Category: World

Val Kilmer’s cause of death has been revealed … the legendary actor died from pneumonia, TMZ has learned.

TMZ has obtained the death certificate released by the Los Angeles County Department of Health. Kilmer’s immediate cause of death has been confirmed as pneumonia. Underlying causes listed on the death certificate are acute hypoxemic respiratory failure, chronic respiratory failure, and squamous cell carcinoma of the base of the tongue.

Other contributing factors include malnutrition, and a tracheocutaneous fistula. We’ve also learned he was cremated on April 7.

Kilmer’s daughter told the New York Times he passed away on April 1 after battling pneumonia.

Kilmer had been dealing with serious health issues for years — after a throat cancer battle in 2015, he lost much of his voice. By the time of his final film role, “Top Gun: Maverick,” which came out in 2022, they had to use A.I. to recreate his voice.

TMZ also learned his health got increasingly bad in his final years — Kilmer was bedridden for months before he died.

Source: https://www.tmz.com/2025/04/10/val-kilmer-cause-of-death/

A thunderstorm warning was in place when the incident took place, Japan’s NHK public television has said.

A lightning strike at a school playground has injured five students, leaving one unconscious, according to local media.

Students were playing football at a school in Nara, near Kyoto in western Japan, when the lightning struck and all five of those injured are believed to have been taken to hospital.

Quoting the police, Japan’s NHK public television said one 14-year-old boy was unconscious.

The other four students reported numbness in their limbs and were unable to speak smoothly, NHK added.

The channel said a team supervisor told police the lightning struck after a sudden downpour.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/lightning-strike-injures-five-students-at-school-in-japan-reports-13346038

When Zaya Perysian received her new passport in the mail in late January, she knew exactly who to blame for why it listed her, a transgender woman, as male: U.S. President Donald Trump.
First the California social media influencer took to TikTok to express her frustrations with what she called the “big ugly M” the U.S. State Department under Trump mandated her new passport feature. And then she sued, along with six other transgender and non-binary people who argue the policy is unconstitutional.

The 22-year-old is now waiting to see whether a federal judge in Boston agrees. The closely watched case is challenging a policy the department adopted in accordance with an executive order signed by the Republican president on his first day back in office.
That executive order directed the federal government to recognize only two, biologically distinct sexes – male and female – and directed the State Department to change its policies to only issue passports that “accurately reflect the holder’s sex.”
“This is something that has been forced upon me, basically,” Perysian said, in an interview with Reuters with her lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union present. “And it’s really unfair and kind of crazy, but that’s why we’re fighting it.”

The U.S. State Department declined to comment. The U.S. Department of Justice, which is defending the policy in court, did not respond to requests for comment.
The administration has argued the policy does not constitute unlawful sex discrimination, does not prevent transgender people from traveling abroad, and is vital to addressing the concerns Trump’s executive order raised that indeterminate definitions of sex undermine “longstanding, cherished legal rights and values.”
Perysian has lived as a transgender woman in all aspects of her life since 2020, according to court papers. She said she has had surgical procedures and had secured changes to other government documents like her driver’s license to match her gender identity.

She had submitted on January 23 an expedited application to update the sex designation on her passport to female. But by then, Trump was in office, and less than a week later her passport was returned to her with a notice stating her sex was “corrected on your passport application.”

“At the end of the day, I’m a woman, and I don’t care how many people agree or disagree,” she said. “I live every day as a woman. I surround myself with people who see me and respect me as a woman.”
The lawsuit she joined was filed by lawyers at the ACLU, who argued the policy unconstitutionally discriminates against transgender people and exposes them to potential harm if they travel abroad with passports reflecting a different sex designation to their gender identity.
“This executive order made it impossible for transgender, nonbinary, and intersex Americans to have accurate federal identity documents, including their passports,” said ACLU attorney Sruti Swaminathan.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs say the policy reversed decades of practice at the State Department, which for more than 30 years allowed people to update the sex designation on their passports.
In 2022, Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration allowed passport applicants for the first time to choose “X” as a neutral sex marker on their passport applications, as well as being able to self-select “M” or “F” for male or female.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/transgender-influencer-takes-trump-legal-battle-over-passports-2025-04-10/

Prada struck a $1.38 billion deal to buy smaller rival Versace from Capri Holdings (CPRI.N), opens new tab on Thursday in a move that unites two of the biggest names in Italian fashion and offers the prospect of enhanced revenues.
Prada is seeking to expand, having defied a slowdown in luxury demand, while Versace has been operating at a loss in recent quarters.

Owning Versace, with its bold, baroque-style prints, will bring new customers to Prada, known for its minimalist style.

“There are no overlaps in terms of creativity, in terms of customers,” said Lorenzo Bertelli, marketing director and a member of the family that controls Prada.
The merger strengthens Italy’s hand in a luxury industry led by French conglomerates, the biggest being Louis Vuitton owner LVMH (LVMH.PA), opens new tab.
“We will provide (Versace) with a strong platform, reinforced by years of ongoing investments and rooted in longstanding relationships,” Prada Chairman Patrizio Bertelli said in a statement.
Bertelli is the husband of Prada designer Miuccia Prada, and the couple are leading shareholders in the company.

Prada and Capri braved the uncertainty over U.S. tariffs and market volatility to sign the deal, according to people familiar with the matter. Capri needed to divest Versace to focus on turning around its Michael Kors fashion brand, one of the sources said. For Prada, the bet on Versace comes at a time when it is looking to revive growth as its existing stable of brands start to mature, the source added.
Both Prada and Versace, which have global supply chains and boast of a widespread customer base, were willing to “swallow a bunch of geopolitical risk” to get the deal done, the source said.
The acquisition is a long-term project for Prada and is aimed mainly at expanding revenues rather than cost-savings, Prada Chief Executive Andrea Guerra told analysts in a conference call.
It follows the announcement on March 13 that Donatella Versace was stepping down as the chief creative officer of the brand founded by her late brother Gianni in 1978.

“Gianni and I have always had a huge admiration for Miuccia, Patrizio and their family,” Donatella said. “I am ready to support this new era for the brand in any way that I can.”
DISCOUNT PRICE
Capri Holdings’ shares tumbled 9% in New York and are down nearly 30% since the start of 2025, with analysts noting the deal valuation was lower than expected.
The price Prada has agreed to pay for Versace, which includes debt, is a big discount to the roughly $2.15 billion including debt that U.S.-based Capri, then known as Michael Kors, paid for Versace in 2018 when it was sold by the Versace family and Blackstone.
Prada started to explore a deal for Versace last year when Capri’s sale to Tapestry (TPR.N), opens new tab, whose brands include Coach and Kate Spade, was scrapped after being challenged by antitrust regulators, a second source said.

The purchase price of $1.4 billion for Versace barely changed since negotiations progressed seriously in January, the sources added.
“This transaction reflects our commitment to increase shareholder value, strengthen our balance sheet and power the future growth of Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo,” said Capri CEO John Idol.
Prada said it had committed to 1.5 billion euros of new debt to fund the deal, which is expected to close in the second half of the year.
The deal comes at a time when several acquisitions and IPOs have been scuttled in the wake of a global equity sell-off and fears of recession triggered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s new tariffs this month.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/italys-prada-agrees-buy-fashion-rival-versace-2025-04-10/

Marina Kausar wasn’t sure what to call the three-month break she took after quitting her job.

After working in a series of jobs in finance and technology, Ms. Kausar, 30, was feeling stressed and overworked. In December 2023, with a bit of savings built up, she quit without another position lined up to focus on things that had fallen to the wayside while she was focused on work.

“I had more time to work out. I was eating better, sleeping better. It was just like a full reset,” said Ms. Kausar, who lives in Houston. “For the first time in my adult life, I didn’t have this looming cloud of ‘work.’”

Eventually, she came across a term for her hiatus that resonated with her: “micro-retirement.”

For most people in the United States, being able to save enough money to not have to work is a faraway ideal. That anxiety, especially for people closer to retirement, has only risen as stock markets have grown more volatile in response to President Trump’s global tariffs.

Discontented employees who do not have the means to leave the work force have turned to “quiet-quitting,” “acting your wage” or simply using their vacation days.

Now, many younger workers are opting not to wait until retirement, and are leaving an extended gap between jobs to invest in other parts of their life. But not everyone wants to call it a sabbatical: Some people prefer the term “mini-retirement” or “micro-retirement.”

“Sabbaticals are seen as the thing that an organization offers to you for paid time off, and then you come back to that job,” said Kira Schabram, an assistant professor at the University of Washington who is researching such breaks. “People are just taking it into their own hands.”

A “mini-retirement” can take on many forms: taking extra time after being laid off to consider other paths, asking for unpaid leave (and not necessarily with a guarantee of a return) or building in a long stretch after voluntarily leaving a job.

Of course, many people cannot afford to take time out of the work force, and Dr. Schabram said that those who do take these breaks tend to be much more financially stable.

But for the workers who can manage it, she believes the “micro-retirement” is on the rise.

‘I have less fear of change.’

Sandra De La Cruz was 25 when she took about four months off work in 2015. She was an assistant project manager in the construction industry at the time, and had saved about $12,000 while living with her parents.

Her parents thought she could put that money toward buying a home, but Ms. De La Cruz, who was born in Peru and now lives in Hartford County, Conn., wanted to travel to South America instead. “This might be the only period in my life that I could just pick up and go without really hurting anyone,” she thought to herself at the time.

After paying about six months’ worth of her student loans in advance, she went to Peru to see her relatives for a month and then hopped around hostels in South America.

“There’s been a few times in my life that I felt that happy,” Ms. De La Cruz, now 35, said. “You don’t dread waking up and having to go to work. You just wake up and see where the day takes you.”

She was careful not to burn any professional bridges, and said her parents were willing to cover her student loans as a last resort if she ended up using all her savings. She found a job back in construction a month after she returned.

These days, Ms. De La Cruz is working as a contract analyst. She credited her break in 2015 with giving her the confidence to navigate uncertainty in the workplace.

“I have less fear of change because I know that there are just so many other possibilities,” she said. “That was life-defining.”

‘I’m still trying to do what makes me happy’

In late 2022, Isabel Falls was living in New York City and feeling adrift.

“I just felt like I lost my inner compass,” said Ms. Falls, 27, who was working as a design researcher at the time and missed being closer to nature. “I wanted to feel a bit more like I was alive and living,” she said. She turned her attention to building up her savings and quit her job in May 2023 to take a year off.

“It’s a huge privilege to have been able to do it, and I really recognize that,” she said. But she wanted to put her savings toward traveling while she felt physically fit.

Ms. Falls did not have significant debt, and she knew she could move in with her parents if she ran out of money. While she traveled on a backpacking budget, she considered other directions for her career.

Almost two years later, Ms. Falls is in Mexico — at least for the time being — and working on a freelance basis for a travel agency. The flexibility of the job was enticing, she said, and she is still figuring out what her future looks like. Most of her belongings are still in a shed at her mother’s house in Washington State, she said.

“I’m making definitely less than I was before,” she said. “I’m not in the mind-set of, ‘Let me grind as hard as I can right now so that I can retire at 55,’ or whatever.” She sometimes compares herself to her peers who have more traditional career paths and wonders if she is behind.

But she is confident, she said, that she made the right decision for herself. “I can work and I can make money and I can save, and I can also live my life now,” she said. “I’m still trying to do what makes me happy rather than being in the grind of it all.”

Source: https://dnyuz.com/2025/04/10/to-escape-the-grind-young-people-turn-to-mini-retirements/

THE president of Siemens’ Spanish branch Agustín Escobar, and his family have been identified as five of the six victims of the Hudson chopper crash.

Mr Escobar, along with his wife and three kids, tragically died after the tourist helicopter broke apart mid-air and crashed into icy cold water.

They died along with the pilot of the helicopter.

Terrifying videos show the chopper completely upside down and bubbling underneath the 50-degree water’s surface after the wreck.

The cause of the wreck hasn’t been confirmed, but eyewitness video showed the chopper shatter into pieces mid-air before it fell into the waters near the Holland Tunnel in New Jersey.

Fire crews first heard reports of the crash at 3:17 pm and rushed to the site to search for survivors on land and in the water, FDNY told The U.S. Sun.

Footage taken from the shore showed the bottom of the helicopter partially sticking out of the water as New York Police Department boats cruised to the wreck.

NYC Mayor Eric Adams has spoken at a press conference to give updates on the crash.

He said that “three adults and three children”, including the pilot, were on board the helicopter that took off from the Downtown Skyport about 3pm.

Adams said that initial information suggested the pilot and the family were visiting from Spain.

He continued: “All six victims have been removed from the water, and sadly, all six victims have been pronounced deceased.”

NYPD Comissioner Jessica Tisch said “the aircraft lost control” and crashed into the river.

A shaken witness described hearing a loud “snap” before he turned around and watched the tragedy unfold.

“I looked over […] and I could see a helicopter falling on its side and splash into the water,” he told WABC.

“I didn’t see anyone come out.”

Another witness, Sara Jean Raymond, said she was out training for a half marathon when she saw the crash.

“I was in shock. I tried to call 911, I could not reach anyone,” she told the local outlet.

“They were very fast, though. They were very fast to come here.

“I don’t know what happened, if the people survived or anything, but oh my God, you don’t see that very often.”

Eric Campoverde, who was also near the crash scene, said the entire incident lasted mere seconds.

“It was going fast. It fell in seconds, like the motor lost power. It took seconds to fall from the sky,” he told the New York Post.

“After the splash, the helicopter was above the water for a slight second, but it submerged very quickly. It was maybe on top of the water for three or four seconds before it went under. It was fast.”

The chopper has been identified as a Bell 206 by the Federal Aviation Administration.

A tour company called New York Helicopter owned and ran the helicopter, its CEO confirmed to Newsday.

Michael Roth said: “I am devastated… But you have to remember: It is a machine. Sometimes machines break.”

Flight data shows the helicopter took off from a Lower Manhattan heliport and then circled around Governor’s Island for a view of the Statue of Liberty.

Then, the chopper traveled up the Manhattan side of the river to the heights before moving back down along the Palisades to Jersey City.

This is a well-traveled tourist path that has dozens of trips a day.

The NYPD has warned that emergency vehicles are flocking the scene, and traffic may be backed up.

The Coast Guard has closed the Hudson River near the crash site.

That means vessels will not be able to pass through that stretch of the water.

According to the NYC emergency management department, “the US Coast Guard has established a safe zone on all navigable waters of the Hudson River one mile north and one mile south of the Holland Tunnel Ventilators.”

Boaters have been urged to find an alternative route until further notice.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/13987840/helicopter-crash-new-york-city-hudson-river/

Elon Musk took part in Donald Trump’s cabinet meeting on Thursday evening.

A handwritten message on a notepad spotted in front of Elon Musk during a televised Trump administration Cabinet meeting has left people baffled. Images posted on social media show the Tesla co-founder sitting around a table with senior members of US President Donald Trump’s Cabinet with the cryptic scribbling “top secret” in full view before him and the cameras.

It could be seen as a public riposte from the tech billionaire after a New York Times report published in March claimed Mr Musk was going to be briefed on “top secret” military plans drawn up in the event of a war between the US and China. According to the publication’s report, the briefing was to include 20 to 30 slides explaining how the US would fight a war with China. The Times cited two US officials it didn’t identify. Mr Trump dismissed the report. It raised conflict of interest questions, as Mr Musk has interests in China and with the Pentagon through some of his businesses.

The White House has said before that Mr Musk would recuse himself if any conflicts of interest were to arise because of his business interests and role in spearheading efforts to cut US federal government spending.

Alternatively, the “top secret” note may have been in reference to the announcement Mr Musk made during the Cabinet meeting.

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2040076/elon-musk-top-secret-message-notepad

The Supreme Court on Thursday said the Trump administration must work to bring back a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to prison in El Salvador, rejecting the administration’s emergency appeal.

The court acted in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had ordered Abrego Garcia, now being held in a notorious Salvadoran prison, returned to the United States by midnight Monday.

“The order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” the court said in an unsigned order with no noted dissents.

It comes after a string of rulings on the court’s emergency docket where the conservative majority has at least partially sided with Trump amid a wave of lower court orders slowing the president’s sweeping agenda.

In Thursday’s case, Chief Justice John Roberts had already pushed back Xinis’ deadline. The justices also said that her order must now be clarified to make sure it doesn’t intrude into executive branch power over foreign affairs, since Abrego Garcia is being held abroad. The court said the Trump administration should also be prepared to share what steps it has taken to try to get him back — and what more it could potentially do.

The administration claims Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, though he has never been charged with or convicted of a crime. His attorneys said there is no evidence he was in MS-13.

The administration has conceded that it made a mistake in sending him to El Salvador, but argued that it no longer could do anything about it.

The court’s liberal justices said the administration should have hastened to correct “its egregious error” and was “plainly wrong” to suggest it could not bring him home.

“The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U. S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, joined by her two colleagues.

Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, said the ordeal has been an “emotional rollercoaster” for their family and the entire community.

“I am anxiously waiting for Kilmar to be here in my arms, and in our home putting our children to bed, knowing this nightmare is almost at its end. I will continue fighting until my husband is home,” she said.

One of his lawyers, Simon Sandoval-Moshenburg, said “tonight, the rule of law prevailed,” and he encouraged the government to “stop wasting time and get moving.”

In the district court, Xinis wrote that the decision to arrest Abrego Garcia and send him to El Salvador appears to be “wholly lawless.” There is little to no evidence to support a “vague, uncorroborated” allegation that Abrego Garcia was once in the MS-13 street gang, Xinis wrote.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-maryland-deportation-trump-9f46dd62890befdc321ed1ab56107470

Videos show the US President, Vice President and Tesla CEO working on a production line

AI-generated videos depicting Donald Trump, JD Vance and Elon Musk as factory workers have gone viral on social media.

The video shows the US President, Vice President and Tesla CEO working on a production line in an apparent dig at the White House’s attempt to revive American manufacturing.

