Harvard University is 140 years older than the United States, has an endowment greater than the G.D.P. of nearly 100 countries and has educated eight American presidents. So if an institution was going to stand up to the Trump administration’s war on academia, Harvard would be at the top of the list.

Harvard did that forcefully on Monday in a way that injected energy into other universities across the country fearful of the president’s wrath, rejecting the Trump administration’s demands on hiring, admissions and curriculum. Some commentators went so far as to say that Harvard’s decision would empower law firms, the courts, the media and other targets of the White House to push back as well.

“This is of momentous, momentous significance,” said J. Michael Luttig, a prominent former federal appeals court judge revered by many conservatives. “This should be the turning point in the president’s rampage against American institutions.”

Michael S. Roth, who is the president of Wesleyan University and a rare critic of the White House among university administrators, welcomed Harvard’s decision. “What happens when institutions overreach is that they change course when they meet resistance,” he said. “It’s like when a bully is stopped in his tracks.”

Within hours of Harvard’s decision, federal officials said they would freeze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants to the university, along with a $60 million contract.

That is a fraction of the $9 billion in federal funding that Harvard receives, with $7 billion going to the university’s 11 affiliated hospitals in Boston and Cambridge, Mass., including Massachusetts General, Boston Children’s Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The remaining $2 billion goes to research grants directly for Harvard, including for space exploration, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and tuberculosis.

It was not immediately clear what programs the funding freeze would affect.

Harvard, the nation’s richest as well as oldest university, is the most prominent object of the administration’s campaign to purge “woke” ideology from America’s college campuses. The administration’s demands include sharing its hiring data with the government and bringing in an outside party to ensure that each academic department is “viewpoint diverse.”

Columbia University, which faced a loss of $400 million in federal funding, last month agreed to major concessions the government demanded, including that it install new oversight of its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department.

In a letter on Monday, Harvard’s president, Alan M. Garber, refused to stand down. “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government,” he wrote.

The administration’s fight with Harvard, which had an endowment of $53.2 billion in 2024, is one that President Trump and Stephen Miller, a powerful White House aide, want to have. In the administration’s effort to break what it sees as liberalism’s hold on higher education, Harvard is big game. A high-profile court battle would give the White House a platform to continue arguing that the left has become synonymous with antisemitism, elitism and suppression of free speech.

Steven Pinker, a prominent Harvard psychologist who is also a president of the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, said on Monday that it was “truly Orwellian” and self-contradictory to have the government force viewpoint diversity on the university. He said it would also lead to absurdities.

“Will this government force the economics department to hire Marxists or the psychology department to hire Jungians or, for that matter, for the medical school to hire homeopaths or Native American healers?” he said.

Harvard has not escaped the problems that roiled campuses nationwide after the Hamas-led attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. In his letter, Dr. Garber said the university had taken steps to address antisemitism, support diverse viewpoints and protect free speech and dissent.

Those same points were made in a letter to the administration from two lawyers representing Harvard, William A. Burck and Robert K. Hur.

Mr. Burck is also an outside ethics adviser to the Trump Organization and represented the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in the deal it recently reached with the Trump administration.

Mr. Hur, who worked in the Justice Department in Mr. Trump’s first term, was the special counsel who investigated President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s handling of classified documents and termed him “an elderly man with a poor memory,” enraging Mr. Biden.

Both lawyers understand the legal workings of the current administration, an expertise of benefit to Harvard.

“Harvard remains open to dialogue about what the university has done, and is planning to do, to improve the experience of every member of its community,” Mr. Burck and Mr. Hur wrote in the letter, addressed to the acting general counsels of the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services and to a commissioner within the General Services Administration. “But Harvard is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.”

Representative Elise Stefanik, the New York Republican who held hearings last year investigating antisemitism on college campuses, including at Harvard, was withering in a social media post.

