Will Big Donors Follow Haley Back to Trump?

Harvard’s governing body won’t let 13 pro-Palestinian student protesters graduate. The Harvard Corporation rejected a bid by faculty to award degrees to the students, who face disciplinary action for participating in a protest encampment. In related news, the hedge fund mogul Ken Griffin, an alumnus who paused his financial support for the school over its handling of antisemitism on campus, urged graduates to “constructively debate ideas even in moments of heated disagreement.”

The case for an antitrust fight against Live Nation

The Justice Department and several states plan to sue Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, as soon as Thursday, The Times reports. The antitrust investigation has taken more than a year — and follows an even longer period of frustration at the company’s dominance of live event ticketing.

Here’s what the case is likely to focus on, according to The Times:

The government plans to argue in a lawsuit that Live Nation shored up its power through Ticketmaster’s exclusive ticketing contracts with concert venues, as well as the company’s dominance over concert tours and other businesses like venue management, said two of the people, who declined to be named because the lawsuit was still private. That helped the company maintain a monopoly, raising prices and fees for consumers, limiting innovation in the ticket industry and hurting competition, the people said.

The government will argue that tours promoted by the company were more likely to play venues where Ticketmaster was the exclusive ticket service, one of the people said, and that Live Nation’s artists played venues that it owns.

Bloomberg News, which first reported the lawsuit’s timing, added that the Justice Department may seek to break up the company, which was formed by the 2010 union of Live Nation and Ticketmaster.

Live Nation has sought to head off such a lawsuit for some time, denying that it sets high prices and fees and arguing that it faces increased competition. Last year, it agreed to be more transparent about the fees that are added to ticket sales, signing onto the Biden administration’s fight against so-called junk fees.

Last month, Live Nation co-hosted a party in Washington ahead of the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to press its case. Attendees took in a performance by the country singer Jelly Roll — and were greeted by cocktail napkins promoting positive facts about the company’s impact on the economy.