Chinese accounts have been promoting the video amid an increasingly bitter trade war between Washington and Beijing.

It comes after the US president’s surprise announcement of a 90-day pause to hefty tariffs imposed on some countries brought respite to battered stock markets across the globe, including London’s FTSE 100.

But Trump has kept the pressure on China, the world’s No. 2 economy and second-biggest provider of US imports, by increasing tariffs on Chinese imports even higher to 145% in response to Beijing’s own 84% counter-tariffs.

China has rejected what it calls threats and blackmail from Washington.

Commerce Ministry spokesperson He Yongqian told a regular press briefing on Thursday that China’s door was open to dialogue, but this must be based on mutual respect.

Beijing may again respond in kind after already imposing 84% tariffs on US imports on Wednesday to match Trump’s earlier salvo.

Trump, who claims the tariffs aim to fix US trade imbalances, said at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting that he thinks the US and China will work out “something that’s very good for both countries.”

China’s yuan hit its lowest level against the dollar on Thursday since the global financial crisis.

Last week, China’s state-run media shared AI-generated videos featuring dancing robots and fraught consumers to mock Trump over his tariffs.

Source: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/trump-musk-mocked-ai-clip-factory-b1221883.html

Twenty people have been killed in a fire at a nursing home in north-east China, state media report.

The blaze in Chengde city, Hebei province, broke out on Tuesday night local time and was extinguished in about two hours.

Nineteen people survived the fire and were taken to hospital for observation, reports say.

Authorities are investigating the cause of the blaze, and a person in charge of the home has been detained. No other details were immediately available.

On social media, some called for a thorough investigation while others expressed sympathy for the elderly victims.

Source:https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg5qq258r76o

A full-scale trade war with China and the US is in prospect after President Donald Trump imposed tariffs of more than 100% on Chinese goods imports.

China has said it will “fight to the end” rather than capitulate to what it sees as US coercion, and will hike its own tariffs on American goods from 34% to 84% in response to the White House’s latest move.

What does this escalating trade conflict mean for the world economy?

Justin Bieber went on a wild, unprovoked tirade against the paparazzi while heading into a coffee shop with friends.

In a video obtained by TMZ, the “Yummy” singer, who is in Palm Springs, Calif., ahead of weekend one of Coachella, immediately covered his face when he noticed photographers with their cameras and phones recording him.

“Good morning,” one photog said to Bieber, who replied, “No! Not good morning! You already know. Why are you here?”

The pop star then walked over to the paps and told them that they just “want money.”

Justin Bieber went on a wild, unprovoked tirade against the paparazzi while heading into a coffee shop with friends.
BACKGRID“Money, money, money, money, money,” he repeated while making the pay me gesture with his fingers.

“Get outta here, bro. Money, that’s all you want. You don’t care about human beings,” Bieber shouted while covering a man’s phone from recording him.

The “Peaches” crooner, 31, then told the men to leave.

“That’s all you care about, guys. Is money. You don’t care about people. Only money. … You don’t care about human beings,” he said as the photographers backed up from the coffee shop.

Bieber — who was sporting a tie-dye hoodie off one of his arms, dark-colored shorts, lime green-and-white checkered socks and lime green clogs — then turned around and walked into the eatery with his friends.

Page Six has reached out to Bieber’s rep for comment but did not immediately hear back.

The two-time Grammy winner’s rant comes less than a month after he admitted he had “anger issues” in a cryptic post online.

“I got anger issues too, but I wanna grow and not react so much smh,” he captioned the post with a facepalm emoji.

The photos he chose for the post included one of him with his face down wearing a hoodie, a snap of him when he was younger and one of cargo shipping containers on a screen with a small image of who appears to be his and wife Hailey Bieber’s 7-month-old son, Jack Blues.

The “Baby” singer has made headlines over the last few months over his concerning behavior, alleged drug use and the state of his marriage to Hailey.

In February, fans went into a frenzy when Justin exhibited “strange” behavior at the model’s Rhode skincare pop-up event in LA by shifting his weight back and forth and clinching onto his clothing.

An insider told Page Six that month that Hailey, 28, was “really concerned” for Justin and was not “sure how to manage things at this point.”

“Justin is going through a hard time, and Hailey is doing her best to be there for him, but there’s only so much she can do,” the source added.

Source: https://pagesix.com/2025/04/09/celebrity-news/justin-bieber-goes-on-wild-tirade-against-money-hungry-paparazzi/

Weezer bassist Scott Shriner’s wife, Jillian Shriner, was shot by cops and booked for attempted murder after interfering with a wild police chase in Los Angeles.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Los Angeles Police Department responded to a hit-and-run on a freeway near the Eagle Rock neighborhood, according to a press release obtained by Page Six.

Three suspects involved fled the scene and headed toward a residential neighborhood where cops quickly barricaded off the area.

A woman, identified as Jillian, then allegedly came out of her home with a handgun.

The 51-year-old writer was allegedly told several times to drop her weapon. However, she refused and pointed it at officers.

She was then shot in an undisclosed area and ran into her home.

Jillian was later treated for her non-life-threatening gunshot wound at a local hospital and booked for attempted murder.

Her reps weren’t immediately available to Page Six for comment.

Jillian is a New York Times Bestselling author with several titles, including her 2010 novel “Some Girls: My Life in a Harem” and her 2023 book “Behold the Monster: Confronting America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer.”

Source: https://pagesix.com/2025/04/09/celebrity-news/weezer-bassists-wife-shot-by-cops-booked-for-attempted-murder-after-interfering-with-wild-police-chase/

Barring any eleventh-hour intervention, social media juggernaut Meta will stand trial next week facing serious US government allegations that it abused its market power to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp before they could become competitors.

By moving forward, the trial in a Washington federal court dashes any hopes from Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg that the return of Donald Trump to the White House would see the government let up on the enforcement of antitrust law against Big Tech.

The Meta case is being made by the Federal Trade Commission, the powerful US consumer protection agency, and could see the owner of Facebook forced to divest Instagram and WhatsApp, which have grown into global powerhouses since their buyout.

The case was originally made in December 2020, during the first Trump administration, and all eyes were on whether Trump would soften his stance against Big Tech during his second stint in the White House.

Zuckerberg, the world’s third-richest person, has made repeated visits to the White House as he tries to persuade the US leader to choose settlement instead of fighting the trial, a decision that would be extraordinary at this late stage.

FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson downplayed such possibilities, telling The Verge: “I think that the President recognizes that we’ve got to enforce the laws, so I’d be very surprised if anything like that ever happened.”

Zuckerberg’s lobbying efforts have included Trump inauguration fund contributions and overhauled content moderation policies favoring Republicans.

Even so, “I’m not sure Trump is persuaded that Zuckerberg is worthy of redemption,” said George Hay, an antitrust law professor at Cornell Law School.

While a White House intervention remains technically possible, it would require both presidential and FTC agreement that the case lacks merit, he added.

The Meta lawsuit represents just one of five major tech antitrust actions initiated by the US government recently. Google was found guilty of search market dominance abuse last August, while Apple and Amazon also face cases.

Zuckerberg, his former lieutenant Sheryl Sandberg, and a long line of executives from rival companies will be taking the stand over a trial that will last at least eight weeks and kicks off on Monday.

Central to the case is Facebook’s 2012 billion-dollar purchase of Instagram — then a small but promising photo-sharing startup designed for mobile phones that now boasts two billion active users.

An email from Zuckerberg cited by the FTC reveals the concerns: “The potential impact of Instagram is really scary and why we might want to consider paying a lot of money for this.”

The FTC argues Meta’s $19-billion WhatsApp acquisition in 2014 followed the same pattern, with Zuckerberg fearing the messaging app could either transform into a social network or be purchased by a competitor.

Meta’s defense will argue that substantial investments transformed these acquisitions into the blockbusters they are today, bearing little resemblance to their original versions.

They’ll also highlight that the FTC initially approved both transactions and shouldn’t be permitted a redo.

Source: https://www.ibtimes.com/us-takes-aim-zuckerbergs-social-media-kingdom-3769344

THIS is the terrifying moment a driver plunged a staggering 40ft from an unfinished bridge after following Google Maps on his phone.

CCTV footage shows the BMW flying over the bridge, slamming bumper-first onto the pavement and nearly flipping into oncoming cars.

The horror moment a driver is about to drive off an unfinished bridge while trying to follow Google MapsCredit: ViralPressThe shocking crash happened in Indonesia when the driver, Rudie Heru Komandono, accidentally took the wrong turn while following Google Maps.

The video captures the moment after 61-year-old Rudie shot through a gap in the concrete barriers.

His luxury sedan can be seen flying off the unfinished bridge and crashing onto the road 40 feet below.

Rudie had his smartphone set up on the dashboard of his black BMW 3 Series and was following directions to a friend’s address.

Google had mapped the new road and rerouted him away from the incomplete bridge.

But the changing directions on the car display confused Rudie so he drove on, resulting in him and his passenger, Endang Sri Wahyuni, 47, plunging off the bridge.

Medics later arrived at the scene on April 9 to treat Rudie and Endang, who both miraculously survived the crash.

Rudie said: “The road suddenly became dark and there were no other cars.

“Then I realised there was a problem when the car started falling and crashed on the ground.

“My friend said she is not getting in the car with me again. But it was not my fault – I was trying to follow the GPS on my phone, but it was confusing.

“I’m worried about the insurance for the car – I don’t think it can be repaired.”

Inspector Aswoko, Head of Gresik Police Traffic Unit’s Law Enforcement, said Rudie slipped into the restricted area through a gap in the traffic barriers.

As opposed to taking the lanes on either side to exit the elevated expressway, Rudie drove on to the unfinished bridge on the JI Tol Manyar – Mojokerto road.

Inspector Aswoko said: ‘The driver of the car was too focused on looking at Google Maps. He didn’t realise he had passed the barrier that was blocking access to the unfinished toll road.

“The driver and passenger have been treated by a doctor at the hospital and did not suffer serious injuries.

“They have been allowed to go home.”

He added: “Traffic officers have taken measures to prevent an incident from happening again.

“The construction company will also be interviewed to discover why the bridge was not fully sealed off.”

Since the incident, officers said they have closed the gap that the car had passed through and put up warning signs.

This comes as a motorcyclist fell to his death after a giant sinkhole unexpectedly opened up before him in the middle of a Seoul street.

Harrowing dash cam footage from a vehicle travelling behind him shows the biker plunging right into the sinkhole.

Meanwhile, a huge flammable tanker overturned and crashed on a highway in Brazil – drenching cars in a highly-flammable liquid.

CCTV footage shows the tanker erupting in a massive ball of flame before setting dozens of cars ablaze.

In total, 22 cars and three trucks were affected, and five people were injured.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/13971065/40ft-unfinished-bridge-wrong-turn-google-maps/

An American Airlines flight was forced to turn around mid-way through its journey after a passenger began causing a disturbance over a wrong meal. Passengers on a flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Milan on Monday said that a man began causing a commotion four hours into the flight, launching himself at an air stewardess and attempting to force his way into the pilot’s cabin. “Apparently, the whole thing started because of a meal choice they didn’t get. I guess they asked for it ahead of time,” Krystie Tomlinson, a passenger on the flight, said. Tomlinson said that the passenger also wanted to sit in the exit row but was denied since he had a baby with him, and “those two things are what pushed the person over the edge.” Passenger Michael Scigliano recalled that passengers were only being told there were technical issues on the plane, “which is even scarier.” As the flight made its way back to New York, he said that “we’ve got this crazy man” in the back of a full plane “unprotected, unrestrained,” with no air marshal on board. The flight left New York at around 7 p.m. and landed back in JFK International Airport at 3 a.m., the delay lasting around the same length as the approximately eight-hour journey from New York to Milan. Scigliano said that once back on solid ground, the airline “offered us nothing.” Tomlinson added: “I asked to use the American Airlines lounge to breastfeed and change. They said you can go in if you pay $79.” After spending the night at the airport, passengers were able to take off on a new flight Tuesday, 16 hours after their original departure time. Aviation trial attorney Robert Clifford said that “we don’t know all the things that the pilot knows,” and his decision to turn back was probably what he thought was “best.” A police source told CBS News that the man was released with no charges. More than 1,800 unruly passenger incidents were recorded in 2024, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/american-airlines-flight-forced-to-u-turn-after-passenger-melts-down-over-wrong-meal/

FBI Director Kash Patel has been quietly removed as the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives after he stopped showing up to facilities there, according to a report.

Patel, who remains in his FBI role, had not been “seen inside an ATF facility for weeks” and has been replaced by the U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, sources told NBC News. Driscoll will reportedly continue working in both roles.

Glenn Thrush, a New York Times reporter based in Washington, called the hush-hush swap of Patel for Driscoll “unusual.” He later reported the change was because Patel’s “plate was too full” at the FBI. A Department of Justice official confirmed to Reuters on Wednesday that the change occurred.

NBC reported that workers at the bureau were “shocked and confused” by Patel’s removal. The network said an exact reason for the change is unknown, but it “had nothing to do with job performance.”

Patel, 45, was was sworn in as ATF’s acting director on Feb. 24, just days after he was sworn in as FBI director.

The nature of the FBI’s work makes it harder to gauge how busy Patel is behind the scenes, but he has gotten around a bit. He was dolled up in a camouflage vest, gray windbreaker, large gray sunglasses, and a matching camo baseball hat for a photo op last month that he proudly posted to X.

“I am 1000% behind this FBI,” he said.

Patel also found time on Friday to pop over to D.C.’s Capital One Arena to watch Alex Ovechkin tie Wayne Gretzky’s record for most goals in NHL history. He was photographed in the owner’s box chatting with Gretzky.

News of Patel’s ATF departure came a day after NBC News reported his No. 2 at the FBI, the ex-MAGA podcaster Dan Bongino, had requested a security detail of as many as 20 FBI agents to protect him around the clock. His predecessors had no security detail.

Patel’s name and headshot were still on ATF’s website—which still listed him as acting director—as of 1:45 p.m. Wednesday. He was also called out by name by Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday when she ordered him to review Joe Biden’s ban on pistol braces in his role of ATF’s acting director.

Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/kash-patel-reportedly-removed-as-acting-atf-director-after-ghosting-gig/

No need for Festival FOMO, ‘cuz TMZ has you covered … we’re taking you up close and personal to iconic Coachella landmarks The Rainbow Tower, AKA “Spectra,” and the Ferris Wheel, AKA “La Grande Wheel.”

Posing in front of the spiraling tower, you’ll stumble upon lots of reality TV stars like “Bachelor” babe Tayshia Adams and “Love Island”s Courtney Lynn. And don’t knock out sexy singers like “American Idol’s David Archuleta from gettin’ in on the fun!

Celebs like Alix Earle and Teresa Giudice are joining in for your VIP experience with our two trippy photo galleries that will hype you up and brighten your day!

Phones party first for the stars, so photo-proof of their presence in front of the seven-story tower … is #necessary!

Source: https://www.tmz.com/2025/04/09/coachella-rainbow-tower-ferris-wheel-celebrities/

Apple shares skyrocketed 15% on Wednesday after President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on his administration’s “reciprocal tariffs,” which would have affected the company’s production locations in Vietnam, India and Thailand.

The rally added more than $400 billion to Apple’s market cap, which now stands just under $3 trillion. It was Apple’s best day since January 1998, when late founder Steve Jobs was the interim CEO and three years before the company unveiled the first iPod. At the time, Apple’s market cap was close to $3 billion.

Apple has been the most prominent name to get whacked by Trump’s tariffs. Before Wednesday, it was on its worst four-day trading stretch since 2000. Investors worried about Apple’s outlook because the company still makes the majority of its revenue from selling physical devices, which need to be imported into the U.S.

Most of Apple’s iPhones and other hardware products are still made in China, which was not exempt from tariffs on Wednesday. In fact, Trump increased tariffs on China to 125% on Wednesday, up from 54%.

China issued an 84% tariff on U.S. goods this week, raising the possibility that Apple could get caught up in a trade war and lose ground in China, its third-largest market by sales.

Apple has worked to diversify its supply chain to lessen reliance on China in recent years.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/09/apple-has-best-day-since-1998-on-trumps-90-day-tariff-pause.html?__source=iosappshare%7Cnet.whatsapp.WhatsAppSMB.ShareExtension

In a studio tucked inside a Shanghai mall, Shirley Chen is living out her K-pop idol dreams.
The 28-year-old is at Chen Go, a K-pop-inspired “idol experience centre”, where customers get a chance to live like their favourite stars, if only for a day.

Opened last year by entrepreneur Chen Rong, the centre attracts about 40 customers daily who dance choreographed routines and pretend to sign autographs for imagined fans at a mock meet-and-greet.

Guests can choose from more than 200 outfits — some imported from South Korea, others custom-made — and step into carefully designed sets designed to resemble backstage dressing rooms and South Korean music programmes.
A full package, including the outfit, shoes, hair, and makeup, set visitors back 329 yuan ($45.01).
“This place is great because they prepared a lot of backgrounds, you can change clothes, put together some videos by yourself, and accomplish your dreams of being an idol,” said Chen, who travelled from Ningbo, south of Shanghai, to celebrate her upcoming birthday at Chen Go.
“When I was a child, I liked to dance. So you could say that I wanted to develop on a similar (idol) path. However, as I got older, my parents wanted me to do something that could make money. So they kind of killed my childhood dreams in the cradle.”

Global markets bounced back following the US president’s announcement, which he said came after people “were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid”.

US-China trade war takes another turnAsian markets have reacted positively after Donald Trump paused his so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on most of America’s trading partners for 90 days, despite the US president increasing those on China to 125%.

There have been fears of a global recession and stock markets around the world had plummeted after Mr Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on Wednesday 2 April.

However, Japan’s Nikkei share average was up 8.2% by 3.50am BST, while the broader Topix had risen 7.5%.