“Harvard University has rightfully earned its place as the epitome of the moral and academic rot in higher education,” Ms. Stefanik, a Harvard graduate, wrote. She added that “it is time to totally cut off U.S. taxpayer funding to this institution that has failed to live up to its founding motto Veritas. Defund Harvard.”

It is unclear what other measure the Trump administration could take against Harvard for its resistance, although potential actions could include an investigation of its nonprofit status and further cancellations of the visas of international students.

The president of the American Council of Education, Ted Mitchell, said that Harvard’s action was essential.

“If Harvard had not taken this stand,” he said, “it would have been nearly impossible for other institutions to do so.”

Voters in Gabon are set to pick their next president on Saturday, and on paper they have plenty of options: anti-French firebrands, a general who staged a coup, a tax inspector and a female candidate in this oil-rich Central African country.

But most candidates and experts agree that the election might be a done deal. They say the race has been rigged in favor of Brice Oligui Nguema, the general who staged a coup in 2023 and has ignored his early promises to hand power over to a civilian.

“It is not a level playing field to begin with,” said Joseph Siegle, director of research at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Washington-based organization that is part of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Gabon is a resource-rich country of 2.5 million that was long ruled by one family. Although wealthier than other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, unemployment is widespread and poverty is high, making those key issues for voters.

Here is what to know about the presidential contest.

Who are the main contenders?

A 50-year-old general who swapped his uniform for jeans, Jordan sneakers and Michael Jackson’s dance moves on the campaign trail, Mr. Nguema is widely tipped to win.

Mr. Nguema served as an aide-de-camp to Gabon’s long-ruling autocrat, Omar Bongo, and was head of the Republican Guard under his son, Ali Bongo Ondimba, who was deposed in 2023.

With that coup, Mr. Nguema ended the run of one of Africa’s longest-ruling families. Omar Bongo held power for 41 years, and his son held office for 14.

The coup was the latest of eight military takeovers that have shaken West and Central Africa since 2020.

But Mr. Nguema has rebranded himself as a conventional candidate in the election, with the campaign slogan “It’s good,” or “C’BON” in French, a play on his initials. He has promised to build large infrastructure projects, including a new airport, calling himself “Brice the Builder.”

He has also vowed to preserve ties with France, the former colonial power, which has recently been ordered to withdraw troops from several African countries. Some 350 French troops are in Gabon, but Mr. Nguema has said, “I’m not chasing anyone out.”

Paul Modoss, a 35-year-old entrepreneur, said on Friday that he would vote for Mr. Nguema because he had united the country and embodied renewal. “You can’t call President Brice Oligui Nguema a dictator,” he said. “A dictator doesn’t return power to the people through the ballot box.”

His most serious opponent is Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze, who was Mr. Bongo’s prime minister.

Mr. Bilie-By-Nze, 57, has vowed to break with Gabon’s pre-coup political system, dismantle its network and reduce French influence, even though he long operated within that system.

He has also called Mr. Nguema’s potential election a threat to democracy and said he wants to diversify Gabon’s economy and reduce its dependence on oil revenues.

Lauréa Mamboundou, a 26-year-old law student, said she would vote for Mr. Bilie-By-Nze for his political experience.

“He is the most competent candidate today, but also the one who would be the easiest to sanction with our votes should he ever betray the people’s trust,” she said. “This is a guarantee against the drift we all fear.”

What are the main issues?

Gabon is rich in mineral resources. It holds a quarter of the world’s reserves of manganese, a mineral used to produce steel. But its economy remains overly dependent on oil, which accounts for 38 percent of Gabon’s gross domestic product.

The country is among the world’s most corrupt countries, according to the watchdog Transparency International. Over 40 percent of young people in Gabon are unemployed. And a third of its 2.5 million people live on less than $5.50 a day, according to the World Bank.

Under Mr. Nguema’s leadership, the interim authorities adopted a new Constitution that allows members of the military to run for office. It also limits a president to two seven-year terms.

