James' World 2

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You’ve almost — almost — gotta respect former first lady Melania Trump, if for nothing else than the sheer obstinate shamelessness embodied in her ongoing stab at digital relevance. Was the world clamoring for a Melania line of NFTs (a platform already riddled with grift and irrelevance) to begin with? Of course not. But here she is, selling them anyway — and not only that but also allegedly sampling from her own stash to the tune of multiple tens of thousands of dollars.

Why? Who can say? Truly, who can ascribe any sense of reason or logic to anything that family does? Whatever the reason for her steadfast commitment to her burgeoning line of beep-boop sales, it seems Trump’s first major NFT sale has been tainted by allegations of (gasp!) shady dealings (oh no!) in what is usually such a stable, aboveboard field.

According to analysis from Bloomberg’s Crypto desk, the winning bid of around $180,000 for last month’s “Head of State” collection was the result of a series of transactions originating from a crypto wallet associated with the very company that helped Trump list the offering in the first place. Suspicious, no?

Per the Trump camp, there’s nothing untoward happening here. Just hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of unregulated funds sloshing around “on behalf of a third-party buyer” who really, really, really wanted to own: “a White Broad-Brimmed, High Blocked Crown Hat, worn and signed by Melania Trump, Watercolor on Paper, signed by Melania Trump and Marc-Antoine Coulon,” and “Digital Artwork NFT with Motion, signed by Melania Trump and Marc-Antoine Coulon.”

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The former first lady’s NFT grift marches on, unfazed by allegations of double-dipping and also of being a tacky waste of everyone’s time.

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Most universities have endowment funds — money donated to the school to support its endeavors. Most endowment funds are invested with the goal of generating even more money to sustain the university in the long term. But what if that money is actively making the future worse? Students at five universities believe by investing in fossil fuel companies, their schools are perpetuating the climate crisis — and they’re looking to take legal action to stop it.

According to a report from The Guardian, students at Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, Stanford, and Vanderbilt are hoping to spark legal action that will force their universities to divest from fossil fuels. With the help of the Climate Defense Project, the students have reached out to the attorneys general in their respective states and asked for each school to be investigated for using its endowment funds for illegitimate purposes.

The legal approach here relies on a somewhat obscure law known as the Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act. Under this law, which was passed in 2012, nonprofit organizations are required to manage their endowment in a way that is consistent with the organization’s “charitable purposes.” Basically: If you’re going to invest money that has been handed to you by donors, you have to use it to further your overall mission. Colleges are ostensibly helping to form a better future by instilling students with a foundational education and the skills they need to improve society. But it’s not great if the world waiting for them beyond those hallowed halls is a wasteland of natural disasters and barely livable environmental conditions — all egged on by their own schools.

So the kids may have a point there.

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Students from five high-profile universities have asked attorneys general, to investigate their schools’ investments in fossil fuels.

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