First Thing: Harvard sues Trump administration over grants freeze

University fights back against threats to cut federal funding. Plus, tributes pour in for Pope Francis

Good morning.

Harvard University has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging that it is trying to “gain control of academic decision-making”.

The university is fighting back against the administration’s threat to review about $9bn in federal funding after Harvard officials refused to comply with a list of demands that included appointing an outside overseer to ensure that the viewpoints being taught at the university were “diverse”. Harvard is specifically looking to halt a freeze on $2.2bn in grants.

The lawsuit comes as the Trump administration has sought to force changes at multiple Ivy League institutions, painting campus protests around Israel’s war in Gaza as anti-American, and the institutions as liberal and antisemitic, which Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, disputes.

What has Harvard’s president said? “No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

Has Harvard’s stance influenced other universities? Quite possibly. More than 100 presidents of US colleges and universities signed a statement published Tuesday denouncing the Trump administration’s “unprecedented government overreach and political interference” with higher education – the strongest sign yet that US educational institutions are forming a unified front.

Pope Francis died of stroke and heart failure, Vatican doctor says as tributes pour in

Pope Francis died of a stroke and subsequent heart failure, the Vatican said, also revealing that he requested to be buried in a simple, unadorned tomb.

US politicians and religious leaders reacted to yesterday’s news of the death of the pontiff – the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic church – with expressions of mourning and tributes.

Who will be the next pope? Predicting the outcome of the highly secretive papal conclave is very difficult. But at the moment, speculation is focusing on these men.

Humanitarian agencies reject IDF claim Gaza medic killings caused by ‘professional failures’

The UN’s humanitarian agency, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and Gaza’s civil defence service have rejected the findings of an Israeli military investigation that concluded the killings of 15 Palestinian medics and rescue workers in Rafah last month were caused by “professional failures”.

Eight PRCS paramedics, six members of the civil defence rescue agency and one employee of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, were carrying out two rescue missions when they were shot and killed by Israeli troops in southern Gaza in the early hours of 23 March.

The Israel Defense Forces at first claimed the medics’ vehicles were not using emergency signals when troops opened fire, but backtracked after mobile phone footage emerged contradicting the account. On Sunday, the IDF said an internal investigation had “identified several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident”.

What did UN agency officials say? Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the PRCS, said: “The report is full of lies. It is invalid and unacceptable, as it justifies the killing and shifts responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different.”

In other news …

US stock markets fell again yesterday after Donald Trump criticized the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, calling him “a major loser” for not lowering interest rates. The S&P 500 index fell 2.36% and the Nasdaq dropped 2.55%.

Russia resumed its assault on Ukraine yesterday, killing at least three people in the southern Kherson region, after a 30-hour Easter “ceasefire” that Kyiv said Moscow’s armed forces repeatedly violated.

Donald Trump backed his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, yesterday after it emerged that Hegseth had shared information about US strikes in Yemen in a second Signal group chat that included family.

Haiti is approaching a “point of no return” of gang violence, the UN special representative to the nation has said, leading to “total chaos”.

The Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, said her purse was stolen at a restaurant, containing $3,000 in cash, her passport, license and apartment keys.

Stat of the day: global 89% ‘silent majority’ want more government action over global heating

New research suggests 89% of the world’s people want stronger action to fight the climate crisis but feel they are trapped in a self-fulfilling “spiral of silence” because they mistakenly believe they are in a minority. The data comes from a global survey in which 130,000 people across 125 countries were interviewed.

The Guardian is joining forces with dozens of newsrooms to launch the 89 Percent Project – and highlight the fact that a vast “silent majority” of the world’s population want climate action.

Don’t miss this: ‘My family and I were sound asleep – then a tsunami swept our house out to sea’

When Pedro Niada awoke at 4.30am to find his house on Robinson Crusoe Island tilting and filling with water, he was confused. He soon realized he was in a race against time to save his family.

Climate check: Is ‘de-extinction’ really possible?

The US biotech company Colossal Biosciences claims it has resurrected the dire wolf, an animal that went extinct at the end of the last ice age. But does what the company has done amount to “de-extinction”? Our Science Weekly podcast investigates.

Last Thing: Wild chimpanzees filmed bonding over boozy fruit

Wild chimpanzees in west Africa have been observed sharing fruit containing alcohol. Scientists at the University of Exeter filmed chimpanzees sharing fermented African breadfruit in Guinea-Bissau. In terms of the alcohol content, “it’s probably analogous to us sipping on a light beer,” one researcher said.

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