Mr. Siegel said the general had borrowed from the playbook of another Central African country, Chad, whose leader seized power when his father was killed in 2021, and who was later declared winner in an election.

Mr. Bilie-By-Nze said Mr. Nguema had flouted electoral rules by using state funds to finance his campaign, while other candidate received no such state support. “The junta’s leader has tailored a Constitution and an electoral law to his own needs to confiscate power,” Mr. Bilie-By-Nze said in a statement.

A spokesman for Mr. Nguema declined to comment.

A region full of aging leaders

Several Central African countries are ruled by authoritarian leaders, including Africa’s top three longest-serving presidents. Two are Gabon’s neighbors: the president of Cameroon has been in power for 42 years and the president of the Republic of Congo has held office for 38 years.

In Gabon, the two leading candidates have a long history with the Bongo family but have tried to distance themselves from it. Each has accused the other of being the candidate of the old regime.

When will the results be announced?

About 860,000 people are expected to go to the polls on Saturday. The results are expected to be announced before April 16.

Yann Leyimangoye contributed reporting from Libreville, Gabon.

The Trump administration could cut nearly 50 percent of the State Department’s funding next fiscal year, according to an internal memo laying out a downsizing plan being given serious consideration by department leaders, said two U.S. officials. The plan was drawn up as the White House pressures agencies to make significant budget cuts.

The memo, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, proposes eliminating almost all funding for international organizations like the United Nations and NATO, ending the budget for supporting international peacekeeping operations and curtailing all of the department’s educational and cultural exchanges, like the Fulbright Program.

It also proposes cutting funding for humanitarian assistance and global health programs by more than 50 percent despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s pledges that lifesaving assistance would be preserved.

It was not clear if Mr. Rubio had endorsed the cuts outlined in the memo, which was dated April 10. Pete Marocco, who oversaw the gutting of government foreign aid programs before abruptly leaving the department, and Douglas Pitkin, who is in charge of the department’s budget planning, prepared the document. It was also not clear how seriously the proposed cuts would be entertained in Congress, which appropriates federal dollars.

But, according to a U.S. official familiar with the department’s review, it is likely that the White House will send Congress a budget proposal this spring that is substantially similar to what the memo outlines in an effort to press lawmakers to formalize downsizing efforts that are already underway.

Agencies are facing a deadline this week to submit detailed reorganization plans to the White House explaining what cuts they will make to help further shrink the federal government. While many departments have already announced or begun carrying out their planned cuts, the State Department has yet to publicly detail complete plans for downsizing. The memo is part of a process involving the White House budget office and the State Department trading proposals and suggestions.

Reports of steep cuts already had Democrats on Capitol Hill reeling.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement on Monday that the cuts “would leave our country alone and exposed and allow China and Russia to fill the vacuum made vacant by this administration.”

“Why in the world would we cut funding for NATO at a moment when war is raging in Europe and security threats on the continent grow?” she added.

Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, a Democrat on the appropriations committee, said: “While ultimately Congress controls the purse strings, recent reports about the administration’s plan to gut State Department personnel, U.S. presence overseas and foreign assistance are deeply troubling. These cuts don’t make America safer, they risk our security.”

“I want to hear from Secretary Rubio directly,” he added.

A budget copy of the memo began circulating in Washington in recent days. The Washington Post reported details of the memo earlier on Monday.

The State Department had no immediate comment.

The memo states that the State Department will request a $28.4 billion budget in fiscal year 2026, which begins Oct. 1. That figure is $26 billion less than what was on the books for fiscal year 2025, according to the document.

The administration intends to claw back some funds for the current fiscal year as well, according to the memo. Mr. Marocco and Mr. Pitkin wrote that the Trump administration would seek to reclaim approximately $20 billion in unspent funds from fiscal year 2025 to return to the Treasury.

Among other cuts, the memo proposes keeping a pay and hiring freeze through fiscal 2026, with the exception of any hires needed to take over foreign aid programs inherited from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is being disbanded. Overall, the memo seeks to cut foreign aid spending by more than half of current budget levels for the State Department and U.S.A.I.D.

