counsel with the Center for Protest Law & Litigation.Ms. Lederman represents, Laaila Irshad, a third-year undergraduate at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who had her cellphone seized by campus police. Ms. Irshad is asking a court to quash a warrant that led to the seizure. Almost six months after it was taken, it has not been returned and she has not been charged with a crime. In an email, Ms. Irshad said she felt “incredibly exposed” at the thought that the police could review all of the data on the phone, dating back to when she was in fifth grade. “Everything is open to them from my random messages with friends to my Google searches about health issues to my political musings to my super intimate messages with family,” she wrote. A university spokesman said the warrant was related to an ongoing vandalism investigation, but would not describe the vandalism itself. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT At least one warrant has led to a criminal case. At Indiana University Bloomington, a life-size sculpture of a former university president was vandalized with red paint on the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel. After reviewing security footage, the university police obtained warrants to search a student’s car and cellphone. The investigator found photos of the statue covered in paint, and the student was charged with two counts of criminal mischief. Warrants but No Charges In several cases, students have not been charged with wrongdoing as a result of the warrants. In September, three officers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, arrived at the dorm room of Laura Saavedra Forero, a senior who had regularly participated in protests. Ms. Saavedra Forero’s lawyer, Jaelyn Miller, said she believed police officers targeted her client because she uses a wheelchair that made her easier to identify than other students. They obtained a search warrant for her cellphone and everything on it, arguing it most likely contained evidence about vandalism related to a protest. The university said the warrant was related to vandalism of 10 campus buildings on Sept. 19, but declined to answer additional questions “It’s very odd, for a low-level misdemeanor like the graffiti vandalism,” Ms. Miller said, “for U.N.C. to seek a search warrant against its own student, not because that student committed a crime, but purely because that student attended a protest and filmed at that protest.”

How much will AI drive up power demand in the next few years? That’s been the big question at the center of the energy and climate conversation recently. Many analysts have warned that AI-driven electricity usage is expected to more than double in the next five years as consumers and businesses find varied applications for the technology. But others urge caution: not all data centers in the planning process will ultimately be built and AI could become much more energy efficient than it is today. This is a crucial debate—but the full picture is even more complicated. Even if AI guzzles less energy than the zeitgeist suggests, a wide range of electricity demand drivers lurk just around the corner. A report released earlier this week from the International Energy Agency (IEA) gives a sense of the picture: global electricity demand grew by 4.3% last year due to a range of causes that include not just data centers but also electrification of everything from building heating to cooking, along with more air conditioning thanks to record high temperatures, among other things. “We see one very clear trend: electricity growth,” says Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director. Widening the aperture of the conversation around future power demand can help prevent us from fixating on a single technology (however transformative it might be), and avoid the risk of overlooking the complex interplay of factors that will shape our energy future—and the challenges and opportunities that will arise from it. To understand the nature of electricity demand growth, it’s helpful to break it down by geography. And there’s no better place to start than in emerging markets and developing countries. Electricity demand ticked up 7% in China and by more than 4% in other emerging and developing economies; meanwhile, electricity consumption in the European Union grew by about 1.5%, according to the IEA. Some of that growth is the simple product of expanding economies. More wealth means more electricity use. But a significant portion of the rising demand came from high temperatures—particularly heat waves in India and China—that pushed consumers and businesses to crank up air conditioning. Electricity usage also grew in the U.S. by about 2% last year, according to government data. Unsurprisingly, the most significant source of that growth was new data centers, but other factors contributed, too. Federal programs enacted during the Biden Administration, like the Inflation Reduction Act, have helped boost the country’s advanced manufacturing footprint. That means a wave of new facilities drawing electricity in previously unoccupied land or revitalized vacant facilities. Moreover, today’s manufacturing plants rely more on electricity than they would have a generation ago, when they might have onsite power from fossil fuels. Advertisement And then there are electric vehicles. Headlines would have you believe that EVs now face an insurmountable challenge in the U.S. market as people aren’t buying as many as expected. That may be true, but the IEA reports that sales actually continued to grow in the U.S. at greater than a 10% clip. In the coming years, increased EV penetration inevitably means greater power demand. There are a few lessons to draw from this story. For one, if you’re betting on an AI-efficiency breakthrough to save the world from an electricity crunch, you’re missing the bigger picture. Yes, we know a range of developments, like more energy efficient language models, could reduce AI’s future electricity demand, but that won’t address all of the other sources of demand. There are also some positive elements that emerge from this story. Most obviously, the IEA says that 80% of new electricity generation globally last year came from renewable energy or nuclear power. That dynamic means that emissions grew at a slower pace than the economy. “If we want to find the silver lining, we see that there is a continuous decoupling of economic growth from emissions growth,” says Birol. Advertisement That’s small consolation at a time when emissions need to not just slow down but actually decline in order to avoid some of the worst effects of climate change. But I see another opportunity that could emerge from this imminent power crunch: we may be forced to finally confront the full range of solutions available to us. Yes, power companies are eagerly trying to build natural gas to meet demand. But they’re building solar power and battery storage, too. And because neither will be enough, companies have rediscovered the value of nuclear power. In these circumstances, demand-reducing technologies like smart grids and demand response are already taking on newfound importance and companies are incentivized to find more energy efficient ways to run their business. That importance should only grow.

More than 12,000 acres have burned in North and South Carolina as wildfires continue to rage through the states’ western region. The situation has prompted emergency declarations in both states, and mandatory evacuations have been ordered in several counties. The wildfires come as many continue to recover from the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene just six months ago. The category 4 storm killed more than 100 people in North Carolina and over 50 in South Carolina. This week’s blazes were in part fueled by downed timber from the hurricane, coupled with wind and dry conditions. Associa Cares Associa Cares was created to help families and communities in the wake of disasters. The organization aims to provide direct financial relief to those impacted and has already earmarked $100,000 to support individuals and families affected by the recent wildfires across North and South Carolina. American Red Cross The American Red Cross has been providing emergency assistance and disaster relief for over a century. The organization has opened an evacuation shelter in South Carolina and is supporting several shelters in North Carolina. While it says it no longer is in need of supplies to help wildfire survivors, the organization is still accepting monetary donations. World Central Kitchen World Central Kitchen, the nonprofit food relief organization founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, is often on the ground providing meals for victims and first responders of disasters around the world. The organization is currently in North Carolina providing meals for first responders. South Carolina Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (SCVOAD) South Carolina Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, an offshoot of National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, is an association of groups that help provide services to communities affected by disaster. The South Carolina Emergency Management Division “ways to help” webpage directs individuals to make monetary donations to SCVOAD, and contact them for volunteer opportunities. City of Walhalla Fire Department The city of Walhalla's fire department has posted a list of needed items for the 400 first responders combating fires in South Carolina. The department asks that the requested items, which range from eye drops to safety goggles, are delivered by Friday, March 28.