OUR PICKSICE Leadership Shakeup Amid Struggle to Ramp Up Deportations | Sharp Spike in Threats to Judges | Demand for American Degrees Is Sinking, and more

Trump Administration Shakes Up ICE Leadership as It Struggles to Ramp Up Deportations  (Marianne LeVine and Maria Sacchetti, Washington Post)
The leadership changes at ICE come as the Trump administration is facing challenges reaching the president’s goal of removing 1 million unauthorized immigrants in his first year.

Newtok, Alaska, Was Supposed to Be a Model for Climate Relocation. Here’s How It Went Wrong.  (Emily Schwing, KYUK / ProPublica)
The project’s challenges highlight how ill-prepared the U.S. is to respond to the way climate change is making some places uninhabitable.

Trump’s War on Harvard Is Bizarre — and Incredibly Damaging  (Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post)
Trump is wrecking American competitiveness.
When historians write about the challenges to America’s global hegemony, they will point to the rise of China, the first full-fledged peer competitor to the United States in decades. They will also note the return of Russia and its efforts to disrupt the American-led security order in Europe. These are familiar patterns in the rise and fall of world powers. What is new and surprising is that these challenges, far from uniting America, have turned it on itself, with its government tearing down many of the crucial elements of its extraordinary success.
Consider the Nature Index, perhaps the most comprehensive guide to high-quality research in the sciences. It tracks contributions to the world’s leading academic journals. Its newest rankings show what scientists already know: China is leaping ahead. Of the top 10 academic institutions in the Nature Index, nine are Chinese. But still sitting in the topmost position on that list is an American institution: Harvard. And it is this university that President Donald Trump is trying to destroy.
Around four decades ago, when I thought about applying to American universities from India, I was impressed by their reputation in research and teaching. But I was also attracted by the idea of America, a truly free and open society, one that welcomed people from around the world and where, in Ronald Reagan’s words, “our origins matter less than our destinations.” In a competitive world, where other countries have caught up in so many ways, this is still America’s unique advantage — if we can cherish rather than destroy it.