Similarly, the S&P 500 stock index had jumped 9.5% and global markets bounced back following Mr Trump’s announcement on Wednesday that the increased tariffs on nearly all trading partners would now be paused.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump said the “90-day pause” was for the “more than 75 countries” who had not retaliated against his tariffs “in any way”.

He added that during this period they would still have to pay a “substantially lowered” 10% tariff, which is “effective immediately”.

It is lower than the 20% tariff that Mr Trump had set for goods from the European Union, 24% on imports from Japan and 25% on products from South Korea.

The UK was already going to face a blanket 10% tariff under the new system.

Mr Trump said the increased 125% tariff on imported goods from China was “effective immediately”.

He added: “At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realise that the days of ripping off the USA, and other countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable.”

Hours after Mr Trump announced the pause on tariffs for most countries, a White House official clarified that this did not apply to the 25% duties imposed on some US imports from Mexico and Canada.

The tariffs were first announced in February and Mexico and Canada were not included in the “Liberation Day” announcements.

Hours before the 125% tariff on China was revealed, Beijing said it was increasing tariffs on US goods by 50%.

It meant tariffs of 84% would be enforced on US goods – up from the 34% China had previously planned.

China ‘want to make a deal’

Asked why he posted “BE COOL” on Truth Social hours before announcing his tariff pause, Mr Trump told reporters at the White House: “I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line.”

“They were getting yippy, you know, were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid,” he added.

Mr Trump continued: “China wants to make a deal, they just don’t know how to go about it.

“[They’re] quite the proud people, and President Xi is a proud man. I know him very well, and they don’t know quite how to go about it, but they’ll figure it out.

“They’re in the process of figuring out, but they want to make a deal.”

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/trump-pauses-higher-tariffs-for-most-countries-for-90-days-but-increases-those-on-china-to-125-13345402

With fewer people choosing the traditional route of tying the knot and starting a family, it’s no secret that the number of marriages and births is declining around the world. As a result, the fertility rate in the U.S. alone is at a historic low of 1.7 births per woman—lower than the 2.1 births needed to maintain a stable population.

Many countries are trying to tackle this by incentivizing couples to have children, but it seems the problem runs deeper—there’s been a dramatic uptick in people refraining from relationships altogether and choosing to remain single instead. In 2023, the number of single-person households in the U.S. peaked at 38.1 million, a record high at the time. Additionally, data from Pew Research Center revealed that 42 percent of adults were unpartnered in 2023, with women more likely than men to be single. In 2024, the number of single-person households rose to 38.5 million—29 percent of all U.S. households. For comparison, in 1974, one-person households represented just 19 percent of all households.

Monalyn Gracia/Corbis/VCG/GettyWhat’s causing this burgeoning singles movement? Robert VerBruggen, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and research fellow with the Institute for Family Studies, told Newsweek that, simply put, “single life has become more feasible and attractive” to younger generations.

He believes this cultural shift is a result of people’s options expanding, allowing millennials and Generation Zers to feel unafraid of following their own path, rather than the one they may feel has been set for them. Falling birth rates are a symptom of what’s been dubbed the “relationship recession,” leading to a singles pandemic.

Why Are People Staying Single?
One of the key reasons for the rise in singledom is how attractive it looks. Many view single people as the epitome of being young and carefree, and why should that be given up for marriage and children? “As marriage has been pushed later into life, our culture has glamorized the single life and made it unremarkable for people to be single for longer,” VerBruggen, of Wisconsin, told Newsweek.

TV shows like Friends and Sex and the City sold millennials the cosmopolitan dream of being unwed and liberated. Young women wanted to be independent like Carrie Bradshaw (if not for her shoe collection), while men wanted to be more like lothario Joey Tribbiani than monogamist Ross Geller.

For a long time, marriage was regarded as an insurance policy for women as they relied on men for income and stability. Fast-forward to now and women are forging their own paths and providing for themselves.

“Women can be far more financially stable alone than was once the case. Even among married couples, the trade-offs associated with having kids shift when both partners have good job opportunities,” VerBruggen continued.

“A rising standard of living and new technology contribute to the single life looking more attractive. Some men have fallen behind economically and even dropped out of the labor force, making them less attractive and marriageable in the eyes of potential wives.”

Multiple studies over the past decade have shown that poor and working-class men in the U.S. are the least likely of any group to be married and the most likely to be single.

What Are the Drivers Behind the Singles Trend?
While technology and social media provide us with an expansive world at our fingertips, it can also close us off from the real one. Many researchers agree that it plays a pivotal role in people struggling to forge relationships in the modern world.

VerBruggen suggested that it has “broken young people’s social lives” by changing how they interact. They don’t need to go out and see friends to stay connected anymore. They stay in touch by sending memes and Instagram Reels—that’s become the modern love language.

“Some of the clearest effects are in the dating market, where there’s been an overwhelming shift toward meeting partners online. That can help people find better matches from a bigger pool, but it can also make them cynical about the seemingly endless options. That can’t be good for relationships,” VerBruggen told Newsweek.

Another factor is that young people face a delayed entry into adulthood, according to Kent Bausman, professor of sociology at Maryville University, Saint Louis. Graduates are lumbered with student debt and low wages and often move back in with their parents.

As a result, Bausman suggested people are delaying marriage because they’re not moving into adulthood in their early 20s anymore. It takes longer for young people to find their feet in the world—and for many, a relationship is the last thing on their mind.

He told Newsweek: “The decision to remain single or delay romantic commitments isn’t [just] an individual choice, but it’s influenced by larger societal forces. Marriage has gone from a rite of passage to a capstone experience. Wages haven’t grown or kept up with the cost of living, so with that financial vulnerability, marriage seems like a much bigger step which people are resisting.

“Marriage has been pushed through economic restructuring and some of that is also pushing singlehood. Another thing that’s pushing singlehood is the increased dependence on electronic devices, which causes this growing disconnectedness,” Bausman continued. Ultimately, young people have reimagined what they perceive as a fulfilling life, and Bausman said the conventional dream of starting a family “no longer serves as the default path.”

We’ve also witnessed a major swing toward female empowerment. Women’s expectations have risen because the parameters of what they can achieve are far greater now. Whether it’s climbing the career ladder or traveling the world, more women are taking control of their own lives. In fact, Bausman dubbed it “a Renaissance for women.”

He said: “Women are more empowered, and it’s now an expectation for them to have their own career. I think there’s actually a stigma attached to homemaking as a career option now. Young girls can aspire to be whatever they want.”

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/2025/04/18/birth-fertility-rates-millennials-gen-z-marriage-relationships-2034965.html

Suit accuses Qatar-backed network of ‘providing substantial assistance’ to Hamas and aims to hold its US office accountable

Al Jazeera has long courted controversy for platforming terrorists across the Middle East, where it is banned from operating in Israel and some Arab countries for promoting extremist ideologies. But the Qatar-funded network’s support for Hamas terrorists isn’t just confined to the region, according to a new lawsuit from October 7 victims, which alleges for the first time that Al Jazeera’s American arm directly supports the terror group’s operations.

American victims of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terror spree sued Al Jazeera and its American affiliate—Al Jazeera International, a limited liability company registered in Delaware—in February. Among the plaintiffs is Maurice Shnaider, whose niece, Shiri Bibas, was kidnapped and killed along with her two small children, Ariel and Kfir.

The victims are petitioning the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to hold Al Jazeera’s American enterprise liable for “providing substantial assistance” to Hamas and its militant ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), both of which are U.S.-designated terror outfits. The suit identifies at least a half-dozen Al Jazeera employees who double as Hamas and PIJ operatives and accuses the outlet of conspiring with these terror groups from the lead-up to October 7 until now.

While Al Jazeera is headquartered in Doha, Qatar, where senior Hamas members lived in luxury, it operates 70 bureaus worldwide, including one in Washington, D.C. Its hub in the nation’s capital hosts more than 100 staffers, many of whom are credentialed to cover Congress. The outlet’s presence on Capitol Hill has long driven concerns among GOP lawmakers, who have unsuccessfully tried for years to revoke its privileged status and force it to register as a foreign agent.

Since Hamas is not designated as a terrorist organization in Qatar, the October 7 victims are turning to the American court system, where they can seek financial penalties against Al Jazeera under the Anti-Terrorism Act. By naming Al Jazeera International as a defendant in the case, they are hoping to prove that the network’s Washington, D.C., branch knowingly provided material support to Hamas and PIJ.

“There are far too many coincidences and connections between the Hamas terrorists who attacked innocent Israelis and the reporters from Al Jazeera who mysteriously were amongst the first to breach into the Jewish State from Gaza and accompany the murderers as they killed, maimed and raped innocent Jews,” Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the lawyer handling the case, told the Washington Free Beacon. “We intend to prove that Al Jazeera is the communication arm of the Gaza terror groups.”

If successful, Darshan-Leitner said, the suit “will financially devastate Al Jazeera and shut down its operations in the United States and beyond.”

The suit points to evidence that the Al Jazeera channels accessible within D.C. promote terrorism. The network’s UpFront program, for instance, has repeatedly aired “terrorist-related content” via Al Jazeera English and other channels owned by the company, most of which are accessible within the district, according to the lawsuit. In other cases, Al Jazeera “featured interviews with individuals affiliated with terrorist organizations and showcased Al Jazeera employees who are Hamas operatives,” the lawsuit alleges.

UpFront, a show produced and broadcast in D.C., has featured interviews with “designated terrorists,” including Osama Hamdan, a Hamas leader who is believed to have been killed by Israel in September 2024. Interviewees routinely receive payment from Al Jazeera, including from its D.C. office, the lawsuit alleges.

Through these broadcasts, the complaint states, Al Jazeera “further incited violence and impacted viewers nationwide,” establishing a “direct connection between” the outlet’s radical overseas activity and that in America.

Additional evidence presented in the lawsuit seeks to establish that Al Jazeera had prior operational insight into the October 7 attacks. While these plans were closely guarded by Hamas—with only five leaders fully briefed on the operation—Al Jazeera reporter Ismail Abu Omar began broadcasting footage live less than 10 minutes after the attack began.

Omar is one of seven Al Jazeera reporters identified in the lawsuit as Hamas operatives. Israel has also accused him of serving as a Hamas training company commander in the terrorist group’s East Khan Younis Battalion. Omar’s alleged ties to Hamas could explain why he began “sharing coverage of the attacks” as early as 6:31 a.m., nine minutes after the assault began, the lawsuit states.

Additional footage from that day shows Omar “entering Israel on October 7 and riding towards Kibbutz Nir Oz with multiple armed Hamas men,” according to evidence outlined in the lawsuit. Omar remains an Al Jazeera employee, nearly six months after Israeli intelligence first identified him as a Hamas operative.

Additional Al Jazeera employees named as terrorist operatives include Muhammad Washah, an Al Jazeera Live correspondent, and Ismail Al-Ghoul, a Gaza-based Arabic-language correspondent since November 2023.

Washah was found to be a “prominent commander” in Hamas’s anti-tank missile unit. Facebook photos from February 2024 show Washah “training Hamas members on how to use Rocket-Propelled Grenades (‘RPGs’), as well as preparing RPGs, other weapons, and drones,” according to the complaint.

Al-Ghoul, meanwhile, was originally hired in November 2023, well after he “publicly stated his commitment to Hamas” during a rally held by the terror group in 2021. Israeli intelligence subsequently found that Al-Ghoul was a member of Hamas’s Nukhba terror unit, which participated in the October 7 attack. He was killed in a July 2024 Israeli strike in Gaza near the home of slain Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh.

Source: https://freebeacon.com/israel/how-a-lawsuit-from-oct-7-victims-including-bibas-family-uncle-could-cripple-al-jazeera/

Legislation known as the Conversion Practices Ban Act 2024 became law in the Australian state of New South Wales on April 4, raising alarm among Christians.

Christians in Sydney and throughout the rest of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, could now face five years in prison and fines of up to $100,000 for offering counseling to or praying for “LGBTQA” individuals, even if they say their same-sex attraction or gender confusion is unwanted.

On April 4, legislation known as the Conversion Practices Ban Act 2024 became law, raising alarm among Christians who by merely explaining the Good News of Jesus’ power to heal, the immutable definition of marriage, or timeless truths about the complementarity of man and woman, risk being punished as criminals in NSW.

As such, this is a major step toward criminalizing Christianity and the fullness of the Gospel message in “the land down under.”

While the NSW government has been careful to assert that the new law has no impact on religious freedom, that is a misleading statement. It will have an enormous chilling effect on non-woke, orthodox Christians who reject neo-Marxist identity politics and the teachings of affirmation-only religious denominations and sects.

Australian commentator Ben Davis described the new law introduced by the NSW government as modern “LGBTQA apostasy laws.”

“What are we, China?” asked fellow conservative commentator Evelyn Rae. “This is straight out of China. It criminalizes Christianity.”

“The state has literally become the arbiter of truth and authority and they are now deciding what Christianity is allowed to say and do,” she said, adding:

The LGBTQ community is just as much a religion as Christianity, because they’re taking a stance right now on what Christians can and can’t say. They’re taking a moral stance on sexuality and gender. They are just as much a religion as Christianity and the state has said, ‘You know what? That religion trumps Christianity.’

A video introducing the new law makes authoritative-sounding statements that are demonstrably untrue, declaring that “so-called conversion practices are deeply harmful, they don’t work, and they are damaging to the whole community,” and “it’s damaging to say that LGBTQA people should be fixed, and it’s inaccurate to say they can be healed.”

The NSW government goes so far as to overtly dismiss Christianity as nothing more than a “harmful ideology when it comes to homosexuality or transgenderism: “Beyond legal protections, we all have a role to play in challenging harmful ideology.”

These government-sanctioned Brave New World-like proclamations have been proven false time and again by countless individuals over the years.

The law, while attempting to present itself as tolerant of Christianity, is nonetheless explicit in its attack on not only Christianity, but on easily observable natural law:

The Conversion Practices Ban Act 2024 does not prohibit prayer. However, praying with or over a person with the intent to change or suppress their sexuality or gender identify is unlawful. It is unlawful even if that person has asked you to pray for them to be able to change or suppress their sexuality or gender identity.

General comments about celibacy and abstinence in broad statements of belief are not unlawful. However, telling a person in a same-sex relationship that they must stop being sexually active and become celibate could be regarded as suppressing a person’s sexuality and may be unlawful, depending on the circumstances.

Similarly, telling an LGBTQA person that they should remain celibate and never marry or have a sexual relationship with a person of the same sex, could be regarded as suppressing a person’s sexuality and may be unlawful, depending on the circumstances.

Healthcare professionals and counselors are limited to solely providing “affirming care to members of the LGBTQA community across NSW,” and are sternly warned “to act within legal, professional and ethical standards” as outlined by the new law.

Ironically, “LGBTQA individuals” are to be encouraged to live “authentically” and with “pride,” while rejecting the authentic nature of their manhood and womanhood.

“The NSW Government encourages individuals to ‘come out’ and ‘proudly’ identify with the LGBTQA community,” explained Davis. “But if, after some time, someone realises it’s not for them – if they discover they were as uncertain about being LGBTQA as others are about being straight – they’re effectively abandoned. Don’t ask for help. You likely won’t find any.”

“The Church’s core business is discipleship – bringing people out of darkness and into the kingdom of Christ,” a pastor told Caldron Pool. “Discipleship is therefore always about suppression and conversion, and this means the suppression and conversion of all desires and thoughts that are opposed to Christ’s kingdom.”

Source: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/australian-state-could-send-christians-to-jail-if-they-pray-for-people-with-unwanted-same-sex-attraction/

The art of trade war.

An AI-generated video mocking the prospect of Americans working factory jobs has been viewed over 6 million times in the wake of President Trump’s tariff agenda.

The video — aimed at undermining the Trump administration’s promise to create US manufacturing jobs using tariffs — depicts depressed-looking, larger-bodied “Americans” working in sweatshop-like environments set to a twangy score of traditional Chinese music.

The US workers are depicted as obese, middle-aged and dull-witted as they sit, twiddling at sewing machines, in the video shared by TikTok user Ben Lau, who captioned the AI clip “Make America great again #tariff #america.”

Other “Americans” in the video wear matching gray uniforms, a la Foxconn, as they solder iPhones on an assembly line in a mock-up version of actual Chinese factories.

The TikTok video was reposted to X by user Damon Chen, who punctuated the insulting video with a laughing-crying emoji.

His tweet was seen more than 6 million times, but several people in the comments took issue with the apparent insult to the tariff plan — and the sideswipe at the dignity of factory laborers.

“When manufacturing was here America was great. Why do liberals think this is demoralizing or something?,” one user replied.

“What exactly is your point? My mom worked in a sewing factory for 15 years, she raised us after dad left, stayed off welfare & kept food on the table & a roof over our heads. It was a good job, thankful she had it,” an animated X poster recounted.

“My dad worked in an electronics factory assembling circuit boards when I was a kid on Long Island. It went away in the 1990s. The people seemed jovial and happy,” one user stated.

“Except if the factories are ever built here they will be staffed by robots not people,” an X poster observed.

“Very misleading propaganda post,” an apparent Canadian responded.

Many others took the video to be a direct insult from Chinese nationals directed at Americans — causing an outpouring of criticism about the Eastern power’s alleged use of child laborers.

Source: https://nypost.com/2025/04/09/us-news/ai-video-mocks-idea-of-americans-working-in-factories-as-trumps-tariffs-promise-to-restore-manufacturing/

Markets took another plunge as China announced the increased tariff, the latest move in the escalating trade war between the two super powers that threatens to wipe out billions of dollars of trade

China has said they will bring in an extra 84% tariffs on the US after Donald Trump put a 104% tariff on some Chinese imports to the US which the president later increased to 125%.

This is a 50% increase on top of China’s previous tariff. This comes after an editorial in the state-run newspaper China Daily declared: “Global unity can triumph over trade tyranny.”

The U.S. president has shown few signs of backing down on tariffs despite the mounting pressure in the financial markets. His commitment to tariffs could have devastating effects for the global economy, even though Trump is banking that it will ultimately pay off with manufacturing jobs.