Though Mr. Rubio promised last month that the State Department would continue administering a number of lifesaving assistance programs, the Trump administration has quietly canceled some of those initiatives in recent weeks.

The only funding for global health programs that the State Department envisions preserving is $2.9 billion for H.I.V. treatments provided through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; $687 million for interventions for diseases like tuberculosis and malaria; $200 million for global health security; and $800 million for the Global Fund, distributed at a rate of $1 for every $4 other donors provide. The Global Fund is an international organization that finances disease treatment and prevention.

All other programs — including those to tackle neglected tropical diseases, provide vaccines to children in poor countries and preserve maternal and child health — would be cut.

The memo offers fewer details about the cuts to humanitarian aid. It outlines $2.5 billion for a new Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance at the State Department, and $1.5 billion in emergency migration and refugee assistance that President Trump can use “to address humanitarian emergencies.”

The memo also proposes a one-year freeze for a key narcotics control program, rationalizing the suspension of funds by noting that the program has an unspent $1.4 billion on hand that should cover that period.

Additionally, it envisions creating a roughly $2 billion America First Opportunities Fund at the Treasury, which would give the Trump administration latitude to “provide targeted support for economic and development assistance for enduring and emerging Trump administration priorities.”

Stephanie Nolen contributed reporting.

As Canada barrels through one of the stormiest periods in its history toward an April 28 federal election, there’s a name that’s not on the ballot but is on people’s minds: Danielle Smith.

Ms. Smith, the premier of Alberta, the Western province often called the Texas of Canada because of its oil, ranches and conservative politics, is referred to as “divisive” by supporters and critics alike: People love her, people hate her, people love to hate her.

An unapologetic MAGA-aligned conservative, she has riled Canadians across the country by speaking admiringly of President Trump and focusing on her province’s fortunes, particularly its oil exports, even as the U.S. administration menaces Canada.

Ms. Smith, 54, has been premier for the past two and a half years, having spent the past two decades dipping in and out of politics.

“I keep getting fired,” she chuckled in an interview with The New York Times in Calgary, Alberta, in February.

She has also worked as an economist, a lobbyist and a radio host of a popular call-in show in which she honed her folksy, affable but sharply ideological raconteur style.

She’s the closest thing Canada’s conservative movement has to a MAGA ally — and has the Mar-a-Lago photograph with Mr. Trump to prove it.

As Mr. Trump started to say he wanted to make Canada the 51st state, before being inaugurated, Ms. Smith visited him in Florida.

Even before Mr. Trump’s re-election, Ms. Smith had been key in shaping the evolution of Canada’s broader conservative movement. Critics say she has courted ideological minorities, including fervent anti-vaccine organizations, advocates for Albertan secessionism and hard-line anti-trans activists, to secure her election.

She has been careful to make those groups feel included in her agenda while not fully endorsing their rhetoric.

That ability, along with the political freedom afforded by her lack of interest in national office, has put her at the vanguard of Canada’s changing right.

In recent months, Ms. Smith has defended her pro-Trump overtures as a diplomatic approach that complements the more aggressive stance taken by the federal government.

Simply put, she said of her Trump ties, “I’m happy to be good cop.”

Maple Leaf MAGA

Ms. Smith’s approach is underpinned by more than admiration for Mr. Trump and his politics.

It is also driven by her province’s unusual relationship with the United States, and the rest of Canada.

“Americans helped us build our two biggest industries, our cattle industry and our oil and gas industry,” she added, sitting in her office in Calgary.

Ms. Smith has qualified her support for Mr. Trump by saying she does not support his tariffs on Canada.

“I think it’s going to hurt them — it’s going to hurt us — but I think we can probably work our way through that,” she said.

