Boulder attack suspect’s family detained by ICE | The Excerpt
On Wednesday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: The wife and five children of the 45-year-old suspect in the assault on pro-Jewish demonstrators in Colorado are facing deportation. President Trump is moving forward with tariff hikes on aluminum and steel. Paste BN Education Reporter Zach Schermele tells us what Harvard alumni are doing to support the university after recent federal funding cuts. What an Instagram video could tell authorities about an escaped New Orleans inmate. Paste BN Youth Mental Health Reporting Fellow Rachel Hale talks about the possible impact OnlyFans content creators could have on young girls.
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Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Cody Godwin:
Good morning. I'm Cody Godwin in for Taylor Wilson, and today is Wednesday, June 4th, 2025. This is The Excerpt. Today, the Boulder attack suspect's family has been detained by ICE. Plus, how some Harvard alums are stepping in amid Trump's administration tensions. And we discuss concerns over the aspirational social media presence of OnlyFans stars.
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The wife and all five children of the suspect in the assault on pro-Jewish demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado have been detained by immigration officials and are facing immediate deportation. That's according to Trump administration officials yesterday. FBI and police officials had said earlier this week that the family was cooperating with investigators. 45-year-old Mohammed Sabri Solomon is a native of Egypt who lives in Colorado Springs. He's accused of attacking a weekly Run For Their Lives demonstration on Sunday. Police say he arrived at the scene with 18 Molotov cocktails, but threw just two while yelling "Free Palestine". Participants of the event meet once a week to walk or run a route to raise awareness about Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza. Solomon came to the US on a tourist visa in 2022 and stayed after the visa expired requesting asylum. The attack comes after a report from the Anti-Defamation League released last month found that anti-Semitic incidents across the country hit a record high for the fourth year running last year. The same researchers worry that trend will continue throughout 2025.
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President Donald Trump is pushing ahead on tariffs despite court challenges. While he's been criticized for repeatedly backing down from previous big tariff announcements, Trump is increasing tariffs on aluminum and steel imports to 50% effective today. Today is also the deadline for nations to provide an update on the status of individual negotiations. At the same time, court challenges threaten to keep his administration from enforcing country specific tariffs. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.
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Could Harvard University alumni help cushion the blow from federal funding cuts? Taylor Wilson discussed with Paste BN education reporter Zach Schermele.
Taylor Wilson:
Zach, thanks for joining me on this.
Zach Schermele:
Hey Taylor, thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
So you and I have been talking a lot about this saga between Trump and Harvard. Where do things stand as we're talking right now?
Zach Schermele:
Well, it's sort of hard to keep up with the latest because things seem to be changing on a daily basis, but let's go back in time a little bit. So in mid-April, the Trump administration froze roughly $2.2 billion in federal funding for Harvard, alleging that its administrators were violating civil rights laws by not doing enough to curb anti-Semitism on campus. And then in early May, the president threatened to rescind the university's tax-exempt status and that could cost the school hundreds of millions of dollars by some estimates. A few weeks later, the Department of Homeland Security tried to revoke Harvard's ability to enroll international students. And you have to remember, many of those students conduct important research that has a financial benefit for the campus while bringing in more tuition dollars than a lot of domestic students. And that move has been indefinitely paused by a federal judge. That's all on top of uncertainty around the university's ability to enroll students from China.
In a recent interview on CNN, Linda McMahon, Donald Trump's education secretary, talked a little bit about the federal government's posture toward Harvard, and she said that while she acknowledged the importance of academic research, she doesn't believe that the federal government should play a large role in supporting it, especially at schools like Harvard that have multi billion-dollar endowments that they should be pulling from to support that research.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, in terms of just the tangible financial impact here, Zach, how has Harvard really been forced to cut costs?
Zach Schermele:
Harvard's president, Alan Garber, who is Jewish by the way, and we should acknowledge has committed to curbing anti-Semitic discrimination at the school, which he has acknowledged is a problem, he took a voluntary 25% pay cut. Now he still makes upwards of a million dollars, but that's a pretty significant step for someone in a position like his. The university has also borrowed nearly a billion dollars in taxable bonds.