Stock markets have been left reeling in the face of uncertainty brought on by the trade war.

“The situation has dangerously escalated. As one of the affected members, China expresses grave concern and firm opposition to this reckless move,” China said in a statement.

Beijing “firmly opposes and will never accept such hegemonic and bullying practices,” foregin ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters on Wednesday.

The tariffs will come into effect on April 10. The announcement came after China said it will take “resolute measures” to defend its trading rights.

They previously swore to ‘fight to the end.’

“If the U.S. insists on further escalating its economic and trade restrictions, China has the firm will and abundant means to take necessary countermeasures and fight to the end” the Ministry of Commerce wrote in a statement.

During his campaign for the White House last year, Trump said tariff was “the most beautiful word in the dictionary.”

Republican senators are confronting the Trump administration with those worries and many more as they fret about the economic impact of the president’s sweeping tariffs.

In a Senate hearing and interviews with reporters this week, Republican skepticism of President Donald Trump’s policies ran unusually high.

While GOP lawmakers made sure to direct their concern at Trump’s aides , particularly U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who appeared before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday.

Source: https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/china-tariff-usa-response-trump-1081554

Amid rising trade tensions with Washington, China on Tuesday urged India to join hands in resisting what it called the “US abuse of tariffs”, after President Donald Trump announced a steep hike, raising cumulative tariffs on Chinese imports to 104 per cent.

Yu Jing, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in India, took aim at the United States’ tariff actions, saying China’s steady economic growth, innovation, and robust manufacturing base have created positive spillovers for the rest of the world.

“China’s economy is underpinned by a system that ensures steady growth, and produces positive spillovers. Chinese manufacturing is built on a complete and continually upgrading industrial system, sustained investment in R&D, and a strong focus on innovation. China is a firm defender of economic globalization and multilateralism, which has injected strong impetus into the world economy, contributing to around 30 percent of global growth annually on average. We will continue to work with the rest of the world to safeguard the multilateral trade system with the World Trade Organization (WTO) at its core,” Yu Jing wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

She also mentioned that India and China, as the two largest developing nations, should stand together against US tariff actions, calling their trade ties complementary and mutually beneficial.

“China-India economic and trade relationship is based on complimentarity and mutual benefit. Facing the U.S. abuse of tariffs, which deprives countries, especially Global South countries, of their right to development, the two largest developing countries should stand together to overcome the difficulties. Trade and tariff wars have no winners. All countries should uphold the principles of extensive consultation, practice true multilateralism, jointly oppose all forms of unilateralism and protectionism,” she added.

What led to the US-China trade war escalation?

A full-blown trade conflict between the United States and China appeared imminent on Tuesday as President Donald Trump moved ahead with a fresh set of tariffs targeting multiple trading partners.

Since Trump’s return to the White House, the cumulative duties on Chinese goods will now touch 104 per cent.

The sharp increase follows a retaliatory move from Beijing but Trump showed no signs of backing down, even as major US stock indices registered another day of losses on Tuesday.

Trump maintains that his tariff policy is aimed at reviving domestic manufacturing by encouraging companies to shift their operations back to American soil.

However, several economists and industry experts remain sceptical, warning that such moves could drive up inflation and burden consumers with higher prices.

Despite the concerns, Trump defended the strategy on Tuesday, claiming, “The United States was taking in almost $2 billion a day” from tariffs.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/china-seeks-india-s-support-amid-trade-war-with-donald-trump-administration-us-abuse-of-tariffs-101744162831719.html

TOM Brady has added a new accomplishment to his list of accolades.

Not only is he a future NFL Hall of Famer and current broadcaster, but it appears he now has a role in scientific breakthroughs.

On Monday, Brady shared his celebration of the “de-extinction” of the dire wolf.

The wolf is a species that has been extinct on the Earth for over 10,000 years.

However, Colossal Biosciences, a company that Brady is on the cultural advisory board as an investor, revived the wolf as part of a scientific breakthrough.

“So proud of the team for the hard work, passion, and countless hours that have gone into this project!!!” Brady said in an Instagram Story.

Using “deft genetic engineering and ancient, preserved DNA, Colossal scientists deciphered the dire wolf genome, rewrote the genetic code of the common gray wolf to match it,” according to TIME.

Two male dire wolves, Romulus and Remus, were born in October using two surrogate domestic hounds.

A female dire wolf, Khaleesi, was born in January via another surrogate.

Colossal Bioscience CEO Ben Lamm shared how proud he was for his team to have made this breakthrough.

“This massive milestone is the first of many coming examples demonstrating that our end-to-end de-extinction technology stack works,” Lamm said in a statement, via Business Wire.

“Our team took DNA from a 13,000 year old tooth and a 72,000 year old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies.

“It was once said, ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

“Today, our team gets to unveil some of the magic they are working on and its broader impact on conservation.”

Brady isn’t the only GOAT who is invested in the project to revive the dire wolves.

Tiger Woods also bought into the project to restore the legendary animal.

Famous stars from the show Game of Thrones, a series that features dire wolves, also bought into the project.

Actress Sophie Turner, actor Kit Harrington, and author George RR Martin are all bought into the project.

Colossal Bioscience isn’t only focused on reviving the dire wolf.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/sport/13967838/tom-brady-tiger-woods-dire-wolf-game-of-thrones/

A RESTAURANT has sparked backlash after offering discounts to skinnier customers.

The diner in Thailand was accused of “fat shaming” as it had a blunt method for examining who would be eligible for offer.

In a blow to bigger eaters, Chiang Mai Breakfast World, an all-day breakfast cafe, offered the discounts to customers who could complete a bizarre task.

The cafe set up multiple prison bar-like poles, each a different length apart, and challenged visitors to fit through the gaps.

And the smaller the gap was, the bigger the discount.

The smallest gap, which appeared to be about about a foot wide, presented a generous 20 per cent discount to those who were able to squeeze through.

While the widest gap between bars had text above it which read: “Full price. Sorry.”

This meant that larger customers, who could only fit through the biggest gap, were not eligible for a reduced price.

Footage of the diabolical challenge was posted online, before it sparked fury from offended viewers.

The footage in the clip shows multicoloured “skinny discount” bars which a man can be seen trying to fit through.

There are a total of five categories, which range from 20 per cent off for the tiniest gap, to 10 per cent at the medium slots, and finally to full price at the largest hole.

The man in the video is seen flexing his torso through the gate-like structure in an attempt to receive a 15 per cent discount.

Onlookers laugh out loud while one person quips: “You need some butter.”

The same struggling diner then attempts to go through the slightly bigger 10 per cent gap – but still fails this one.

The challenger finally manages to thread the 5% discount slot, admitting, “It’s better than nothing, I suppose”.

In a follow-up clip, a female diner can be seen passing through the 15 per cent space twice.

One of her male pals jokes: “I didn’t think your boobs were gonna get through there.”

Outraged viewers ripped the “skinny body, skinny bill” rule as prejudiced against plus-sized customers.

One critic wrote: “Wouldn’t eat there. That’s really discriminating.”

Another furious user said: “This is so wrong.

One viewer said that the practise could lead to eating disorders.

They said: “What’s wrong with you? This can promote eating disorders. Let people enjoy their food and have a healthy weight.”

But some seemed to like the idea, deeming it “funny”, with some calling it a “brilliant” idea.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/13963857/skinny-diners-discount-controversy/

Apple’s 23% plunge over the past four trading sessions has again turned Microsoft into the world’s most valuable public company.

As of Tuesday’s close, Microsoft is worth $2.64 trillion, while Apple’s market cap stands at $2.59 trillion.

While the market broadly is getting hammered by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plan, Apple is getting hit the hardest among tech’s megacap companies due to the iPhone maker’s reliance on China.

The Nasdaq is down 13% over the past four trading days, as President Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on imports from more than 100 countries has sparked fears of a recession brought on by rising prices. UBS analysts on Monday predicted that the price of the iPhone 16 Pro Max could jump as much as $350 in the U.S.

Both Apple and Microsoft, along with chipmaker Nvidia, were previously valued at upward of $3 trillion before the recent sell-off.

In January, Microsoft issued disappointing revenue guidance. Nevertheless, last week, as Jefferies analysts reduced their price targets on many software stocks, they wrote Microsoft was among the “companies who we view as more insulated” from tariff uncertainty.

Source : https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/08/apple-slide-puts-microsoft-back-on-top-as-most-valuable-public-company.html?__source=iosappshare%7Cnet.whatsapp.WhatsAppSMB.ShareExtension

In just a few hours, Trump tariffs will kick in — which includes a ghastly 104% duty on Chinese imports.

Despite growing consternation and concern expressed by economists and CEOs, Trump administration officials have been stubborn in defending its trade policies. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC Tuesday that roughly 70 countries want to discuss deals with the White House, while trade advisor Peter Navarro on Friday said tariffs are not negotiable. (Whether discussing deals is a form of negotiation is apparently debatable.)

But at least one member of the Trump cadre doesn’t seem too happy about the tariffs. Elon Musk, while not addressing the White House’s trade policies specifically, described Navarro — the administration’s top trade advisor — as a “moron” and “dangerously dumb.” Musk is the de facto DOGE leader, a key role in the Trump administration. He is also the CEO of Tesla, a multinational company.

Still, given how staunchly White House officials have been advocating for tariffs, it doesn’t seem likely that Musk’s public feud with Navarro will staunch the wound on global trade.

What you need to know today

“Game of Thrones” creator George R.R. Martin scored some serious prehistoric cred, becoming one of the first people to meet some newly resurrected dire wolves IRL — yep, the very same ones that made an appearance on his show.

Paul Chambers, who teaches political science at Naresuan University in northern Thailand, reported to a police station in the northern province of Phitsanulok, about 360 kilometers (224 miles) north of Bangkok.

Chambers had been summoned by police last week to hear the charges after a complaint was filed by the Thai Army.

What has Chambers been charged with?

A Phitsanulok police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the US scholar had reported to the precinct to acknowledge two charges: insulting or defaming the monarchy, and a computer crime violation related to online activity.

Chambers was then taken to Phitsanulok Provincial Court for a pretrial detention hearing, according to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR).

Wannaphat Jenroumjit, a lawyer for TLHR representing Chambers, said the charges were related to an online seminar where the US scholar appeared as a speaker. Chambers has denied all the charges.

TLHR also stated that Chambers had been denied bail. No trial date has been set yet.

What are Thailand’s laws protecting the monarchy?

Thailand has some of the world’s strictest laws shielding the monarchy from criticism or defamation.

Under Article 112 of the Thai criminal code, anyone found guilty of insulting, defaming or threatening the king, queen or their heirs face between three and 15 years in prison.

The law has been increasingly used in recent years to clamp down on those who took part in pro-democracy, anti-monarchy protests that swept the nation in 2020.

Since then, some 279 people have been charged with lese-majeste, according to TLHR.

Several prominent protest leaders have been imprisoned, but it is very rare for a foreigner to be charged under Article 112.

According to Human Rights Watch, Thai authorities are known to “restrict fundamental rights — particularly freedom of expression and peaceful assembly — using lèse-majesté (insulting the monarchy), sedition, and cyber-crime laws.”

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/us-academic-arrested-in-thailand-for-insulting-monarchy/a-72178326

Police in India have arrested a man, who is accused of impersonating a British doctor, for performing surgeries that allegedly led to the death of seven patients.

Narendra Vikramaditya Yadav – also known as Dr N John Camm – worked as a cardiologist at a missionary hospital in Madhya Pradesh state.

Police accuse him of fraud, cheating and forgery and allege that the 53-year-old, who has worked as a doctor for almost two decades, faked his medical degrees.

They are also investigating allegations that he added the name of Prof John Camm, a leading cardiologist at UK’s St George Hospital, to his own to gain credibility. Mr Yadav has denied the allegations against him.

On Monday, just hours before he was arrested, he sent a legal notice of 50m rupees ($580,000; £455,000) to two dozen individuals and publishers for claiming he impersonated “some other cardiologist”.

The Mission Hospital in Damoh city, where Mr Yadav worked for a few weeks, has denied having any knowledge of his alleged fake credentials.

“Nobody suspected him of being a fake doctor. He was good at his job and acted like a big-time professor,” a hospital official told The Indian Express newspaper.

The case first came to light in February, when a child welfare committee in Damoh flagged the deaths to district officials.

“We got suspicious about his expertise and checked his credentials online and found that he had cases against him in at least three states,” claimed Deepak Tiwari, president of the district Child Welfare Committee.

An investigation found that Mr Yadav had quit his job at the hospital earlier that month and “gone missing” without explanation.

He was arrested in the city of Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh state on Monday evening.

“The accused doctor had worked on a total of 64 cases, including 45 cases of angioplasty, which led to seven patient deaths,” the district’s police chief Shrut Kirti Somvanshi told BBC Hindi.

It’s not yet clear whether his degrees are genuine or fake, but police believe they were likely to be forged as the documents lack key details, such as a unique registration number given to each student.

This is not the first time that questions have been raised about Mr Yadav’s identity.

In a 2019 blog post, he claimed that he trained in the UK under Prof A John Camm and joined St George’s hospital in 2002 as an “Interventional Cardiologist”.

He claimed he first returned to India in 2003 to work at a leading heart hospital in Delhi and had worked in the US, Germany and Spain since then.

In one post shared in 2021, Mr Yadav wrote that he was developing a 5,000-bed John Camm Institute of Medical Sciences and Research in the western state of Rajasthan.

“The hospital is being developed under [the] leadership of Dr N John Camm, renowned Interventional Cardiologist from Germany, and will [be] spread over 100 acres of land and will have world class research and tissue labs,” he claimed.

But public records show that he registered four companies in the UK in 2018 under the name of Dr Narendra Vikramaditya Yadav, which he later got changed to Dr Narendra John Camm.

In 2023, a well-known fact-checker in India too had raised questions about his credentials after he allegedly created an X (formerly Twitter) account under the name of “Prof N John Camm”.

After some of his posts went viral, the real Prof Camm put out a statement clarifying that it was not his account and that he was being impersonated.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8q7489l71o

China has called US Vice-President JD Vance “ignorant and impolite” after he said America had been borrowing money from “Chinese peasants”.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters on Tuesday that Vance’s comments – which had already caused a stir on Chinese social media – were “surprising and sad”.

Vance made the comments on Thursday, during an interview on Fox News where he defended US President Donald Trump’s tariffs – which are currently fuelling tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

“We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture,” the vice-president said.

On Monday, Trump gave China – one of the world’s largest holders of US Treasury bonds – until Tuesday to scrap its 34% counter tariff or face an additional 50% tax on goods imported into the US.

If Trump acts on his threat, US companies could face a total rate of 104% on Chinese imports – as it comes on top of 20% tariffs already put in place in March and the 34% announced last week.

China has said it will “fight to the end” as it called Trump’s moves “bullying”.

“China’s position on China-US economic and trade relations has been made very clear,” Lin said on Tuesday.

Vance’s comments had already caused a stir among Chinese social media users, some of whom have called for him to be banned from entering China.

“As a key figure in the US government, it is really shameful for Vance to say such things,” one Weibo user wrote.

“Isn’t his memoir called ‘Hillbilly Elegy’?” wrote another user, a reference to Vance’s book which detailed his upbringing in rural America.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20zd4k6d36o

Indian police have arrested a 24-year-old American Youtuber who visited an off-limits island in the Indian ocean and left an offering of a Diet Coke can and a coconut in an attempt to make contact with an isolated tribe known for attacking intruders.

Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, from Scottsdale, Arizona, was arrested on March 31, two days after he set foot on the restricted territory of North Sentinel Island — part of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands — in a bid to meet people from the reclusive Sentinelese tribe, police said.

A local court last week sent Polyakov to a 14-day judicial custody and he is set to appear again in the court April 17. The charges carry a possible sentence of up to five years in prison and a fine. Indian authorities said they had informed the U.S. Embassy about the case.

Visitors are banned from traveling within 3 miles (5 kilometers) of the island, whose population has been isolated from the rest of the world for thousands of years. The inhabitants use spears and bows and arrows to hunt the animals that roam the small, heavily forested island. Deeply suspicious of outsiders, they attack anyone who lands onto their beaches.

In 2018, an American missionary who landed illegally on the beach was killed by North Sentinel islanders who apparently shot him with arrows and then buried his body on the beach. In 2006, the Sentinelese had killed two fishermen who had accidentally landed on the shore.

Indian officials have limited contacts to rare “gift-giving” encounters, with small teams of officials and scientists leaving coconuts and bananas for the islanders. Indian ships also monitor the waters around the island, trying to ensure outsiders do not go near the Sentinelese, who have repeatedly made clear they want to be left alone.

Police said Polyakov was guided by GPS navigation during his journey and surveyed the island with binoculars before landing. He stayed on the beach for about an hour, blowing a whistle to attract the attention but got no response from the islanders.

He later left a can of Diet Coke and a coconut as an offering, made a video on his camera, and collected some sand samples before returning to his boat.

On his return he was spotted by local fishermen, who informed the authorities and Polyakov was arrested in Port Blair, the capital of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an archipelago nearly 750 miles (1,207 kilometers) east of India’s mainland. A case was registered against him for violation of Indian laws that prohibit any outsider to interact with the islanders.

Police said Polyakov had conducted detailed research on sea conditions, tides and accessibility to the island before starting his journey.

“He planned meticulously over several days to visit the island and make a contact with the Sentinel tribe,” Senior Police Officer Hargobinder Singh Dhaliwal said.

In a statement, police said Polyakov’s “actions posed a serious threat to the safety and well-being of the Sentinelese people, whose contact with outsiders is strictly prohibited by the law to protect their indigenous way of life.”

Source : https://apnews.com/article/india-sentinelese-tribe-american-youtuber-ef322e67a2d1564096d6feeeb4b2e58d

Olja Ivanic looked forward to welcoming some cousins from Sweden to her Denver home in June. Ivanic and the four travelers were planning to go hiking in Colorado and then visit Los Angeles and San Francisco.

