March 20 2025

U.S. Sees 25% Drop in Overdose Deaths as Fentanyl Fatalities Decline

BYD Unveils Game-Changing 5-min, Fast-Charging System for Electric Vehicles

Nvidia to Invest Half a Trillion in U.S.-Made Chips Over Four Years

Columbia Nears Deal with Trump to Restore $400 Million in Funding

Trump Shuts Down China Internet Freedom Project, Sparking Bipartisan Backlash

College Basketball Transfers Surge, Driven by NIL Money for Men

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FLASH…Federal immigration authorities on Monday night detained a Georgetown University fellow in the United States legally on a student visa, according to the researcher’s lawyer…

Source: Washington Post

U.S. Sees 25% Drop in Overdose Deaths as Fentanyl Fatalities Decline

The U.S. is making progress against one of its most devastating public health threats: drug overdoses. Over the 12 months ending in October 2024, the country saw a 25% decline in overdose deaths compared with the same period the year prior, according to the latest preliminary estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 82,000 overdose deaths were reported. The leading factor? A falling number of fatalities involving synthetic opioids, a drug class in which bootleg fentanyl is the big killer. Those numbers are still significantly higher than they were a decade ago, reflecting just how deadly the drug crisis has become in the fentanyl era. Unintentional drug overdose death rates tripled from 2003 to 2019, according to data published Thursday by the CDC, surpassing the death rate from motor-vehicle traffic and becoming the leading cause of unintentional injury deaths.

Source: WSJ

BYD Unveils Game-Changing 5-min, Fast-Charging System for Electric Vehicles

For the second time in weeks, BYD, the Chinese rival to Tesla backed by Warren Buffett, has rocked the global auto sector. On Monday, Wang Chuanfu, the Shenzhen-based group’s billionaire founder, unveiled a new charging system that could add about 470km in range to BYD’s batteries in just five minutes. The release of the so-called Super e-Platform has thrust BYD to the front of an industry-wide race to develop battery cells for electric vehicles that will make refuelling EVs as fast as filling up cars with petrol or diesel. It follows the February announcement of its “God’s Eye” advanced driver-assistance system being made available on all its models for free.
Source: FT

Nvidia to Invest Half a Trillion in U.S.-Made Chips Over Four Years

Nvidia will spend hundreds of billions of dollars on chips and other electronics manufactured in the US over the next four years, its chief executive has said, as the company tilts its supply chain back from Asia in the face of Donald Trump’s tariff threats. The huge spending projection from the world’s most valuable semiconductor group follows multibillion-dollar US investment plans announced by other technology companies including Apple, as the impact of Trump’s “America First” trade policies ripples through the global economy. “Overall, we will procure, over the course of the next four years, probably half a trillion dollars worth of electronics in total,” Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive and co-founder, told the Financial Times. “And I think we can easily see ourselves manufacturing several hundred billion of it here in the US.” In a wide-ranging interview, Huang said the leading artificial intelligence chipmaker was now able to manufacture its latest systems in the US through suppliers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Foxconn, and that he saw a growing competitive threat from Huawei in China.
Source: FT

Columbia Nears Deal with Trump to Restore $400 Million in Funding

Columbia University is getting close to yielding to President Trump’s demands in negotiations to restore $400 million in federal funding, according to people close to the discussions. The Trump administration has extended Columbia’s deadline until Friday to agree to nine far-reaching demands. The government earlier this month canceled the grants and contracts over allegations of antisemitism on the New York City campus but gave the university a review period. The demands include banning masks, empowering campus police and putting the school’s department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies under “academic receivership,” which means it would no longer be controlled by the faculty. Columbia’s acquiescence would represent a significant moment in the growing battle between Trump and elite universities. Trump campaigned on reining in what he sees as leftist ideologues on college campuses, and has moved aggressively to investigate allegations of campus antisemitism, with Columbia as his main focus. Some faculty, however, view the moves as federal overreach that violate cherished notions of academic freedom.
Source: WSJ

Trump Shuts Down China Internet Freedom Project, Sparking Bipartisan Backlash

The Trump administration’s move to shut down an internet freedom project that helped millions of people in China access the open web has stirred concern from lawmakers, including Republicans, who argue the nonprofit is a crucial tool to counter the rise of Beijing. The Open Technology Fund (OTF), launched in 2012, was intended to allow people who live under repressive regimes to circumvent restrictions and access the internet. An early backer of the encrypted messaging app Signal and the anonymous internet browser Tor, the OTF became the world’s largest funder of products that allow people to freely access the web. As of February, OTF funding provided tools to more than 6 million people in China and 18 million individuals in Iran, giving them the ability to circumvent government restrictions on the internet to access news sites, secure messaging services and social media platforms such as Reddit, the messaging app Telegram and X, according to private data reviewed by The Washington Post.
Source: Washington Post

College Basketball Transfers Surge, Driven by NIL Money for Men

On the men’s side, 53 percent of all rotation players previously logged minutes at another Division I school, according to a Washington Post analysis. Roughly one-third of these key contributors — the top eight players in total minutes on each roster — played for another D-I program just last season. On the women’s side, nearly 40 percent of key players previously played for another D-I team — a big jump from before 2021, when the NCAA stopped requiring athletes to sit out a year after transferring. This increase has plateaued somewhat in the past three years, whereas the number of transfers in men’s hoops continues to rise. That’s mostly because there’s more name, image and likeness (NIL) money being thrown around for male players

Source: Washington Post

March 20, 1854: Republican Party founded

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Sources

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/03/19/trump-deportation-georgetown-fellow-immigration/
2. https://www.wsj.com/health/drug-overdoses-are-on-the-decline-in-charts-d55403bd?mod=hp_lead_pos8
3. https://www.ft.com/content/bcdf4e29-5dec-489c-806b-836d7abe8135
4. https://www.ft.com/content/3fd3a717-2fbf-42ef-bb08-5baecdeb1985
5. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/columbia-is-nearing-agreement-to-give-trump-what-he-wants-14315bb3?mod=hp_lead_pos11
6. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/20/trump-ends-internet-access-china-iran-otf/
7. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/interactive/2025/transfers-march-madness-ncaa-tournament/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f011