Taylor Wilson:
So let's shift to talking about Harvard's alumni base. How is this Trump era moment, these tensions landing with them and what are they doing to push back and maybe try to fill in some of the gaps here?
Zach Schermele:
Many of them are springing into action. When Alan Garber, the president of Harvard, pledged to challenge Donald Trump and said that he would be filing a lawsuit alleging First Amendment violations among other accusations against the administration, donations surged. There were nearly 4,000 online gifts totaling more than a million dollars that were recorded in the 48 hours after Harvard filed its initial lawsuit. That's according to the Harvard Crimson, the campus newspaper.
Taylor Wilson:
Can alumni, Zach, on their own do enough to help considering some of these funding concerns and the cost cutting?
Zach Schermele:
The largest gift that Harvard has ever received from one alumnus was $400 million for the School of Engineering and applied Sciences in 2015. That, of course, pales in comparison to the roughly $2.2 billion that has been frozen, among other types of funding that have been cut by the administration. Harvard is going to have to try and find from other places, including by borrowing. And some alumni have said that it's not entirely clear that Harvard is going to be able to meaningfully fill the financial vacuum being created by the federal government's retreat from campus.
Taylor Wilson:
Zach Schermele covers education for Paste BN. Thanks, Zach.
Zach Schermele:
Thanks, Taylor.
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Cody Godwin:
A video posted to social media by one of the fugitives of a New Orleans jailbreak may be the biggest break yet for authorities. If you remember back in May, a group of 10 inmates escaped a jail through a hole behind a toilet according to officials. Law enforcement has since captured eight of the men leaving only Antoine Massey and Derek Groves on the run. The video posted to Instagram on Sunday shows a man who identifies himself as Massey in what appears to be an apartment. The man in the video denies claims he was the mastermind of the jailbreak, saying he didn't break out but was let out. He also proclaimed his innocence, solicited help from a litany of celebrities including President Donald Trump and rapper Meek Mill, and said he fled to avoid being charged for a crime he did not commit. Experts who reviewed the video told USA Today the post could lead authorities to where Massey is holed up or to a person who's helping him. The video also gives law enforcement a look at his most recent appearance and provides insights into his current frame of mind. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.
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Online, young female OnlyFans stars make their lives look aspirational. OnlyFans is a subscription site geared towards sex workers. Is that problematic? Taylor Wilson spoke with Paste BN Youth Mental Health reporting fellow, Rachel Hale, for more.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, hello again, Rachel.
Rachel Hale:
Hi. Thanks so much for having me back.
Taylor Wilson:
Really interesting work on this story. So just start by talking about Bop House and some of the influencers involved here.
Rachel Hale:
So you might remember the Hype House from a few years ago where Charli D'Amelio and Addison Rae were some of the main stars. This is that same concept, but it's for OnlyFans creators. So there are eight women that live in the house ranging between the age of 18 to 25. It was first founded in December of last year, and the account has since really blown up. Collectively, the girls have nearly 90 million followers between them.
Taylor Wilson:
Wow. And I know, as you outline in this piece, they're making tons of money. How much are we really talking about here, Rachel, and what do they say about what this has done for their lives?
Rachel Hale:
Collectively, the girls brought in roughly 250 million last year. Sophie Rain, the 20-year-old who co-founded the house, quickly became one of OnlyFans' top earners after she launched on the platform two years ago, bringing in 43 million in her first year. So these women are representing a small proportion of people on OnlyFans who were making that much money, but they say that it brought them a lot of freedom. Rain grew up in a family of six that relied on food stamps and she's now the primary breadwinner in her family, which has allowed her to pay off her parents' mortgage, property taxes and gift her older brother her dream car, travel, she had never been on a plane before. So they say that it's really brought them a lot of freedom and opportunities.
Taylor Wilson:
Rachel, generally speaking, how do young people interpret social media and influencers?