But then President Donald Trump berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a February meeting at the White House. Ivanic’s four relatives immediately canceled their scheduled trip and decided to vacation in Europe instead.

“The way (Trump) treated a democratic president that’s in a war was beyond comprehensible to them,” said Ivanic, who is the U.S. CEO of Austria-based health startup Longevity Labs.

The U.S. tourism industry expected 2025 to be another good year in terms of foreign travelers. The number of international visitors to the United States jumped in 2024, and some forecasts predicted arrivals from abroad this year would reach pre-COVID levels.

But three months into the year, international arrivals are plummeting. Angered by Trumps’ tariffs and rhetoric, and alarmed by reports of tourists being arrested at the border, some citizens of other countries are staying away from the U.S. and choosing to travel elsewhere.

The federal government’s National Travel and Tourism Office released preliminary figures Tuesday showing visits to the U.S. from overseas fell 11.6% in March compared to the same month last year. The figures did not include arrivals from Canada, which is scheduled to report tourism data later this week, or land crossings from Mexico. But air travel from Mexico dropped 23%.

For the January-March period, 7.1 million visitors entered the U.S. from overseas, 3.3% fewer than during the first three months of 2024.

The travel forecasting company Tourism Economics, which as recently as December anticipated the U.S. would have nearly 9% more international arrivals this year, revised its annual outlook last week to predict a 9.4% decline.

Tourism Economics expects some of the steepest declines will be from Canada, where Trump’s repeated suggestion that the country should become the 51st state and tariffs on close trading partners have angered residents. Canada was the largest source of visitors to the U.S. in 2024, with more than 20.2 million, according to U.S. government data.

Flight Centre Travel Group Canada, a travel booking site, said leisure bookings to U.S. destinations were down 40% in March compared to the same month a year ago. Air Canada has reduced its schedule of spring flights to Florida, Las Vegas and Arizona due to lack of demand.

The National Travel and Tourism Office gave a rosier forecast last month for international travel to the U.S. Based on 2024 travel patterns, the office said it expected arrivals to increase 6.5% to 77.1 million this year and surpass 2019 levels in 2026.

But Tourism Economics said the impact of the less favorable view of the U.S. from abroad could be severe enough that international visits won’t surpass pre-pandemic levels until 2029.

“The survey data is all indicating a significant mix of cancellations and a massive drop in intent to travel,” Tourism Economics President Adam Sacks said.

Ian Urquhart, a professor emeritus at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, was supposed to go to Las Vegas for five days in June and see Coldplay in concert. He canceled the trip to protest Trump’s “incredibly disparaging tone” toward Canada even though it meant losing a $500 deposit on the vacation package.

His oldest daughter similarly nixed a planned May trip to Sedona, Arizona, while his brother-in-law decided not to go on his usual weeklong golf trip to Scottsdale, Arizona, according to Urquhart.

“None of us jumped for joy when we made those decisions, but it seemed to be one of the few ways we could signal how we felt about the bullying that has been directed towards Canada by your president,” Urquhart said.

For Pepa Cuevas and her husband, who live in Madrid, Trump’s election in November was a turning point. The couple had planned to spend a month skiing in Colorado over the winter holidays. They went to Japan instead.

“Trump’s victory left us, especially me, very shocked,” Cuevas said. “For the moment, we have lost the desire to return. I don’t know what will happen in the future, but for the moment we are still shocked, and it doesn’t look like this is going to be resolved.”

According to the government data released Tuesday, international arrivals from China were down nearly 1%. Leisure trips by Chinese citizens to places like Disneyland, Hawaii and New York are decreasing dramatically and likely won’t pick up again until Trump has left office, said Wolfgang Georg Arlt, the CEO of the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute. He dubs it the “Trump Slump.”

That slump has financial consequences. Tourism Economics expects U.S. spending by international visitors to drop by $9 billion this year.

Marco Jahn is the president and CEO of New World Travel, a California company that works with overseas tour operators on vacation packages and activity planning. It arranges the hotels and rental cars for a family that wants to take a driving tour of U.S. national parks, for example.

Jahn said bookings have dropped between 20% and 50%, depending on the source market, over the last eight to 10 weeks. He notes particular declines from Scandinavia, where Trump’s repeated threat to take control of Greenland, a self-governing territory of NATO ally Denmark, has antagonized citizens.

“The U.S. is not perceived as a welcoming destination,” Jahn said.

Beyond, a revenue management platform for vacation rental owners, said Canadian searches for short-term rentals in the U.S. plunged 44% after Feb. 1, when Trump first announced a since-paused 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico. Florida, Texas and New York were among the hardest-hit markets, Beyond said.

American Ring Travel, a tour operator based in California, offers carbon-neutral bus tours of the U.S. that often attract eco-conscious travelers from Europe, said Richard Groesz, the company’s director of contracting. But bookings from Germany flattened starting in January after Elon Musk threw his support behind a far-right political party in that country’s federal election, Groesz said.

There are other issues impacting foreign visits. The U.S. has been the top destination by country for Japanese tourists for years, but data compiled by JTB Tourism Research & Consulting showed South Korea topped the U.S. in January.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/tourism-us-travel-trump-visitors-international-14c31b490fd382d09ad5cae625ddc937

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday said it has reached a preliminary agreement with Argentina on a $20 billion bailout, providing a welcome reprieve to President Javier Milei as he seeks to overturn the country’s old economic order.

As a staff-level agreement, the rescue package still requires final approval from the IMF’s executive board, which was expected to meet in the coming days.

The fund’s long-awaited announcement offered a lifeline to President Milei, who has cut inflation and stabilized Argentina’s economy with a free-market austerity agenda. His policies have reversed the reckless borrowing of left-wing populist governments that had brought the country infamy for defaulting on its debts numerous times. Argentina has received more IMF bailouts than any other nation.

It came at a critical moment for South America’s second-biggest economy. Pressure had been mounting on Argentina’s rapidly depleting foreign exchange reserves as the government tightened rules on money-printing and spent more of its scarce dollars to prop up the wobbly Argentine peso.

Fears grew that if Milei’s government failed to secure an IMF loan or tap a major source of foreign currency, its hard-won austerity measures would veer off-track and leave Argentina, once again, unable to service its huge debts or pay its import bills.

The fresh cash gives Milei a serious shot at easing Argentina’s strict foreign exchange controls, which he says he needs to encourage investment and convince markets that his reforms can be sustained in the notoriously volatile nation.

The controls mean that companies can’t send profits abroad and ensures the central bank manages the peso, which is pegged to the dollar.

With 22 IMF loans handed out since 1958, Argentina owes the IMF more than $40 billion. Most IMF funds are used repay the IMF itself, giving the organization a divisive reputation among Argentines. Many blame the lender for the country’s historic economic implosion and debt default in 2001.

The IMF, which had been wary of striking yet another deal with its largest debtor, had nonetheless praised Milei’s austerity measures — an even harsher version of its own typical prescription — over his first 16 months in office.

The former TV personality and self-proclaimed “anarcho-capitalist” came to power with the goal of downsizing Argentina’s bloated state, ending the country’s proclivity for money-printing, opening the economy to international markets and wooing foreign investors after years of isolation.

Unlike Argentine politicians in years past who sought to avoid enraging the masses with brutal austerity, Milei has fired tens of thousands of state employees, dissolved ministries, gutted the education sector, cut inflation adjustments for pensions, froze public works projects, lifted price controls and slashed subsidies.

Critics note that the poor have paid the highest price for Argentina’s macroeconomic stability.

But Milei has maintained solid approval ratings, which analysts attribute to his success in driving down inflation. Flipping budget deficits to surpluses has sent Argentina’s stock market booming and its country-risk rating, a pivotal barometer of investor confidence, tumbling.

“The agreement builds on the authorities’ impressive early progress in stabilizing the economy, underpinned by a strong fiscal anchor, that is delivering rapid disinflation and a recovery in activity,” the IMF said in a statement announcing the agreement on the loan under a 48-month arrangement. “The program supports the next phase of Argentina’s homegrown stabilization and reform agenda.”

Source : https://apnews.com/article/argentina-imf-debt-bailout-4eae101f7575dc735df74c9aa0fac2cf

Between the staggeringly long baggage check and security lines, the frustrating searches for working outlets, and the too-cramped, backache-inducing seats, flying (devoid of the perks of business and first class, of course) can hardly be a joyful experience — at least until you get where you’re going.

What can ease the stress, however, is good food. And some fabulous airports have a profusion of it that transcends the reliably ubiquitous fast-food mainstays of days past.

The 2025 Global Tastemakers panel of food and travel experts has voted these airports from around the world as the best for eating and drinking, whether the ambiance is fancy or casual. These transit hubs champion a more positive, progressive vision of jet-setting, one infused with an inviting touch of old glamour. Getting stuck in transit at one of these for longer than you hoped might not be too upsetting. At least you don’t have to make do with an overpriced, lackluster sandwich wrapped in plastic for dinner.

Winner: Dubai International Airport (Dubai, UAE)

Constructed by a mysterious civilisation that left no written records, the massive site is now open to the public for the first time in more than a century.

Autumn leaves crackled under our shoes as dozens of eager tourists and I followed a guide along a grassy mound. We stopped when we reached the opening of a turf-topped circle, which was formed by another wall of mounded earth. We were at The Octagon, part of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, a large network of hand-constructed hills spread throughout central and southern Ohio that were built as many as 2,000 years ago. Indigenous people would come to The Octagon from hundreds of miles away, gathering regularly for shared rituals and worship.

“There was a sweat lodge or some kind of purification place there,” said our guide, Brad Lepper, senior archaeologist for the Ohio History Connection’s World Heritage Program (OHC), as he pointed to the circle. I looked inside to see a perfectly manicured lawn – a putting green. A tall flag marked a hole at its centre.

That’s because from 1910 through 2024, The Octagon had been used as a golf course. But on 1 January 2025, this ancient, enigmatic site reopened to visitors for the first time in more than a century.

All these prehistoric ceremonial earthworks in Ohio were created by what is now called the Hopewell Culture, a network of Native American societies that gathered from as far away as Montana and the Gulf of Mexico between roughly 100 BCE and 500 CE and were connected by a series of trade routes. Their earthworks in Ohio consist of shapes – like circles, squares and octagons – that were often connected to each other. Archaeologists are only now beginning to understand the sophistication of these engineering marvels.

Built with astonishing mathematical precision, as well as a complex astronomical alignment, these are the largest geometrical earthworks in the world that were not built as fortifications or defensive structures. And while most people have never heard about the sites or its builders, that may be about to change.

In 2023, eight of Hopewell’s earthworks were inscribed as a Unesco World Heritage site. These include The Great Circle and The Octagon in Newark, Ohio, as well Ohio’s first state park, Fort Ancient (not an actual fort). The other five are part of the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park: Mound City, Hopeton Earthworks, High Bank Works, Hopewell Mound Group and Seip Earthworks.

Lepper told me The Octagon and The Great Circle were once a larger, single Hopewell complex spanning 4.5 square miles and connected by a series of roads lined by earthwork walls. Walking through both sites today, there is an immediate shock of scale. The Great Circle, where the museum for Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks is found, is 1,200ft in diameter. Its walls rise up to 14ft high and are outlined on the inside by a deep ditch. The Great Circle was once connected to a square and a burial ellipse, with only part of the square still visible today. The Octagon sprawls a massive 50 acres and is attached to the 20-acre Observatory Circle, a large earthwork circle for gathering and rituals connected to the observation of the night sky.

“You could put four Roman Colosseums inside just The Octagon,” Lepper told me. “Stonehenge would fit within just that small circle now serving as a putting green.” He added that 2,000 years ago, Indigenous workers built these earthworks without modern tools, digging up soil with pointed sticks and hauling it in wicker baskets on their backs. One estimate, he noted, is that they moved seven million cubic feet of dirt.

The achievement of the Hopewell Culture, however, is not simply in creating large, precise shapes, which they did without the vantage point of hills for an aerial view. They also embedded a sort of hidden geometry within these structures. Until the mounds were measured and compared, it was thought that the builders didn’t have any mathematical and geometrical sophistication, as there are no written records to testify to their level of knowledge. It was eventually discovered, however, that they made precise measurements across their earthworks and connected them in unsuspecting ways.

Lepper explained that the circumference of The Great Circle “is equal to the perimeter of the perfect square that it was connected to”, and that “the area of that perfect square is equal to the area of the [Observatory Circle] that’s connected to The Octagon”.

He added: “If you draw a square inside The Octagon by drawing a line from alternate corners of The Octagon, the sides of that square [1,054ft] are equal to the diameter of the circle that it’s attached to [1,054ft].”

Examples of this interplay between earthworks have been found repeatedly by archaeologists. According to Lepper, that measure of 1054ft, whether halved or doubled, is found in other Indigenous earthworks across the country, and served as a common unit of measure.

While the Hopewell Culture’s geometrical and mathematical knowledge astonished scholars, another level of sophistication appears when the layers are peeled back further: astronomical alignment.

In the 1980s, two professors at Earlham College in Indiana, Ray Hively (a physicist and astronomer) and Robert Horn (a philosopher), decided to pay a visit to The Octagon and its attached Observatory Circle. As astronomical monuments like Stonehenge had received great attention, they wondered if these earthworks were also aligned to a solar calendar.

Hively and Horn found no solar connections, but they then considered an alternative purpose: the lunar cycle.

“We thought deliberate lunar alignments unlikely at Newark,” they wrote, because while the Sun can be tracked over a year, a complete lunar cycle takes 18.6 years. Even so, the lunar cycle proved to correspond to the position of the Observatory Mound at The Observatory Circle. There, one can watch the Moon rise over the exact centre of The Octagon in the distance every 18.6 years.

“Astronomical alignments are only relevant and useful if they somehow tie the celestial orbs to belief systems and understandings of life,” said Timothy Darvill, professor of archaeology at Bournemouth University who has researched both Stonehenge and the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks. “The ceremonies around the observation of the skyscape could well have a secondary function in terms of fostering community.”

That ancient community and culture was part of the reason for its Unesco World Heritage Site inclusion.

A Unesco site needs to show that it has “outstanding universal value”, said Jennifer Aultman, director of historic sites and museums at Ohio History Connection which helped lead its Unesco consideration. One criterion for this, she said, “is that these are masterpieces of human creative genius”, which is where these mathematical, geometrical and astronomical features are important. The other, “is that they bear really exceptional testimony to the cultural tradition that produced them”.

Aultman explained: “You really can understand something about the lives of the people and what mattered to them by looking at, and learning about, the earthworks.”

Consider the Moon, for example, which was clearly important for the Hopewell Culture. Darvill told me that, for some cultures, the “Sun, Moon… are considered to have power over what happens on a day-to-day basis. As such, the heavenly bodies are often deified, which is how their power is justified and rationalised.” It is therefore likely that the Moon was a deity shared by those who gathered at the mounds.

“The land we know as Ohio is home to a number of extraordinary earthworks built by Indigenous residents of this region thousands of years ago,” said Megan Wood, executive director and CEO of the Ohio History Connection. While not all earthworks in Ohio are specifically Hopewell Mounds – such as the solar-aligned Serpent Mound Historical Site in Peebles, Ohio, for example – Wood sees them all as “icons” of Indigenous “cultural achievements”.

Since the Hopewell Culture left no written records, only the earthworks and the few objects retrieved from them serve as their last cultural testimony. While archaeological excavations continue on some sites, objects like ritual smoking pipes and a small stone statue of a shaman wearing a bear skin and holding a human skull called “the Shaman of Newark” have been found. As these earthworks were gathering places and not villages, artefacts representing the locations from where these Indigenous peoples travelled have also been discovered, like effigy pipes, a copper head plate and an obsidian knife.

However, after the Hopewell Culture gradually began to disappear starting around 500 CE, other Indigenous peoples stepped in to become caretakers of the land. One of those groups was the Shawnee Tribe, which called Ohio home before they were forcibly removed west of the Mississippi River in the 1830s.

“We may not have been responsible for building or creating them, but I know that my ancestors lived there, and that my ancestors protected them and respected them,” said Chief Glenna Wallace of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, who believes that other tribes should have a role in the future of protecting the Hopewell Earthworks and communicating their cultural importance.

For years, The Octagon was under the control of the Moundbuilders Country Club. After more than a decade of negotiations, the OHC and the club finally reached a deal in 2024 to transfer the site’s long-term lease to the historical society, paving the way for them to open the earthworks to visitors beginning this January.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20221204-the-us-2000-year-old-mystery-mounds

The roof of an iconic nightclub in the Dominican capital collapsed early Tuesday during a merengue concert attended by politicians, athletes and others, leaving at least 79 people dead and 160 injured, authorities said.

Crews were searching for potential survivors in the rubble at the one-story Jet Set nightclub in Santo Domingo, said Juan Manuel Méndez, director of the Center of Emergency Operations.

“We continue clearing debris and searching for people,” he said on Tuesday night. “We’re going to search tirelessly for people.”

Nearly 12 hours after the top of the nightclub collapsed onto patrons, rescue crews were still pulling out survivors from under the debris, shushing those around them so they could listen for faint cries for help. Firefighters removed blocks of broken concrete and used sawed pieces of wood as planks to lift heavy debris as the noise of drills breaking through concrete filled the air.

Méndez said rescue crews were prioritizing three areas in the club: “We’re hearing some sounds.”

Nelsy Cruz, the governor of the northwestern province of Montecristi and sister of seven-time Major League Baseball All-Star Nelson Cruz, was among the victims. She had called President Luis Abinader at 12:49 a.m., saying she was trapped and that the roof had collapsed, first lady Raquel Abraje told reporters. Officials said Cruz died later at the hospital.

“This is too great a tragedy,” Abraje said, her voice breaking.

The Professional Baseball League of the Dominican Republic posted on X that former MLB pitcher Octavio Dotel, 51, also died. Officials had pulled Dotel from the debris earlier and brought him to a hospital. Also killed was Dominican baseball player Tony Enrique Blanco Cabrera, said league spokesman Satosky Terrero.

