The Trump administration has been using federal research funding as a cudgel . The government has blocked billions of dollars in research funds and threatened to put a hold on even more in order to compel universities to adopt what it presents as essential reforms. In the case of Columbia University, that includes changes in the leadership of individual academic departments.

On Friday, the government sent a list of demands that it presented as necessary to "maintain Harvard’s financial relationship with the federal government." On Monday, Harvard responded that accepting these demands would "allow itself to be taken over by the federal government." The university also changed its home page into an extensive tribute to the research that would be eliminated if the funds were withheld.

Diversity, but only the right kind

Harvard posted the letter it received from federal officials, listing their demands. Some of it is what you expect, given the Trump administration's interests. The admissions and hiring departments would be required to drop all diversity efforts, with data on faculty and students to be handed over to the federal government for auditing. As at other institutions, there are also some demands presented as efforts against antisemitism, such as the defunding of pro-Palestinian groups. More generally, it demands that university officials "prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions."

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The Trump administration has been using federal research funding as a cudgel . The government has blocked billions of dollars in research funds and threatened to put a hold on even more in order to compel universities to adopt what it presents as essential reforms. In the case of Columbia University, that includes changes in the leadership of individual academic departments.

On Friday, the government sent a list of demands that it presented as necessary to "maintain Harvard’s financial relationship with the federal government." On Monday, Harvard responded that accepting these demands would "allow itself to be taken over by the federal government." The university also changed its home page into an extensive tribute to the research that would be eliminated if the funds were withheld.

Diversity, but only the right kind

Harvard posted the letter it received from federal officials, listing their demands. Some of it is what you expect, given the Trump administration's interests. The admissions and hiring departments would be required to drop all diversity efforts, with data on faculty and students to be handed over to the federal government for auditing. As at other institutions, there are also some demands presented as efforts against antisemitism, such as the defunding of pro-Palestinian groups. More generally, it demands that university officials "prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions."

Read full article

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The Trump administration has been using federal research funding as a cudgel . The government has blocked billions of dollars in research funds and threatened to put a hold on even more in order to compel universities to adopt what it presents as essential reforms. In the case of Columbia University, that includes changes in the leadership of individual academic departments.

On Friday, the government sent a list of demands that it presented as necessary to "maintain Harvard’s financial relationship with the federal government." On Monday, Harvard responded that accepting these demands would "allow itself to be taken over by the federal government." The university also changed its home page into an extensive tribute to the research that would be eliminated if the funds were withheld.

Diversity, but only the right kind

Harvard posted the letter it received from federal officials, listing their demands. Some of it is what you expect, given the Trump administration's interests. The admissions and hiring departments would be required to drop all diversity efforts, with data on faculty and students to be handed over to the federal government for auditing. As at other institutions, there are also some demands presented as efforts against antisemitism, such as the defunding of pro-Palestinian groups. More generally, it demands that university officials "prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions."

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Mars is back on the agenda.

During his address to a joint session of Congress in March, President Donald Trump said the United States "will pursue our Manifest Destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars."

What does this mean? Manifest destiny is the belief, which was particularly widespread in 1800s America, that US settlers were destined to expand westward across North America. Similarly, then, the Trump administration believes it is the manifest destiny of Americans to settle Mars. And he wants his administration to take steps toward accomplishing that goal.

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Mars is back on the agenda.

During his address to a joint session of Congress in March, President Donald Trump said the United States "will pursue our Manifest Destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars."

What does this mean? Manifest destiny is the belief, which was particularly widespread in 1800s America, that US settlers were destined to expand westward across North America. Similarly, then, the Trump administration believes it is the manifest destiny of Americans to settle Mars. And he wants his administration to take steps toward accomplishing that goal.

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Mars is back on the agenda.

During his address to a joint session of Congress in March, President Donald Trump said the United States "will pursue our Manifest Destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars."

What does this mean? Manifest destiny is the belief, which was particularly widespread in 1800s America, that US settlers were destined to expand westward across North America. Similarly, then, the Trump administration believes it is the manifest destiny of Americans to settle Mars. And he wants his administration to take steps toward accomplishing that goal.

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On Monday, OpenAI announced the GPT-4.1 model family, its newest series of AI language models that brings a 1 million token context window to OpenAI for the first time and continues a long tradition of very confusing AI model names. Three confusing new names, in fact: GPT‑4.1, GPT‑4.1 mini, and GPT‑4.1 nano.

According to OpenAI, these models outperform GPT-4o in several key areas. But in an unusual move, GPT-4.1 will only be available through the developer API, not in the consumer ChatGPT interface where most people interact with OpenAI's technology.

The 1 million token context window—essentially the amount of text the AI can process at once—allows these models to ingest roughly 3,000 pages of text in a single conversation. This puts OpenAI's context windows on par with Google's Gemini models , which have offered similar extended context capabilities for some time.

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On Monday, OpenAI announced the GPT-4.1 model family, its newest series of AI language models that brings a 1 million token context window to OpenAI for the first time and continues a long tradition of very confusing AI model names. Three confusing new names, in fact: GPT‑4.1, GPT‑4.1 mini, and GPT‑4.1 nano.

According to OpenAI, these models outperform GPT-4o in several key areas. But in an unusual move, GPT-4.1 will only be available through the developer API, not in the consumer ChatGPT interface where most people interact with OpenAI's technology.

The 1 million token context window—essentially the amount of text the AI can process at once—allows these models to ingest roughly 3,000 pages of text in a single conversation. This puts OpenAI's context windows on par with Google's Gemini models , which have offered similar extended context capabilities for some time.

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On Monday, OpenAI announced the GPT-4.1 model family, its newest series of AI language models that brings a 1 million token context window to OpenAI for the first time and continues a long tradition of very confusing AI model names. Three confusing new names, in fact: GPT‑4.1, GPT‑4.1 mini, and GPT‑4.1 nano.

According to OpenAI, these models outperform GPT-4o in several key areas. But in an unusual move, GPT-4.1 will only be available through the developer API, not in the consumer ChatGPT interface where most people interact with OpenAI's technology.

The 1 million token context window—essentially the amount of text the AI can process at once—allows these models to ingest roughly 3,000 pages of text in a single conversation. This puts OpenAI's context windows on par with Google's Gemini models , which have offered similar extended context capabilities for some time.

Read full article

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