Rachel Hale:
The experts that I spoke with for this story told me that teenage years are a really critical time for self-development, especially when people start to think about who they are in relation to their larger peer group. Celebrities have always played a role in that perception, but now influencers are a larger part in shaping how teenagers perceive themselves. So the hormonal and biological changes that young women are in particular already experiencing throughout their youth, make them more attuned to this social comparison, something that social media might heighten if they're counting their followers and likes or comparing themselves to these girls and their lifestyles knowing that they're only a few years apart in age.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, and these videos are clearly showing off a very unique, specific, high-end type of lifestyle. What are these videos leaving out and what other concerns do experts have about that?
Rachel Hale:
What we really see from the Bop House and from those creators accounts are a lot of the positive aspects of the lifestyle. We're not really seeing what may have led these creators to join OnlyFans in the first place. And some of the creators that I spoke with for the article, including Sophie Rain, were really open about those hardships that led them to do OnlyFans, but you wouldn't know that from watching the content. And experts say that that really creates a disconnect with viewers who don't see those challenges and then might seek out careers in adult entertainment without knowing the risks.
Taylor Wilson:
You touched on this a bit, but what do the creators say about some of those concerns? Are they actively aware of this dichotomy that exists or is it something that they're conscious of as they're posting this content?
Rachel Hale:
They are. What some of the creators told me is that knowing their audience is different on TikTok than Instagram or Snapchat, they vary what they post on those platforms. So on TikTok where they know their audience leans younger and that it's more female, they keep their content more PG-thirteen than Instagram or Snapchat where their audience are older men who are a lot of the people that are subscribing to their OnlyFans. They opened up about their stories and why they started OnlyFans and some of the girls told me it was purely due to a lack of options.
Taylor Wilson:
Let's talk about OnlyFans itself for a second. Just how big is the market for this site? Tell us for folks who aren't aware of the infrastructure and just how this site works.
Rachel Hale:
So the platform is unique because it doesn't have an explore page function. So the clients on the site need to type in an OnlyFans creator's user in the search bar to find their content, meaning it's pretty much impossible to gain new subscribers if you don't have a strong presence that already exists or that you're building up simultaneously on Instagram and TikTok. Since the platform was founded in 2016, the market has exploded. The most recent stats that the parent company put out in 2023 is that they brought in 6.63 billion in revenue and had 4.12 million creator accounts, which was a 29% increase from the year prior, and it's only grown since then.
Taylor Wilson:
Wow, big numbers. So in talking with these Bop House creators in particular, Rachel, what's next for them? These are women in their early twenties, I guess maybe even 19 in some cases. Do they plan on doing this long-term? What do they say about just where this goes next?
Rachel Hale:
The girls had different things about that with some of them planning to do it long-term. Others are still adjusting to being in the limelight. Sophie Rain said that she considered herself a nobody in high school who kept to herself and now she's taking in all these new opportunities. Alina Rose told me that for her, she really wants to use this to do more in the future. She doesn't want to do it forever. She currently streams on Twitch and eventually wants to use her salary to take up professional gaming and singing full time. And I also think it's important to keep the context in mind that OnlyFans is a generational shift in how adult content is consumed. So millennials and Gen X'ers didn't really get to know the adult entertainers unless they were watching porn, but because social media has really peeled back that division, the girls' social media presence will be really large even as they potentially exit the OnlyFans space.
Taylor Wilson:
Another fascinating piece from you, Rachel. Folks should go check out the full version with the link in today's show notes. Rachel Hale covers Youth Mental Health for USA Today. Thanks, Rachel.
Rachel Hale:
Thank you so much.
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Cody Godwin:
And later today, when it comes to higher education, how much AI in the classwork is too much? The answer isn't so straightforward.
Beth McMurtrie:
And I think right now we're in a period of what I would say is sort of chaos and a lot of doubt. We know that the public is already very skeptical of the value of higher education, and there's this idea out there now, which I actually think is incorrect, that you can cheat your way through college.
Cody Godwin:
The Chronicle of Higher Education's Beth McMurtrie has been investigating how AI is impacting college classrooms and learning. Her results show students are just as worried about AI as professors. Hear her conversation with my colleague Dana Taylor today beginning at 4 PM Eastern right here on The Excerpt.
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Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio. If you use a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Cody Godwin. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA Today.