Late Tuesday night, those still looking for their family and friends gathered around a man playing a guitar outside the club as they sang hymns.

Officials said at least 160 people were injured, among them national lawmaker Bray Vargas.

Relatives of merengue singer Rubby Pérez, who was performing when the roof collapsed, initially said that he had been rescued, but Méndez said later Tuesday that wasn’t true. He said rescue crews were still looking for Pérez.

Pérez’s manager, Enrique Paulino, whose shirt was spattered with blood, told reporters at the scene that the concert began shortly before midnight, with the roof collapsing almost an hour later, killing the group’s saxophonist.

“It happened so quickly. I managed to throw myself into a corner,” he said, adding that he initially thought it was an earthquake.

It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the roof to collapse or when the Jet Set building was last inspected.

The club issued a statement saying it was cooperating with authorities and noted that the owner, Antonio Espaillat, was out of the country and returned late Tuesday.

“There are no words to express the pain this event has caused. What happened has been devastating for everyone,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Public Works referred questions to the mayor’s office. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office did not respond to a message for comment.

Prosecutor Rosalba Ramos told TV station CDN that while “everyone wants to know” what happened, authorities were still focused on finding survivors. They set up a makeshift morgue near the club while more than 120 people lined up to donate blood at two different centers.

Manuel Olivo Ortiz, whose son attended the concert but did not return home, was among those anxiously waiting outside the club known for its traditional Monday parties where renowned national and international artists performed.

“We’re holding on only to God,” Olivo said.

Also awaiting word was Massiel Cuevas, godmother of 22-year-old Darlenys Batista.

“I’m waiting for her. She’s in there, I know she’s in there,” Cuevas said, firm in her belief that Batista would be pulled out alive.

President Abinader wrote on X that all rescue agencies are “working tirelessly” to help those affected.

“We deeply regret the tragedy that occurred at the Jet Set nightclub. We have been following the incident minute by minute since it occurred,” he wrote.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/dominican-republic-roof-collapse-discotheque-518f9e7b7b212ce90c430139b82c4a18

Despite producing the Tesla Model Y, the most popular new car on the planet last year, Tesla has had a rough time so far in 2025. The American EV maker faces “Tesla Takedown” protests and other boycotts from citizens across the globe thanks to the inflammatory words and actions of the brand’s CEO, Elon Musk.

Though the company previously declared that there were over a million Cybertruck pre-orders, Tesla can’t find buyers for the current backlog of nearly 2,400 Cybertrucks, or about $200 million worth of inventory. Not only that, but Tesla is allegedly refusing to accept its own Cybertrucks as trade-ins since it can’t sell them, and is reportedly even forcing some owners to Lemon Law their cars instead. That’s an ominous sign for the model that was supposed to revolutionize the pickup market and revitalize the automaker’s aging line up.

Humility is underrated

Despite Tesla’s lofty sales expectations, Cybertruck monthly sales peaked at just 5,308 units in September last year, and have since fallen sharply. The most recent Cybertruck recall affected almost every unit sold, and in the process revealed that Tesla had only delivered 46,000 of its stainless steel pickups. Beyond the lack of demand, Elon Musk’s decision to cozy up to Donald Trump and open DOGE — an organization that has systematically disassembled multiple public institutions that millions of American citizens love and rely on for employment and for services — has negatively impacted the public image of his company.

Now, Tesla owners are trying to get rid of their Teslas in order to distance themselves from Musk’s politics, and people around the globe are boycotting the brand. These numerous yet easily avoidable challenges have led to a decline in Tesla resale values and a massive surplus of undesirable new Cybertrucks, enough that the company will allegedly no longer accept its own Cybertrucks on trade-in. According to Electrek:

Source : https://www.jalopnik.com/1829010/tesla-unsold-cybertrucks-inventory/

President Donald Trump’s secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, was roundly condemned on Tuesday over a photo op in which she accidentally pointed a gun at a border patrol officer’s head.

In the clip Noem posted to X, she stands between two officers and says, “Here we are with Marco and Brian today. They’re letting me roll with them. We’re going to go out and pick up somebody who I think is– got charges of human trafficking. We earlier had an op that swept up somebody that was wanted for murder. So appreciate the good work that they do every day, and we appreciate them working to make America safe.”

While Noem donning tactical gear and joining operations for the cameras has become routine in recent weeks, observers were quick to note her mishandling of the weapon in her hand.

Washington Post military reporter Alex Horton replied to the video, “Noem is pointing the M4 muzzle at an agent with an open dust cover, indicating a chambered round. It’s the worst possible place to point it. No one stopped her, including the agent to her left, who should know better but also has bad muzzle discipline.”

Conservative New York Times columnist David French commented, “This is what LARPing looks like” – referring to live-action role play.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), a former Marine, replied:

Below are some additional reactions from across the political spectrum:

London is no longer one of the top five wealthiest cities in the world after losing a higher proportion of millionaires than anywhere other than Moscow.
An annual report on global wealth says the UK’s capital has lost 11,300 dollar millionaires over the past year, including 18 centimillionaires and two billionaires. A centimillionaire is someone who has at least $100 million, while a billionaire has more than $1,000 million.
The study, conducted for the advisory firm Henley & Partners by New World Wealth, defines wealth as “liquid investable” assets, which means cash, bonds and shares but excludes property wealth.
The assessment was conducted before the recent stock market falls that followed the announcement of Donald Trump’s tariffs.

New World Wealth said that London, which now has 215,700 dollar millionaires, is one of only two cities in the top 50 — the other being Moscow — that has fewer rich people than ten years ago. Even Paris has seen a rise in the number of millionaires, with a 5 per cent increase over the period.
In total, London has lost 12 per cent of its richest residents since 2014, with the decline being attributed to tax increases, Brexit and the fall in the value of the pound, while Moscow has lost 25 per cent, mostly because of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
However, in absolute terms, London has lost more millionaires than anywhere else, with about 30,000 heading for the exit over the past ten years, compared with 10,000 fleeing Moscow.
Last week The Times reported how the exodus of wealth from the UK had accelerated sharply in the first three months of the year before Labour’s abolition of the non-domiciled tax regime.
From Monday, the centuries-old status, which allowed wealthy foreigners living in the UK to shelter their worldwide assets from British taxes for an annual fee starting at £30,000, was replaced with a much less generous residence-based system.
The new system means any wealthy foreigners who have lived in the UK for longer than four years now have to pay UK income and capital gains taxes on their global earnings.
If they stay long enough in the country, their worldwide assets will also become subject to UK inheritance tax (IHT) of 40 per cent, which is one of the highest rates in the world.
Tax advisers say non-doms are relocating to countries such as Portugal, St Kitts and Nevis, Spain, Greece, the United Arab Emirates and Italy, where taxes are either much lower or where they can pay a fixed annual fee to avoid them. Italy, for example, charges €200,000 a year to foreigners who wish to shelter their worldwide assets from local taxes.

Andrew Amoils, the head of research at New World Wealth, said high taxes in the UK relative to other countries had encouraged many wealthy investors to leave London and deterred others from replacing them.
“Capital gains tax and estate duty rates [IHT] in the UK are amongst the highest in the world, which deters wealthy business owners and retirees from living there.”
He added: “It’s worth noting that most of the companies on the FTSE 100 were started by centimillionaires, so the loss of these individuals has a massive impact on an economy.”
But he explained that there were other reasons for London’s poor performance, such as the failure to recover from the 2008 financial crisis and to nurture enough new technology businesses.
He added: “The growing dominance of America and Asia in the global hi-tech space has caused wealthy tech entrepreneurs in the UK to reconsider their base location. Brexit has arguably had an exacerbating effect on this.”

He also believes that the “dwindling importance” of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) is another factor.
“The LSE was once the largest stock market in the world by market capitalisation but it now ranks 11th globally. The past two decades has been particularly poor, with a large number of companies de-listings and relatively few new IPOs [initial public offerings].”
He added: “The continued ascendance of nearby financial hubs such as Dubai, Paris, Geneva, Frankfurt and Amsterdam has eroded London’s status as Europe’s top financial centre.”
The data shows that London has been overtaken by Los Angeles and that American cities now dominate the top 50, with 11 making the list.

Overall, New York is ranked as the richest city in the world with 384,500 dollar millionaires, followed by the San Francisco Bay Area, which is home to Silicon Valley, where many technology businesses are based.
Tokyo is the third wealthiest city with 292,300 dollar millionaires, followed by Singapore.
Manchester is the only other British city to make the top 50, in 46th place with 23,400 dollar millionaires.
Australia has four cities in the top 50, China has five and Germany has three.

Juerg Steffen, the chief executive of Henley & Partners, said: “A clear pattern is emerging in 2025: cities that blend investment freedom with lifestyle dividends are winning the competition for mobile capital.

Source : https://archive.is/2025.04.08-194250/https://www.thetimes.com/uk/london/article/london-falls-out-top-five-wealthiest-cities-wtmn0ws9m#selection-1775.0-1778.0

Billionaire presidential adviser Elon Musk attacked White House trade counselor Peter Navarro as “dumber than a sack of bricks” as a fight over President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariff regime spilled onto social media on Tuesday.
In a flurry of posts on his social media platform X, Musk called Navarro “truly a moron” and mocked the trade adviser for in the past citing the work of “Ron Vara” — a fictional expert whose name is an anagram of his own.
The missives were the latest volley in an increasingly bitter spat between the two that broke out after Trump last week announced that he was imposing a minimum 10% tariff on most imports, with additional levies on around 60 countries that have larger trade deficits with the US. The announcement was seen as a policy win for Navarro, who has advocated aggressive trade measures in hopes of helping to boost domestic manufacturing.
Shortly after the announcement, Musk jabbed at Navarro by saying his degree in economics from Harvard is “a bad thing, not a good thing” and criticizing the trade adviser for not having built companies on his own.
Navarro, in a subsequent interview with CNBC, said the criticism was not surprising from the Tesla Inc. CEO because he was a “car assembler” who used parts from other countries.
“When it comes to tariffs and trade, we all understand in the White House — and the American people understand — that Elon is a car manufacturer, but he’s not a car manufacturer. He’s a car assembler,” Navarro said.
“He’s a car person. That’s what he does, and he wants the cheap foreign parts,” he added.
Those claims earned Musk’s ire; in addition to the personal attacks, Musk defended Tesla as “the most vertically integrated auto manufacturer in America with the highest percentage of US content.”
The dispute within the ranks of senior Trump aides comes as many companies, nations, and trade groups have expressed frustration over the uncertainty around how to best negotiate a reduction to Trump’s tariffs. The higher duties on select countries are set to go into effect after midnight.

Source : https://archive.is/2025.04.08-144652/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-08/musk-calls-navarro-a-moron-as-trump-tariff-spat-gets-messy#selection-1529.0-1532.0

A POWERFUL nuclear weapon that’s 24 times stronger than the bomb that killed hundreds of thousands of people at Hiroshima is underway.

The United States has ramped up production of the bone-chilling B61-13 bomb seven months ahead of schedule in an “aggressive” move to keep up with global powers.

Last week, Sandia National Laboratories announced that the production of these latest weapons is being fast-tracked under “innovative program planning.”

The program is now allowing the project to be completed 25% faster than initially scheduled.

The B61-13 is the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s answer to its 2023 task of building a new nuclear gravity bomb, Interesting Engineering reported.

The gravity bomb, which is dropped from a plane rather than being self-propelled, cost $92 million to develop.

However, this weapon will be equipped with a tail kit that can pilot it straight to a target, New Atlas reported.

Sandia National Laboratories’ new bomb builds off of the B61-7 bomb and can yield 10 to 360 kilotons, allowing it to be thrown at different targets without damaging other areas.

The B61-13’s high maximum yield makes it 24 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.

The Hiroshima bomb yielded between 12 to 18 kilotons, whereas the Nagasaki bomb yielded 18 to 23 kilotons.

SNL’s B61-13 will be the latest of the US’s oldest nuclear weapons program, which began in 1968.

It is planned to first fly aboard the B-2 Spirit bomber and will later be carried on the B-21 stealth bomber.

NUCLEAR THREATS

President Donald Trump has openly admitted he’s no fan of nuclear weapons, but nevertheless, America is doubling down on production to deter threats from competitors China and Russia.

Trump previously called the weapons the “greatest existential threat” to humanity and has taken action over the past few weeks to work with other countries on their nuclear plans.

“We spend a lot of money of nuclear weapons – the level of destruction is beyond anything you can imagine,” Donald Trump said during an interview on Fox News in March.

“It’s just bad that you have to spend all this money on something that, if it’s used, it’s probably the end of the world.

“Nuclear weapons […] are big monsters that can blow your heads off for miles and miles and miles.”

On Monday, Trump said that direct talks are underway between the United States and Iran regarding Tehran’s nuclear program, CNN reported.

The president said “a very big meeting” will occur on Saturday and that it will be “at the top level.”

“I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious,” Trump said.

Sources told the outlet that US and Iranian officials will directly discuss a nuclear deal, marking the first direct discussion between the two countries since 2015.

“It is as much an opportunity as it is a test. The ball is in America’s court,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei previously rejected Trump’s invitation to negotiate the nuclear deal directly.

Trump’s latest offer, which he sent in March, proposed that the two negotiate the nuclear deal with a two-month ultimatum to reach an agreement.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/13967576/us-iran-new-nuclear-weapon-sandia-national-laboratories/

Two widely followed Chinese public figures — one an editor for a state media outlet, the other the son of a former party chief — released identical outlines on Tuesday of countermeasures Chinese authorities are said to be considering in response to Trump’s tariffs.

The U.S. film industry so far has escaped direct retaliation from countries hit by President Donald Trump‘s globe-spanning tariffs, thanks to theatrical film releases and streaming platforms being categorized as services rather than physical goods. But Hollywood’s luck in China, the world’s second-largest film market, could soon run out, according to statements issued Tuesday by two influential public figures in the country.

With trade relations between Washington and Beijing spiraling, two widely followed Chinese bloggers posted an identical set of measures that local authorities are said to be mulling in response to Trump’s 54 percent tariffs on all Chinese goods, which the president vowed to increase to 104 percent if Beijing didn’t back down from a pledge to match the current U.S. tariff rate. The list of mooted moves includes “reducing or banning the import of U.S. films,” as well as increasing tariffs on U.S. agricultural goods and U.S. services, among other countermeasures.

The potential plans were shared simultaneously over local social media by Liu Hong, a senior editor at the state-backed Xinhua News Agency, and Ren Yi, the influential and widely followed grandson of Ren Zhongyi, former Communist Party chief of Guangdong Province. Both figures attributed the outlined proposals to unnamed sources familiar with authorities’ planning. Bloomberg News was the first Western outlet to cover their statements.

The U.S. studios’ earnings in China have declined drastically in recent years as local tastes have shifted away from Hollywood franchise spectacle toward the country’s homegrown Chinese-language blockbusters. But losing all access to the Chinese market could still ding the studios’ bottom lines. Warner Bros. and Legendary’s A Minecraft Movie opened in China in first place last weekend with ticket sales of $14.5 million, just over 10 percent of its $144 international earnings haul. In 2024, the biggest U.S. release in the country was Warner Bros. and Legendary’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire with a hefty $132 million China box office total.

Chinese authorities hold a firm grip over every aspect of film distribution in the country and they have worked tirelessly over the years to boost local content at the expense of imported movies. Under former trade agreements, China committed to releasing 34 foreign films per year under revenue-share terms, with overseas studios permitted to a 25 percent share of ticket sales. Other films, usually smaller-budget titles, are imported via a buy-out system, where a local distributor pays a flat fee to release the movie in Chinese theaters. China’s film regulators also maintain strict censorship standards for film content and choose the release dates for all movies, reserving the most lucrative holiday windows for local Chinese films.

Source : https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/china-mulling-ban-hollywood-film-releases-trump-tariffs-1236184531/

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed Donald Trump to pursue deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members using a 1798 law that historically has been employed only in wartime as part of the Republican president’s hardline approach to immigration, but with certain limits.
The court, in an unsigned 5-4 ruling powered by conservative justices, granted the administration’s request to lift Washington-based U.S. Judge James Boasberg’s March 15 order that had temporarily blocked the summary deportations under Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act while litigation in the case continues.

Despite siding with the administration, the court’s majority placed limits on how deportations may occur, emphasizing that judicial review is required.
Detainees “must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act. The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs,” the majority wrote.
The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the court’s three liberal justices dissented.

Trump’s administration has argued that Boasberg had encroached on presidential authority to make national security decisions.
“The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself,” Trump wrote on social media.
Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act on March 15 to swiftly deport the alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang, attempting to speed up removals with a law best known for its use to intern Japanese, Italian and German immigrants during World War Two.
In Monday’s decision, the court said that to challenge the legitimacy of their detention under the Alien Enemies Act detainees must pursue so-called habeas corpus claims in the federal judicial district where a detainee is located. That means that the proper venue for this litigation was in Texas, not the District of Columbia, the court said.

The ruling said the court was not resolving the validity of the administration’s reliance on that law to carry out the deportations.
The plaintiffs in the case “challenge the government’s interpretation of the Act and assert that they do not fall within the category of removable alien enemies. But we do not reach those arguments,” the court decided.
In a legal challenge handled by the American Civil Liberties Union, a group of Venezuelan men in the custody of U.S. immigration authorities sued on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated, seeking to block the deportations. They argued, among other things, that Trump’s order exceeded his powers because the Alien Enemies Act authorizes removals only when war has been declared or the United States has been invaded.

The law authorizes the president to deport, detain or place restrictions on individuals whose primary allegiance is to a foreign power and who might pose a national security risk in wartime.

