Today is Thursday, April 17, 2025.
It is the 107th day of the year.
258 days remain.
WHAT’S ON TAP
NOTABLE & NOTEWORTHY: A New Jersey high school senior runs the gamut of Ivy League acceptances.
Time released its list of “Most Influential People.” Find out who made the cut in SHOWBIZ.
JIMMY FALLON has a new competition series and NATE BARGATZE will host the Emmys. Details in CASTING CALL.
PRINCE HARRY dishes on his latest legal battles in ROYALS.
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TARIFF TALK
– The Wall Street Journal reports that the short-term uncertainty surrounding tariffs is part of a broader strategy to weaken China’s global influence and power: “U.S. officials plan to use negotiations with more than 70 nations to ask them to disallow China to ship goods through their countries, prevent Chinese firms from locating in their territories to avoid U.S. tariffs, and not absorb China’s cheap industrial goods into their economies.”
– The State of California will sue the Trump Administration over its reimagined global tariff scheme. Like a similar suit by a business group this week, the case will argue that Trump is improperly using powers under the International Emergency Economic Power Act to justify the measures.
– HONDA is working on plans to move production of the hybrid Civic model from Japan to an existing plant in Indiana. Production is expected to begin this summer. The company cited tariffs as the reason.
– PRESIDENT TRUMP personally met with negotiators from Japan to discuss new trade terms yesterday. “A Great Honor to have just met with the Japanese Delegation on Trade. Big Progress!” he wrote in a Truth Social post.
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FYRE FESTIVAL 2 has (apparently, maybe?) been postponed.
On the event site’s homepage, dates were still listed from May 30 to June 2 as of Wednesday afternoon, about an hour after ABC News reported that organizers said the event would be postponed. However, the link buttons to purchase tickets were made inactive.
The outlet based the reporting on a message sent to one ticket holder, indicating that the dates were being pushed back, a new date would be announced, and that the ticket would be refunded.
(If and) when a new date is announced, any tickets would have to be bought again; they’re not transferable.
WORTH NOTING: While it’s easy to dunk on yet another clusterwhoops unfolding here, they’re due some credit for not going forward with an event that would otherwise be an abject disaster.
ON THE OTHER HAND: People hold festivals all over the world all the time and don’t run into these kinds of problems.
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Los Angeles police say a sophisticated robbery operation dug a tunnel through a concrete wall to steal $10 MILLION worth of jewelry over the weekend.
Security camera footage shows the suspects entering through a hole drilled from the next-door property, and leaving through the same, before making off in a truck. Once inside, they also cut through the sides of two massive safes.
So far no leads on suspects have been announced; investigators are analyzing fingerprints and looking for DNA evidence. [via CNN]
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Astronomers have discovered a celestial first: a planet that orbits two suns, both of which are brown dwarfs, and the orbit itself has never been seen before.
While the brown dwarfs orbit each other on the same plane, the “polar planet” apparently orbits those suns at a 90-degree angle, in what’s called a sideways orbit.
The strange solar system is about 120 lightyears away, or about 720 TRILLION miles. [via Space]
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New Jersey highschooler Angel Ortiz has his choice of Ivy League schools to choose to attend this fall.
“I’m still processing it,” he told ABC7, after receiving acceptances to Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania, and Dartmouth.
The news comes as no surprise to Ortiz’s classmates, who call him the “smartest guy in the room,” according to teacher Mr. Kenny. “If I ask a question and every kid in the class doesn’t understand it, they just point, ‘Angel knows it.’”
Ortiz plans to tour the schools before making his decision at the end of the month. [via NY Post]
ACCEPTANCE RATES: Harvard (3.6%), Yale (3.7%), Columbia (3.85%), Princeton (4.62%), Brown (5.16%), Pennsylvania (5.38%), and Dartmouth (5.41%).
BY THE WAY: The only Ivy League school he didn't apply to is Cornell University, which has an acceptance rate of 9.73%. [via Ivy Coach]
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