She’s had to respond to criticism and calibrate her enthusiasm in the context of Mr. Trump’s calling for the annexation of Canada — “It’s not going to happen,” she said — and his ire over Canadian goods, including Alberta’s oil, which almost entirely heads to the United States and is subject to a 10 percent tariff (although a loophole to avoid the levy was subsequently introduced).

But she was generally effusive about Mr. Trump, recalling her January visit to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where she saw him D.J. on an iPad and hold court after a game of golf.

Comeback Kids

And, she added, much like Mr. Trump, she has her own comeback story.

More than a decade ago, Ms. Smith was leading a small right-wing party in Alberta when she decided to join the larger provincial conservative party, a move that outraged her former colleagues but that she defended as an effort to unify the province’s conservatives.

The high-risk move backfired. Ms. Smith was not selected by the party to be a candidate for her electoral district and left politics for years.

In 2022, she came roaring back, winning her bid to lead Alberta’s United Conservative Party and then a provincial election to become premier.

To win, she took the opposite approach to the one she had tried a decade ago: Instead of tacking to the center, she led the party’s expansion to the right. She secured the support of libertarian grass-roots organizations, including a prominent citizens’ group that had organized around anti-vaccine mandates, as well as a movement seeking Albertan independence from the rest of Canada.

Albertan independence, in fact, would become a pressing question.

Western Promises

Ms. Smith has sought to use the question of Alberta’s relationship with the rest of Canada to her political advantage.

Many Albertans — not just the ones supporting independence — say that their province’s energy riches are being exploited by a federal government that takes revenues from them to bankroll poorer parts of the country.

And they rail against Ottawa for introducing climate policies that limit the province’s ability to extract and sell energy products.

Asked explicitly if she supported Alberta’s splitting away, Ms. Smith said, “We should go back to what the Constitution says,” referring to Canada’s federal system, in which provinces have power to manage several important policy areas. “The Constitution gives us areas of exclusive jurisdiction that the federal government keeps invading and trying to undermine.”

Secessionism advocates see, in Ms. Smith, an ally. Her chief of staff is a co-author of a crucial document, the Free Alberta Strategy, which lays out the reasoning for independence.

Another author, Barry Cooper, who teaches political science at the University of Calgary, said she was making the right noises. “I think she can advance our place within the federation,” he said.

Historically, separatism “has been an abstract concept related to Alberta going it alone,” said Jared Wesley, a professor at the University of Alberta who researches the topic. It remains a minority view, though a recent poll from the Angus Reid Institute indicated support could grow if the Liberal Party won the upcoming federal election.

Ms. Smith has pledged to explore the idea of holding an independence referendum after that election and has threatened a rupture with the federal government to gain concessions.

Last month, after meeting Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Liberal leader in the elections, she said that she had “provided a specific list of demands the next prime minister, regardless of who that is, must address within the first six months of their term to avoid an unprecedented national unity crisis.”

The demands included several policies to bolster the province’s energy sector.

Blessing and Curse

Ms. Smith is playing a key role in mobilizing support for the federal Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, who is vying to become the country’s next prime minister and was also born in Alberta.

Together, Ms. Smith and Mr. Poilievre are defining a brand of Canadian conservatism focused on culture issues, limiting the government’s role in public and private life, and an anti-elite, anti-federal approach to running Canada. If Mr. Poilievre loses the election, that vision could be in jeopardy.

Both politicians supported the so-called Freedom Convoy, a movement with strong appeal in Alberta that began as a protest against Covid vaccine mandates for truck drivers, drew in other groups, turned violent in places and paralyzed the nation’s capital for weeks.

But Ms. Smith’s embrace can be a double-edged sword, as Mr. Poilievre is discovering.

In a Breitbart interview last month, she said that Mr. Poilievre was “in sync” with Mr. Trump and that she had asked the White House to “put things on pause” — a reference to the hostile climate between the two countries — until the election.

