--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Wednesday, April 30th. Here's what we're covering.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: We're here tonight in the heartland of our nation to celebrate the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country, and that's according to many, many people. President Trump took to the stage at a rally in Michigan last night to mark his first 100 days in office.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: We've just gotten started. You haven't even seen anything yet. It's all just kicking in. In front of a crowd of 3,000, Trump seemed to return to campaign mode, falling back on his false claims the 2020 election was stolen and going off on tangents about President Biden.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: Somebody convinced him that he looks great in a bathing suit. He's 82 years old. Cary Grant didn't look great in a bathing suit when he was 82. You don't look great.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: The rally was intended to be a showcase of Trump's commitment to American manufacturing. He held it near Detroit, the center of the country's auto industry. But Trump spent much of his speech talking about his border crackdown and deportation numbers.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: We tried to get it higher, but the courts are giving us a hard time. The president also dismissed poll numbers that show his approval rating has been dropping ever since he introduced aggressive new tariffs. Trump's approval rating currently sits at 42 percent, according to the most recent Times-Siena poll, historically low for a president this early in his term.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: Also yesterday. I'm giving him a little bit of a break, right? In a concession that his tariffs have been weighing on the economy, the president moved to give American carmakers a bit of relief. He's walking back some tariffs for the companies.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: Though analysts say even with the tweaks, the cost for car buyers is still expected to go up by thousands of dollars. And Trump said the changes are only temporary. He's still insisting that automakers move all of their production fully to the U.S.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: We give them a little time before we slaughter them if they don't do this. We now seeing the early signs of Trump trying to figure out how to get himself out of the mess that he put himself in through his trade war.
--:-- Jonathan Swan: My colleague Jonathan Swan covers the Trump administration. Donald Trump testing out his theory of tariffs his theory that he can use tariffs as this weapon against everyone at once and that everyone will bow down to him. That has run up against reality.
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--:-- Jonathan Swan: The trade situation is self-induced. He's basically started these wars, which he now will be looking for peace deals effectively. And the economy right now is in a very, very wobbly place.
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--:-- Jonathan Swan: Some of the early indicators about business confidence and investment confidence, consumer confidence, these are all warning signs that the White House is looking at and that Trump himself is very aware of. So I think for the next 100 days, everything is riding on the economy.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: Meanwhile, in an interview with ABC News that aired last night. You could get him back. There's a phone on this desk. I could. You could pick it up and with all the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, send him back right now.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that. But the court has ordered you. President Trump said he could free Kilmar Armando Abrego-Garcia, the man his administration mistakenly deported to El Salvador, but he will not.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: The president's comments undermined previous statements from his administration in which they've claimed there's nothing they can do, despite a Supreme Court order requiring them to take steps to bring him back to the U.S.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: The judge overseeing the case has accused the administration of willful and bad faith stonewalling.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: In Los Angeles. We are tired of asking, and it's time to demand what we want at the bargaining table. More than 50,000 county workers are in the middle of a two-day strike that has ground some public services to a halt.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: Libraries across the county have closed. Ambulances have been diverted from a hospital where workers walked out. And wildfire debris cleanup has slowed.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: The union representing the workers called for the strike after contract negotiations with the county stalled. The union is pushing for pay increases. And it accused government officials of retaliating against workers involved in union activity.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: For its part Los Angeles County says it been trying to negotiate and has been warning that it facing a growing budget crisis on multiple fronts that could throw the biggest county in the country into financial disarray.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: It expects cleanup and recovery costs from this year's fires to approach $2 billion. It's been hit hard by the Trump administration's cuts to federal funding.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: And earlier this month, the county agreed to pay $4 billion to settle thousands of sex abuse claims dating back decades from kids in its juvenile detention and foster care systems.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: For millions of American high school students, tomorrow is Decision Day, the deadline for them to confirm which college they'll enroll in this fall.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: And the Times has been looking at the ongoing effects for schools and students of the Supreme Court's landmark decision ending affirmative action.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: Since the 2023 ruling, which barred colleges from considering students' race in admissions, Black and Hispanic enrollment has dropped off nationwide, and it's hit some schools particularly hard.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: That includes Amherst College in Massachusetts, which had been a leader in racial diversity. A lot of the Black and Hispanic students up there feel a bit of a sense of isolation now, and there aren't as many Black and Hispanic students as they were expecting there to be in the freshman class.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: Times education reporter Stephanie Sall recently went to Amherst, where Black enrollment plunged from 11 percent overall before the Supreme Court's ruling to just 3 percent of this year's class.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: There was one student from Washington Heights, New York, who identifies as Afro-Latina, and she said that only one other Black student was in her chemistry class.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: She had been the only Black student in what's known as the freshman seminar. And some students said that at activities, Black student union meetings, et cetera, that the turnout has been affected and they feel a little sense of disappointment and worry that maybe this will cause a vicious cycle that the next group of students who are being recruited will pick up on this and fewer Black and Hispanic students will want to come next year.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: So they're kind of in a waiting game to see the outcome. Stephanie says that Amherst and other schools have been trying to figure out ways to keep diversifying their classes, even if they can't consider students' race anymore.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: That includes expanding financial aid and boosting efforts to bring in first-generation college students. This year, Amher says that about a quarter of students they've offered admission to would be the first in their family to attend college, a record for the school.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally, travelers may love a European summer vacation, eating tapas in Barcelona, island hopping in Greece, or taking a gondola ride in Venice.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: But many Europeans are over it. The number of tourists from the U.S. and elsewhere has broken records, overwhelming some cities to the point that they've been putting in measures to keep people away.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: For example, Venice started charging an admission fee. Dubrovnik in Croatia cut back the number of taxis and outdoor dining spaces. And cities like Amsterdam have banned the construction of new hotels.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: Now, anti-tourism activists are planning to confront tourists directly to bring attention to housing shortages, overcrowding, and other issues that they say the tourism boom has fueled.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: The activists met this past weekend to workshop strategies that include blockading tour buses, picketing outside airports, and obstructing historic sites.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: But the main symbol of their resistance is the humble water gun. Last summer, anti-tourism protesters used the water guns to squirt tourists along one of Barcelona's most famous streets, chanting, go home.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: And they haven't ruled out that tactic for this year's protests, which are scheduled for cities across Europe on June 15th.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, a look at President Trump's first 100 days with a roundtable of Times political reporters. That's next in the New York Times audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.
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--:-- Tracy Mumford: I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow. Thank you.