DUE PROCESS

Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with ACLU and lead counsel representing the detainees, framed the court’s decision as a win for his side.
“This ruling means we will need to start the court process over again in a different venue, but the critical point is that the Supreme Court said individuals must be given due process to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act,” Gelernt said. “That is a huge victory.”
The dissenting justices, in an opinion written by liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, criticized the majority’s “dubious” conclusions in the case and for acting with just a few days of deliberation.
There is “every reason to question the majority’s hurried conclusion that habeas relief supplies the exclusive means to challenge removal under the Alien Enemies Act,” Sotomayor wrote.
Sotomayor said that federal courts called upon to review these cases going forward will probe the interpretation of the Alien Enemies Act, including whether there is an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” justifying its use, and “whether any given individual is in fact a member of Tren de Aragua.”
Requiring detainees to make individual claims across the country “risks exposing them to severe and irreparable harm,” Sotomayor wrote in part of the dissent joined by the two other liberal justices and not Barrett. One risk is that they will not know whether they will remain in detention where they are arrested or be secretly transferred to an alternative location, Sotomayor said.
“That requirement may have life or death consequences,” Sotomayor wrote.
Boasberg, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, temporarily blocked the deportations. But Trump’s administration allowed two planes already in the air to continue to El Salvador where American officials handed 238 Venezuelan men over to Salvadoran authorities to be placed in the Central American country’s “Terrorism Confinement Center.”
The judge also has scrutinized whether the Trump administration violated his order by failing to return the deportation flights after his order was issued. Justice Department lawyers said the flights had left U.S. airspace by the time Boasberg issued a written order and thus were not required to return. They dismissed the weight of Boasberg’s spoken order during a hearing two hours earlier calling for any planes carrying deportees to be turned around.
On March 18, Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment by Congress – a process that could remove him from the bench – drawing a rebuke from the U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts. Trump on social media called Boasberg, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2011 in a bipartisan 96-0 vote, a “Radical Left Lunatic” and a “troublemaker and agitator.”

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-backs-trump-deportations-under-1798-law-2025-04-07/

RIHANNA fans have gone into meltdown and are convinced she’s pregnant with her third child.

The superstar singer, 37, already shares two children RZA, aged two, and Riot Rose, aged one, with rapper A$AP Rocky, 36.

Now it looks like busy mom Rihanna – who is a billionaire thanks to her brand Fenty – could be adding to their ever-growing brood.

Fan speculation she could be expecting another baby came during a recent appearance in Paris.

The Barbados-born singer was seen at a Fenty event in the French capital wearing a big baggy gold dress that hid her stomach outline completely.

It was this choice of dress that REALLY got tongues wagging.

After a video of her in Paris wearing the huge dress was posted on X/Twitter, one fan wrote: “This dress is giving very pregnant!!”

This one added: “Is she pregnant again?”

Another said: “Girl, are you having another baby?”

But this isn’t the only time she has hidden her figure, which has led to more speculation.

Rihanna was also spotted shopping at a grocery store in LA and had covered herself up in a baggy grey sweater, and again having sinner in Santa Monica.

If she is expecting, this would be mean the singer would have had three kids within three years.

HAPPY FAMILY

The fan speculation comes after the singer recently opened up about her life as a parent, and admitted she hoped to have more children in the future.

She told Entertainment Tonight: “I wanna have a girl. I wouldn’t know what to do ’cause I only know about boys so far. It will be a new adventure!”

As for life as a boy mom, she said: “[It’s] The best, I live for it. It’s never a dull moment.

“I love when they climb off the chandeliers. I love when they literally are so scary that I’m forced to have fun. Me running around, me lifting them up, it’s all fun.”

NEW MUSIC

Over recent years, Rihanna has been focusing on her billionaire dollar beauty and fashion empire, and also becoming a mom.

This has meant she hasn’t released any new music in nine years.

However, she recently revealed that her new album will be “unexpected” and she feels “really optimistic” about it.

“I know it’s not going to be anything that anybody expects,” she told Harper’s Bazaar.

“And it’s not going to be commercial or radio digestible. It’s going to be where my artistry deserves to be right now.”

Rihanna has kept fans waiting for years for new music as her eighth studio album, Anti, was released in 2016.

There had been talk of her new record being a reggae album, but Rihanna has dismissed this.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/13958259/rihanna-fans-convinced-pregnant-baggy-dress/

Iran, Saudia Arabia and Iraq accounted for 90% of the recorded cases and were responsible for the steep spike. Iran topped the list. It put at least 972 people to death, up from 853 the year before.

In Saudi Arabia figures doubled to at least 345 — the most ever recorded for the country by the human rights watchdog Amnesty International. In Iraq, the death penalty was implemented 63 times, almost a quadrupling of numbers in comparison to 2023.

Amnesty International, however, named China as the “world’s lead executioner” in its annual report, saying that the information available indicated that thousands had been executed there. The country refuses to disclose data. The NGO also suspects North Korea and Vietnam of extensively resorting to the death penalty.

The silencing of dissent

Saudi Arabia has seen a steep escalation in executions despite Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s modernization agenda and his pledges to curb their use. Amnesty International said the crushing of political dissent was a major motive.

The NGO said Saudi authorities had continued to weaponize the death penalty to punish nationals from the country’s Shi’a minority who supported “anti-government” protests between 2011 and 2013.

In August, the authorities executed Abdulmajeed al-Nimr for terrorism-related offenses related to joining Al-Qaeda, despite initial court documents that clearly referred to his participation in protests.

“In the media, we saw how authorities used this case to spin a narrative related to terrorism and terrorism-related offenses, which shows how terrorism can be used as a tool to push a perception that the death penalty is necessary to quell dissent and protect the public,” said Amnesty death penalty expert Chiara Sangiorgio.

In Iran, there were also two more executions in connection with the nationwideprotests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody in 2022. One was 23-year-old Mohammad Ghobadlou, a protester with a long-term mental health condition.

“Those who dare challenge authorities have faced the most cruel of punishments, particularly in Iran and Saudi Arabia, with the death penalty used to silence those brave enough to speak out,” said AI Secretary General Agnès Callamard.

Drugs crimes

More than 40% of executions in 2024 were drug-related. Carrying out the death penalty for drugs crimes is also widely prevalent in Singapore and China, according to the Amnesty report.

“In many contexts, sentencing people to death for drug-related offenses has been found to disproportionately impact those from disadvantaged backgrounds, while it has no proven effect in reducing drug trafficking,” said Callamard.

She said states currently considering introducing capital punishment for drug-related offenses, such as the Maldives, Nigeria and Tonga, must be called out and encouraged to put human rights at the center of their drug policies.

In Malaysia, however, some 1,000 people who were on death row — many on drug charges — have been reprieved as a result of reforms set in motion in 2023. The country removed mandatory capital punishment for crimes including trafficking.

The outlier, the United States

The United States remains the outlier in Western democracies in its use of the death penalty. While there was only a slight rise in figures overall in the US in 2024 from 24 to 25 executions, there were concerning trends, according to Amnesty International.

“The figures speak of very low historical totals both when it comes to executions and the sentences, however, last year we also saw four states resuming executions, South Carolina, Georgia, Utah and Indiana. That was deeply worrying because these were states where they had not been carried out for several years,” said AI researcher Sangiorgio.

In Alabama, the number of executions doubled and included the use of nitrogen gas. UN monitors have said death by suffocation with nitrogen hypoxia could amount to torture.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/global-executions-reach-highest-figure-in-almost-a-decade/a-72139997

President Donald Trump said on Monday that he is not considering pausing tariffs to give markets a respite and negotiate with other countries in the meantime, adding that it’s an “honor” to do so.

“We’re not looking at that, we have many countries coming to negotiate deals with us. They’ll be fair deals and in certain cases they’ll be paying substantial tariffs,” said Trump at the White House while talking to press after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We have one shot at this and no other president is going to do this. It’s an honor to do it because we have been destroyed. We are $36 trillion in debt for a reason. We’ll be talking to China, to a lot of different countries. We’ll seek to make a really fair deal for the U.S., not for others. This is America first. Other people in the Oval Office put America last,” Trump added. “We have an opportunity to change the fabric of our country. We have an opportunity to reset the table on trade.”

Trump was asked about the potential pause after markets surged during the morning over a false quote attributed to National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett.

However, the spike suddenly reversed as the quote couldn’t be verified, and reviews of the official’s interview with Fox News on Monday showed nothing of the kind. The White House’s rapid response X account, Rapid Response 47, replied to a publication saying “Wrong. Fake News.”

It is unclear how the quote originated, but Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman, who strongly backed Trump in the presidential election, called precisely for a 90-day reprieve on tariffs on Sunday night, warning that the world would otherwise enter a “self-induced economic nuclear winter.”

Source : https://www.latintimes.com/trump-says-hes-not-considering-pausing-tariffs-claims-its-honor-impose-them-580124

It’s likely that you have not heard of Taiwan’s Hong Fu Industrial Group, but look down on a busy street and you may well see its products.

Hong Fu is the world’s second-biggest maker of trainers (sneakers) supplying shoes to Nike, Converse, Adidas, Puma and many others. It makes around 200 million pairs of sports shoes a year.

So when it made a big investment in India’s market, the footwear industry took note.

Hong Fu is currently building a giant plant in Panapakkam, in the state of Tamil Nadu in south eastern India. When fully operation, sometime in the next three to five years, it will make 25 million pairs of shoes a year, employing as many as 25,000 workers.

The project has Indian partners, including Aqeel Panaruna, the chairman of Florence Shoe Company: “The international market is saturated and they [Hong Fu] were looking for a new market,” he explains.

“There is a drastic increase in non-leather footwear in India. It has huge potential,” Mr Panaruna added.

The Indian government is keen to attract such investment, hoping it will raise standards in the footwear industry and boost exports.

To spur the industry, last August the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) introduced new quality rules for all shoes sold in India.

Under those standards, for example, materials will have to pass tests of strength and flexibility.

“These BIS standards are really about cleaning up the market. We’ve had too many low-quality products flooding in, and consumers deserve better,” says Sandeep Sharma a journalist and footwear industry expert.

But many in India can’t afford shoes from well-known brands.

Serving them is a huge and intricate network of small shoe makers, known as the unorganised sector.

Their affordable products are estimated to account for two-thirds of the total footwear market.

Ashok (he withheld his full name) counts himself as part of that sector, with shoe making units all across the district of Agra in northern India. He estimates that 200,0000 pairs of shoes are made everyday by operations like his across Agra.

“Many consumers, especially in rural and lower-income urban areas, opt for cheaper local footwear instead of branded options,” he says.

“Many organised brands struggle to expand their retail footprint in semi-urban and rural areas because we cater to them.”

So how will the new government standards affect makers like Ashok?

“It’s complicated,” says Mr Sharma.

“I think the government is trying to walk a tightrope here. They can’t just shut down thousands of small businesses that employ millions of people – that would be economic suicide.

“What I’m seeing is more of a carrot-and-stick approach. They’re pushing for standards, but also rolling out programs to help small manufacturers upgrade their processes. It’s not about wiping out the unorganised sector but gradually bringing them into the fold.”

Making the situation more complicated is that the unorganised sector is well-known for making counterfeit shoes of big brands.

While popular among Indian shoppers looking for a stylish bargain, other countries have long-complained about the losses caused.

Meanwhile, a host of new Indian trainer-makers are springing up, to serve India’s growing middle class.

Sabhib Agrawal is trying to get those buyers interested in barefoot footwear – shoes which, their makers say, are healthy for the foot as they encourage natural, or barefoot, movement.

Mr Agrawal says his company, Zen Barefoot, is unusual as much of the Indian footwear industry is not very innovative.

“There are very few people who are ready to take time and invest in new technologies here. Indian manufacturing is a very profit- first market, ROI [return on investment] driven.

“And in a lot of cases, even the government is not ready to enable these industries through grants or tax relief, which makes it quite difficult.”

Comet is one Indian firm looking to innovate.

It claims to be the first homegrown trainer brand that owns the whole production process, from design to manufacturing.

“This level of control allows us to experiment with materials, introduce innovative silhouettes, and continuously refine comfort and fit based on real feedback,” says founder Utkarsh Gupta.

He says the Comet shoes are adapted to India’s climate and roads.

“Most homegrown brands rely on off-the-shelf soles from the market, but when we started Comet, we realized that these were lacking in quality, durability, and grip,” he says.

Change is coming to the footwear sector he says. “The shift to high value is now happening.”

“Many high value brands need to move their manufacturing to India. In 3-5 years, we should have a robust ecosystem to compete in the international sneaker market,” he adds.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2nplgm2kpo

Elon Musk’s X says it is launching a crackdown on “parody” accounts.

The site has an exemption for accounts that impersonate other people if they are labelled as doing so for comedy. But, often, that loophole is used by scammers who pretend to be other famous users in an attempt to trick people into scams or amplifying their content.

X has been struggling with such accounts since soon after Mr Musk bought the platform, when it was still known as Twitter.

One of his first decisions was to remove the “verified” badges that until then had been used to show that an account really belonged to who it claimed to, and allow people to pay for the small blue checkmarks. That allowed anyone to change their name and picture to that of another account and made it relatively easy to impersonate other users.

Soon after, the site introduced a ban on accounts claiming to be other users, but left a loophole for those parody accounts, apparently in keeping with Musk’s claimed commitment to freedom of speech and comedy. Those accounts were required to make clear that they were parody accounts – but many simply put the message indicating so at the end of their name, and character limits mean that it did not often show clearly.

That has allowed many users to pose as Elon Musk and conduct cryptocurrency scams and other misleading behaviour. A recent post that claimed to be by him and asked users to like a comment for a chance to win a Tesla has been interacted with hundreds of thousands of times.

Now, X says that those parody accounts will be required to add keywords at the front of their name and will no longer be able to use the same pictures of the accounts they “depict”.

Source : https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/elon-musk-x-twitter-rules-parody-b2729019.html

Donald Trump has said the US is having direct talks with Iran over its nuclear programme – stating Iran will be in “great danger” if the negotiations fail.

The president has insisted Tehran cannot get nuclear weapons.

But Iran almost immediately contradicted the president insisting the talks due to take place in Oman on Saturday would be conducted through an intermediary.

Iran had pushed back against the US president’s demand that it enter negotiations over its nuclear programme or be bombed, but speaking at the White House on Monday, Mr Trump said: “We’re having direct talks with Iran, and they’ve started.

“It’ll go on Saturday,” he continued. “We have a very big meeting, and we’ll see what can happen. And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable.”

When pressed for more details on the talks, the US president said they are taking place “at almost the highest level”, without specifying who would take part or where they would be held.

“Hopefully those talks will be successful, it would be in Iran’s best interests if they are successful,” he said. “We hope that’s going to happen.

Speaking in the Oval Office on Monday, Mr Trump said Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon, and if the talks aren’t successful, I actually think it will be a very bad day for Iran”.

However, Mr Trump’s bullish comments were not matched by Tehran. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X that indirect high-level talks would be held in Oman, adding: “It is as much an opportunity as it is a test. The ball is in America’s court.”

On Tuesday, Iran’s state media said the talks would be led by Mr Araghchi and US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, with Oman’s foreign minister, Badr al Busaidi, acting as intermediary.

Mr Trump’s previous warnings of possible military action against Iran heightened already tense nerves across the Middle East.

He has said he would prefer a deal over military confrontation and in March wrote to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to suggest talks. Iranian officials at the time said Tehran would not be bullied into negotiations.

The US Supreme Court has delayed a midnight deadline for Donald Trump’s administration to return a man mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

A US district judge had ordered the administration to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia by the end of Monday, after he and his family filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of his deportation.

The US president’s administration had conceded the 29-year-old should not have been sent to El Salvador because an immigration judge found he likely would face persecution by local gangs.

But the administration argued he is no longer in US custody and the government has no way to get him back.

US District Judge Paula Xinis gave the administration until just before midnight to “facilitate and effectuate” Mr Garcia’s return.

She found the government had no lawful authority to detain and deport Mr Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who lived in Maryland legally with a work permit.

She said the decision to arrest him and send him to El Salvador appears to be “wholly lawless” as little to no evidence supports a “vague, uncorroborated” allegation he was once a member of the gang MS-13, which Mr Trump’s administration had designated a foreign terrorist organisation.

Mr Garcia’s lawyers have denied he is part of a gang.

Chief Justice John Roberts, acting on behalf of the US Supreme Court, temporarily halted the judge’s order, giving the nine justices additional time to consider the administration’s request to block the order while litigation in the case continues.

Supreme Court allows Trump to use 18th-century law for deportations

It comes as the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to use a wartime law from 1798 to deport Venezuelan migrants – but said they must get a court hearing before they are removed from the US.

The bitterly divided 5-4 decision was a response to the administration’s emergency appeal over a court order that had temporarily blocked the summary deportations under President Trump’s usage of the Alien Enemies Act while litigation in the case continues.

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/us-supreme-court-delays-deadline-to-return-man-mistakenly-deported-to-el-salvador-13344180

Until five weeks ago, Arturo Suarez was a professional singer, performing in the United States as he waited for his asylum claim to be processed.

Originally from Venezuela, he had entered the US through proper, legal channels.

But he is now imprisoned in a notorious jail in El Salvador, sent there by the Trump administration, despite seemingly never having faced trial or committed any crime. The White House claims he is a gang member but has not provided evidence to support this allegation.

His brother, Nelson Suarez, told Sky News he believes his brother’s only “crime” is being Venezuelan and having tattoos.

“He is not a gang member,” Nelson says, adamantly, “I’ve come to the conclusion that it has to be because of the tattoos. If you don’t have a criminal record, you haven’t committed any crime in the United States, what other reason could there be? Because you’re Venezuelan?”

Arturo, 34, was recording a music video inside a house in March when he was arrested by immigration agents.

He was first taken to a deportation centre in El Paso, Texas, and then, it appears, put on to a military flight to El Salvador.

His family have not heard from him since. Lawyers and immigrant rights groups have been unable to make contact with any of the more than 200 Venezuelan men sent to the CECOT prison, which holds members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs.

