– Secretary Rubio and Envoy Witkoff skip Ukraine peace talks in London at the last minute due to a “scheduling conflict.”
– Trump signs an executive order supporting Historically Black Colleges (HBCUs). It promotes private and government initiatives to improve the quality of education, infrastructure, and professional opportunities for HBCU students.
– Trump signs a proclamation declaring April 20-26, 2025, as National Volunteer Week.
– The Trump administration ends the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) by terminating contracts for its four regional centers by September 2025. The WHI focuses on heart disease, breast cancer, osteoporosis, and hormone use, among other things, and has shown that certain treatments do not prevent heart disease.
– Trump signs an executive order to advance AI education for young people. It will prioritize AI in grants and focus on training that will help teachers effectively integrate AI into the curriculum.
– Trump signs an executive order ending discrimination based on group characteristics rather than individual merit.
– Trump signs an executive order ending the use of “discriminatory equality ideology” in schools. It gives schools more latitude to punish based on behavior, without regard to racial statistics, and states that previous equality guidelines undermined classroom order.
– Trump signs an executive order that accreditation organizations, such as the American Bar Association and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, will no longer be allowed to require discriminatory practices, such as requiring diversity based on race, ethnicity, or gender, as a condition for obtaining federal approval for educational institutions.
– Trump signs an executive order requiring U.S. universities to be fully transparent about foreign funding, the true source and purpose of that funding, and to strictly monitor compliance with the law. Institutions that fail to comply could lose their federal funding.
– Trump signs a proclamation commemorating the Holocaust, calling on Americans to observe “Days of Remembrance” from April 20-27, 2025.
– Trump signs a proclamation for National Park Week from April 19-27, 2025, celebrating the beauty and history of national parks.
– Trump signs an executive order to prepare workers for the high-paying skilled jobs of the future. This includes improving vocational training, expanding registered internships, and maximizing federal investments in labor market development.
– Treasury Secretary Bessent criticizes the IMF and World Bank, saying they are failing by focusing too much on climate, gender, and social issues.
– The Department of Justice cuts hundreds of grants. The cut grants include aid to victims of sexual violence, human trafficking, and hate crimes.
– The Trump administration is cutting two subsidies for the Whitney Plantation, a Louisiana museum dedicated to the realities of slavery. The museum is losing $55,000 as a result.
– The Trump administration announces plans to raise tariffs on solar panels from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, to counter Chinese subsidies through those countries. Tariffs on Cambodian panels are up to 3,500%.
– Trump will attend a dinner with the top 220 holders of his meme coin, $TRUMP, at his golf club near Washington, DC, on May 22.
– Trump accuses Zelensky on social media of prolonging the war by refusing to cede Crimea to Russia, saying, “If he wants Crimea so badly, why didn’t they fight for it 11 years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot fired?”
– Trump proposes that Putin retain nearly all of Russia’s Ukrainian territories in exchange for a peace deal. The US would recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea and implicitly other occupied territories. Ukraine would get some of its territories back, but without a clear US security guarantee. The plan also includes the possibility of a new relationship between the US and Russia, with sanctions lifted.
Fallout
– Mother Jones reports that Clearview AI, a company that develops facial recognition technology, is looking to expand its work with the Trump administration. In emails obtained by Mother Jones, CEO Lambert expresses his desire to “take down these lefties” and also attacks “the communist academic left.” ICE has long used Clearview to identify immigrants, and Homeland Security to track potential threats.
– At the first meeting of the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, Attorney General Bondi says the Biden administration has actively persecuted Christians, including by arresting peacefully praying protesters at abortion clinics. She also says Biden declared Easter Sunday transgender visibility day. “No longer,” Bondi says.
– In a social media post, Trump says he is suing law firm Perkins Coie and that to his dismay, the judge there is Beryl Howell, an Obama-appointed judge. Politico says Trump seems “confused” because the judge in that case is Middlebrooks. At the same time, Perkins Coie is suing Trump in a case that Judge Howell is handling.
– Congressman Jamie Raskin calls for an FBI investigation into Ed Martin, Trump’s nominee for U.S. Attorney in DC, for failing to disclose more than 150 Russian media appearances in his approval documents. Raskin calls for investigation into Martin’s ties to Russian media and his political allegiances.
– The Trump administration plans to eliminate the suicide hotline for LGBTQ youth, according to a budget proposal from the Department of Health and Human Services. The service has been contacted more than 1.2 million times since 2022. LGBTQ youth attempt suicide at four times the rate of their peers.
– Twelve states are going to court to stop Trump’s tariffs, saying they are illegal and harmful to the economy. They are challenging the president’s authority to impose tariffs without Congressional approval.
– At least nine people are killed and 60 injured in a massive Russian missile attack on Kyiv hours after Trump’s comments on war.
– Confidence in the Supreme Court has fallen to 41%, down from 68% in 2019, according to a poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Nearly one in three Americans (32%) have no confidence in the court at all. The decline in confidence in the Supreme Court is due to concerns about political bias, ethical issues and controversial rulings, such as on abortion rights.
– Trump’s economic approval rating drops to 37 percent, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. Nearly 75 percent of Americans are worried about a recession and 56 percent say his economic restructuring is “too unpredictable.”
– Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had a heated exchange at the White House last week, multiple sources say. In a “loud exchange,” Musk accused Bessent of a conflict of interest and Bessent criticized Musek for broken promises on spending cuts.
– Trump’s overall approval rating drops to 40 percent, a seven-point drop since February, Pew Research Center reports.
– Zelensky says at a press conference: “Ukraine will not legally recognize the occupation of Crimea. There’s nothing to discuss here.” This is against our constitution.’
– The Financial Times reports that Ukraine did not fight back in Crimea in 2014 because the US and EU refused military support at the time, fearing that they would provoke Putin. Despite this, Russia attacked all of Ukraine years later.
– The Justice Department says the Trump administration did not violate a court order to deport people to El Salvador. It says the Department of Defense is responsible for the deportations, not the Department of Homeland Security, which is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
– House Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas criticized his party members for focusing on Garcia’s case. Cuellar said voters in his district are more concerned with issues such as border security, the cost of living and the effects of tariff increases. He said the party should focus on more important issues.
– Governor Pritzker announced that Illinois would halt investments in Salvadoran companies in protest of the detention of US citizens without trial.
– EuroMaidan Press reports that the US is banning Germany from delivering Taurus missiles to Ukraine because they contain “critical US components.”
– The Department of Homeland Security posts the address of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wife online, after which she moves to a safe house.
– Democratic Senator Dick Durbin announces his retirement, setting off a leadership battle, with Brian Schatz, Amy Klobuchar, and Catherine Cortez Masto vying for his position and eventually the potential leadership of the Democrats in the Senate.
– Intel announces plans to lay off more than 20% of its staff.
– Law firms Perkins Coie and WilmerHale are asking judges to permanently block Trump’s executive orders that would punish them, saying they are unconstitutional and threaten the legal profession.
– Stocks rise after Trump hints at a reduction in 145 percent tariffs on China, but press secretary Leavitt makes it clear that no tariff reduction will come until a deal with Beijing is in place.