Critics said her remarks were an invitation to Washington to interfere with Canada’s elections in favor of Mr. Poilievre, whose combative style bears similarities to Mr. Trump’s. Mr. Poilievre has seen his once-large lead over the Liberals evaporate in the run-up to the vote, partly because many Canadians now consider Mr. Trump a major threat.

But Ms. Smith was, again, unapologetic, insisting that she was trying to do what was best for Canada, not just for Mr. Poilievre.

Right All Along

With Mr. Trump in the Oval Office, Ms. Smith seems to feel that, finally, her ideological side is winning.

She delights at Mr. Trump’s assault on what she calls “wokeism.”

But the policy area where her alignment with Mr. Trump’s movement is most pronounced is probably health. In fact, Ms. Smith says that Alberta has been leading the way.

“We were at the front end on protecting the choice of kids through the trans policy changes that we’ve made,” she added, referring to Alberta’s passing legislation limiting access to gender-affirming medical interventions for minors and other policies targeting transgender children.

Ms. Smith has opposed any mandatory vaccination, despite measles outbreaks in Canada and in the United States.

“Parents are pretty discerning,’’ she said. “They’re able to know which vaccines are best for their kids.”

Call In

While Ms. Smith has been at the forefront of the country’s hottest political debates, she still seems most comfortable on Alberta’s radio waves.

She takes questions from Albertans on a regular call-in program called “Your Province. Your Premier.”

She listens attentively and offers a smiling reply, no matter the topic, that unfailingly makes the caller feel as if they are making a really good point, however unreasonable it may be.

She credits her years as a call-in radio host for learning to listen to everyone, a quality that makes her likable, as even some of her harshest critics concede.

“I just would rather hear people out; it’s just the nice, polite thing to do,” she said, adding a rare reference to Canada rather than Alberta: “Maybe it’s just a Canadian thing.”

Five migrants are feared dead after their boat capsized on the way to Florida from the Bahamas in “a suspected failed smuggling venture,” officials said on Monday.

The U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday that it had suspended its search after covering 1,240 square miles over seven hours. Four people were rescued from a 25-foot vessel about 30 miles off Florida’s Atlantic Coast, near St. Lucie, on Sunday morning, according to the Coast Guard.

Martin County Fire Rescue said in a statement that four survivors and one deceased victim were pulled from the water just before 10 a.m. Sunday. The Martin County Sheriff’s Department and the Coast Guard counted nine total passengers, but did not report the deceased victim reported by fire rescue officials. When asked, the sheriff, John Budensiek, was not aware of the death.

One of the survivors was seriously injured and the others had injuries that were not life-threatening, fire rescue officials said.

Sheriff Budensiek said at a news conference on Monday that the four people rescued were of Dominican and Haitian descent. According to interviews with survivors, the boat quickly capsized in the early hours of Friday when it left the island of Bimini, Sheriff Budensiek said. The Coast Guard said the boat capsized early Saturday morning.

Many of the migrants were initially able to cling onto the boat but “lost their grip and one by one drifted out into the ocean,” he said.

Only four were still alive — one woman and three men, including a 17-year-old — once the sheriff’s office was called around 8 a.m. on Sunday to assist the Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection with the rescue operation, Sheriff Budensiek said.

A fisherman who was out with his family on Sunday spotted the flipped vessel and was able to get close enough to give the migrants water, food and life jackets, the sheriff said. Because of rough sea conditions, his team needed over an hour to reach the boat. All four people who survived were transported to a hospital, where they were treated for water exposure and “serious sunburns,” Sheriff Budensiek said.

The chance of recovering the remaining missing people “is probably pretty dismal at this point,” he said. “We believe they’re in the Gulf Stream, so they’re moving rapidly to the north.”

“The decision to suspend a search is always difficult and never taken lightly,” Chief Warrant Officer Edgardo Insignares said in a Coast Guard statement. Smugglers “routinely exploit” vulnerable migrants for profit, he said, “while putting their lives at risk aboard overloaded and unseaworthy vessels.”