Tattoo clue to Arturo Suarez’s whereabouts

Nelson learned his brother is – most likely – in CECOT only because of a photograph he spotted on a news website of a group of inmates, with their hands and feet cuffed, heads shaved and bodies shackled together.

“You can see the hummingbird tattoo on his neck,” Nelson says, pointing to the picture. He says Arturo wanted a hummingbird in memory of their late mother. Arturo has 33 tattoos in total, including a piano, poems and verses from the Bible.

It could be that one, or more, of those tattoos landed him at the centre of President Trump’s anti-immigration showpiece. Nelson shows me documents which indicate that Arturo did not have a criminal record in Venezuela, Chile, Colombia or the United States, the four countries he has lived in.

Sky News contacted the White House, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for a response to Arturo’s case but have not heard back.

In March, Donald Trump signed the Alien Enemies Act, a law from 1798 which has been invoked just three times before, in wartime.

It allows the president to detain and deport immigrants living legally in the US if they are from countries deemed “enemies” of the government. In this instance, Mr Trump claimed the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had “infiltrated the United States” and was “conducting irregular warfare”.

Gang symbol tattoos

Immigration officials have centred on certain tattoos being gang symbols. Immigration officers were provided with a document called the “Alien Enemy Validation Guide”, according to a court filing from the American Civil Liberties Union. The document provides a point-based system to determine if an immigrant in custody “may be validated” as a gang member.

Migrants who score six points and higher may be designated as members of the Tren de Aragua gang, according to the document. Tattoos which fall under a “symbolism” category score four points and social media posts “displaying” gang symbols are two points. Tattoos considered suspicious, according to the document, include crowns, stars and the Michael Jordan Jumpman logo.

Jerce Reyes Barrios’s story

Another of the men sent to CECOT prison is 36-year-old Jerce Reyes Barrios, who fled Venezuela last year after marching in anti-government protests. He is a former footballer and football coach.

His lawyer, Linette Tobin, told Sky News that Reyes Barrios entered the US legally after waiting in Mexico for four months for an immigration appointment and then presenting himself at the border.

She says he was detained in a maximum security prison in the US while awaiting his asylum appointment. But before that appointment happened, he was flown to the El Salvador prison.

Ms Tobin says the DHS deported Reyes Barrios because they designated him a Tren De Aragua gang member based on two pieces of evidence.

The first, she says, is a tattoo of the Real Madrid football team logo surrounded by rosary beads. She has since obtained a declaration from the tattoo artist stating that Reyes Barrios just wanted an image which depicted his favourite team.

The second piece of evidence, she says, is a photograph, which she shows me, of Reyes Barrios in a hot tub with friends when he was a college student 13 years ago.

He is making a gesture which could be interpreted as “rock and roll”, but which she says has been interpreted as a gang symbol.

Distraught family in despair

Reyes Barrios has no criminal record in his home country. “I’ve never known anything like this,” Ms Tobin says.

“My client was deported to a third country and we have no way of getting in touch with him. His family are distraught and in despair, they cry a lot, not knowing what is going on with him. We want him returned to the United States to have a hearing and due process.”

Ms Tobin says she and other lawyers representing men sent to the El Salvador prison are trying to establish a UN working group on enforced disappearances to do a wellness check on them because the prison is completely “incommunicado”.

Sky News contacted the DHS for comment about Reyes Barrios’s case but did not receive a response. The DHS previously issued a statement declaring that “DHS intelligence assessments go well beyond just gang-affiliated tattoos. This man’s own social media indicates he is a member of Tren de Aragua”.

Reyes Barrios has an immigration hearing scheduled for 17 April, Ms Tobin says, which the Trump administration is trying to dismiss on the grounds that he is not in the US anymore.

In the meantime, children he used to coach football for in his hometown of Machiques in Venezuela have been holding a prayer vigil for him and calling for his release.

The secretary of the DHS, Kristi Noem, visited CECOT last month and posed for photos standing in front of inmates behind bars.

“Do not come to our country illegally,” she said, “you will be removed, and you will be prosecuted.” Donald Trump had promised during his election campaign to clamp down on immigration, railing against undocumented immigrants and claiming immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”.

I ask Arturo Suarez’s brother, Nelson, how he felt watching Ms Noem posing in the prison, knowing that his brother might be close by.

“I feel bad,” he says, “I feel horrible, because in those images we only see criminals. With my brother, I feel it is more a political issue. They needed numbers, they said, these are the numbers, and now, let’s throw them to the lions.”

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/singer-thrown-to-the-lions-in-el-salvador-jail-13343119

China’s Commerce Ministry said it “resolutely opposes” U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of escalating tariffs, and vowed to take countermeasures to safeguard its own rights and interests.

The comments came after Trump said he would impose an additional 50% duty on U.S. imports from China Wednesday, if Beijing does not withdraw the 34% tariff it imposed on American products last week.

“The U.S. threat to escalate tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake,” the statement said, according to a CNBC translation. “China will never accept it. If the U.S. insists on its own way, China will fight to the end.”

Last Friday, China’s Finance Ministry announced 34% in additional tariffs on all goods imported from the U.S., starting April 10, in retaliation to Trump imposing new levies of 34% on China.

The across-the-board tariffs followed two previous rounds of 10%-15% tariffs, targeting mostly agricultural and energy products imported from the U.S. The broadened tariff scope reflects Chinese leadership’s diminished hopes for a trade deal with the U.S., said Gabriel Wildau, managing director at Teneo.

Trump’s 34% tariffs on China were on top of the 20% duties rolled out since February, bringing the total new tariffs this year on China to 54%. The additional levies have lifted U.S. weighted average tariff rate on China to as high as 65%, and could dent China’s economy by 1.5 to 2 percentage points this year, according to Morgan Stanley.

“Since China already faces more than 60% in tariff rate, it doesn’t really matter if it goes up by 50% or 500%,” said Tianchen Xu, senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, suggesting Beijing is prepared for a “full on” trade war with the U.S.

“China is on the defensive side, but basically the two sides are testing each other’s limit,” Xu said.

As risks of an intense U.S.-China trade war rise, Beijing might resort to further retaliatory measures, such as stopping purchases of U.S. agricultural goods, matching U.S. tariffs and further expansion of export controls on metals and minerals, Xu added.

Beijing has already placed export curbs on key rare earth elements, prohibited exports of dual-use items to a dozen of U.S. entities, U.S. firms to its “unreliable entities list,” subjecting them to broader restrictions while operating in China.

The People’s Bank of China on Tuesday set the midpoint rate for onshore yuan at 7.2038 per dollar, the weakest level since September 2023, according to data provider Wind Information. The yuan is allowed to trade within a 2% band of this midpoint rate.

The yuan’s weakening is a “big signal,” Robin Brooks, senior fellow at Brookings Institution told CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia, “this is Beijing politely saying this is getting a little too much, we are putting you on notice, we can devalue if we want and bigger things may come if you keep this up.”

“This is a clear shot across the bow of Washington,” Brooks added.

Chinese onshore yuan weakened as much as 0.39% to 7.3363 per dollar, while the offshore yuan was little changed.

Source : https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/08/china-resolutely-opposes-trumps-50percent-tariff-threat-vows-retaliation.html?__source=iosappshare%7Cnet.whatsapp.WhatsAppSMB.ShareExtension

Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan aren’t worried about being on the radar of some powerful federal prosecutors in New York … their lawyer’s brushing off an SDNY investigation as “merely a formality.”

In new legal docs, obtained by TMZ, the Tate brothers’ attorney, Joseph McBride, confirms the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is investigating Andrew and Tristan … and then said the probe is no biggie.

McBride claims he talked Monday with Assistant United States Attorney Jacqueline Kelly about the Tate investigation … he says he asked Kelly whether Andrew and Tristan needed to come in for questioning and claims he was told they did not.

The Tates’ lawyer also claims he told Kelly he would send over a list of reasons why the investigation should be dropped, and was told that was “currently unnecessary.”

Unclear how far along the investigation is, but McBride says … “We respectfully assert that the lack of an indictment, along with the absence of any requirement to appear for questioning or any request for a statement, indicates that the SDNY’s investigation is merely a formality.”

As we reported … the probe first came to light as part of a legal filing from the $5 million defamation lawsuit the Tate brothers filed last year against an unidentified woman and 3 others, where the Tates claim the defendants’ allegations prompted Romanian officials to criminally charge the brothers.

Meanwhile, Andrew is dealing with 2 other investigations in the United States … one in Florida and another in Beverly Hills, where his ex-girlfriend filed a police report claiming he sexually assaulted her. Tristan is also being looked at in a Florida probe in which Governor Ron DeSantis announced the brothers were not welcome in the Sunshine State.

Andrew and Tristan are also facing human trafficking charges in Romania, and they recently returned to that country for a court date in their case.

Source : https://www.tmz.com/2025/04/07/tate-brothers-lawyer-calls-sdny-federal-investigation-a-formality/

Prince Harry is in the U.K., preparing for yet another round of battle in his expensive court case against the British government—which he says should offer him automatic armed protection when he visits the U.K. due to “inherited risk”. According to a report in U.K. tabloid the Sun, Harry landed in the U.K. Sunday. The following day, Monday, saw the king fly to Italy with Queen Camilla, for four days of official engagements which will coincide with their 20th wedding anniversary. It is thought that Harry did not meet with Charles and both Buckingham Palace and Harry’s team did not comment to the Daily Beast. Harry’s arrival in the U.K. has fueled expectations that he intends to make an appearance at the Court of Appeal for the two-day hearing this week, in which he is seeking to have previous determinations that he is not eligible for automatic protection overturned. Harry is thought to have not seen Charles in person since he flew over to visit him when the king announced he had cancer last February.

Source : https://www.thedailybeast.com/prince-harry-lands-in-the-uk-but-avoids-his-dad/

An economist Donald Trump cited in calculations for his extra-high global tariffs says that the president should get an F- in math.

University of Chicago economics professor Brett Neiman was a Biden-era Treasury official who wrote the research Trump has cited. In a New York Times op-ed on Monday, Neiman described his initial shock at the initial announcement, still unaware that he was a major player.

“My first question, when the White House unveiled its tariff regime, was: How on earth did they calculate such huge rates?”

Neiman’s question was answered the next day, when he said it got “personal.”

“The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released its methodology and cited an academic paper produced by four economists, including me, seemingly in support of their numbers. But they got it wrong. Very wrong,” he said.

Neiman said that he disagrees “fundamentally” with Trump’s approach to trade policy. But regardless, the calculations are simply off: “Our findings suggest the calculated tariffs should be dramatically smaller—perhaps one-fourth as large.”

There are several problems behind Trump’s approach, said Neiman. For one, the “biggest mistake” is that the White House tried to calculate “reciprocal tariffs” to end trade deficits with U.S. trading partners.

“Is this a reasonable goal?” the economist wrote. “It is not.”

Trade balances are unavoidable and natural, Neiman added. “Americans spend more on clothing made in Sri Lanka than Sri Lankans spend on American pharmaceuticals and gas turbines. So what?”

Not every country has similar natural resources or development levels, he said. “The deficit numbers don’t suggest, let alone prove, unfair competition,” he added.

Neiman also quoted Nobel laureate Robert Solow to further explain his reasoning. Solow once said, “I have a chronic deficit with my barber, who doesn’t buy a darned thing from me.”

Therefore, not only are the numbers far off, but they’re unfair, he said. “Mr. Solow also surely ran a chronic surplus with his students, and these imbalances reveal nothing about trade barriers in hair care or higher education, nor would they speak to his financial health,” wrote Neiman.

Even if Trump was able to eliminate trade deficits, which Neiman said would be “destructive,” he noted that the reciprocal tariffs are destined to fail.

And even if “we grant the government its goal” and “ignore flaws in its tariff formula,” said Neiman, “do the computed tariffs then look right?”

“Guess what? They do not,” he wrote.

Neiman also said that while the administration’s trade office “cites our work,” it “mentions a different result.”

“The Trump administration then plugs a rate of 25 percent into its formula. Where does 25 percent come from? Is it related to our work? I don’t know,” he wrote.

Neiman warned readers about the consequences of Trump’s faulty math: “The reciprocal tariffs have enormous implications for workers, firms, consumers and stock markets around the globe. But the methodology note offers shockingly few details.”

Neiman’s far from the first expert who has critiqued Trump’s strategy. He’s even been slammed by far-right MAGA members like Ben Shapiro, who did a 180 on the president when he called the tariffs “probably unconstitutional” and “pretty crazy.” He also agreed that the president’s math was simply wrong and his vision was “mistaken.”

The tariffs have already begun to tank the economy, with markets plunging to unprecedented lows and both Republican and Democratic representatives bashing the president for his Trumponomics. On Thursday the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its worst day since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source : https://www.thedailybeast.com/economist-trump-cited-on-tariff-math-says-he-got-it-all-wrong/

It’s happening: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to direct the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to stop recommending fluoride in drinking water. The health secretary has been staunchly against fluoride since his own presidential campaign, claiming that it is “an industrial waste” linked to bone cancer and IQ loss, amongst other ailments. While Kennedy can’t directly order the end of fluoride himself, he can direct the CDC to stop recommending it. Just last week, Utah banned fluoride, a mineral that helps reduce cavities, from public water; a move many other states may echo after RFK Jr.’s decision. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also announced a review of “new scientific information” over the safety of fluoride in water. RFK Jr. told the Associated Press his plans to stop recommending fluoride after a speech in Salt Lake City, Utah. He has praised the state as being a leader of his MAHA mantra. “I’m very, very proud of this state for being the first state to ban it, and I hope many more will,” he said, according to the outlet.

Source : https://www.thedailybeast.com/manscaped-chairman-pro-electric-shaver-for-sensitive-skin/

Prince Harry is allegedly “not overly happy” with his wife, Meghan Markle, using their kids to promote her brand, As Ever.

Matt Wilkinson, a royal editor at the Sun, claimed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are not aligned when it comes to sharing photos of their children, Prince Archie, 5, and Princess Lilibet, 3, on social media.

“My understanding of this is that up to a certain stage Harry would much rather his children were not seen,” Wilkinson said on Friday’s episode of “A Right Royal Podcast.”

“He doesn’t want them to be [photographed],” Wilkinson added. “He’s got this idea that if he takes them outside of Montecito, that there is a hoard of us out there trying to take photos of his kids.”

On the flip side, the journalist claimed, “Meghan grew up in California, she once said she would like to have a more California-style lifestyle, take them down the beach, go out, do stuff.

“She doesn’t want to hide them away.”

Although Wilkinson noted that Markle doesn’t show her kids’ faces, he claimed she was using them to display her brand as a mother and “homemaker.”

“Harry is probably not overly happy,” he alleged.

Reps for Harry, 40, and Markle, 43, did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.

The “Suits” alum has shared more glimpses of Archie and Lilibet in recent months while promoting her new lifestyle brand.

In February, she took to Instagram to share a video of the kids making desserts on Valentine’s Day.

The following month, she posted a sweet photo of her daughter and Harry relaxing on a boat.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/04/06/royal-family/prince-harry-not-overly-happy-with-meghan-markle-using-kids-to-promote-brand-editor/

Michelle Williams called out a flight passenger for putting their “nasty” bare foot next to her first-class seat.

The Destiny’s Child alum took to Instagram Saturday to share a photo of the foot peeking out in the corner of her chair.

“I PROMISE YOU BETTA GETCHO FOOT FROM ME!!!! 🚨,” she captioned the photo. “Y’all this is happening neowwwwwwww on my flight and I am crying real tears!!”

“For those asking…….. YES I am sitting in the first class cabin,” Williams, 45, added in the comments. “A lot of AUDACITY resides in that booking class……. OBVIOUSLY!! #seat3F the f is for feet 😂.”

She also quipped in the comments, “Cue the song ‘nasty work’ by @yahyahanddomo_ 😂😂😂.”

In a follow-up video posted after the flight, the Broadway performer dramatically sang, “I made it out. I made it out alright,” before recapping the experience for her followers.

“Baby,” she began, “I made it and I made it home. Y’all I was almost defeated by someone’s feet … It tried to take me out.”

Williams explained that she looked down to see something in her peripheral vision before realizing in disbelief that it was a foot.

However, the singer conceded that the man’s foot was “not that bad” and described it as “conditioned” and “moisturized.”

Despite her disgust, Williams defended the man, speculating that he may have needed to “stretch out a little bit.”

“He was friendly though,” she added. “And he actually helped take my bag off the overhead bin, and I said, ‘Thank you.’”

The R&B songstress quipped that she “lived to tell the story.”

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/04/06/celebrity-news/michelle-williams-calls-out-flight-passenger-for-nasty-behavior-in-first-class/

SPOILER ALERT: The article contains major spoilers for the Season 3 finale of “White Lotus,” now streaming on Max.

It’s time to check out of the White Lotus — but some guests are leaving in bodybags.

The Season 3 finale of HBO’s “White Lotus” finally reveals what happened in the shootout heard in the premiere and the unlucky guests who don’t make it home alive. In the end, Rick (Walton Goggins), Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) and Jim (Scott Glenn) all die during the wild shooting, and it’s revealed that Jim is actually Rick’s father. After Jim insults Rick’s mother, Rick becomes furious and shoots him — which causes a shootout with Jim’s bodyguards. After being practically bullied into a rare moment of bravery, sensitive security guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) shoots Rick. Chelsea had already tragically gotten caught in the crossfire, and you can’t say she didn’t see it coming: Her demise was foreshadowed after she evaded death twice before with the jewelry store robbery and venomous snake bite. It turns out, her and Rick’s fates are interlinked and they will be together forever — in the afterlife.

The Ratliff family almost had bodies pile up, but everyone turns out unscathed — for now. After Timothy’s (Jason Isaacs) mental breakdown continues, he contemplates making a poisonous smoothie to kill off his family so they don’t have to suffer after the FBI busts him for his shady business deals. He uses Saxon’s (Patrick Schwarzenegger) blender to make a deadly pina coladas laced with deadlly pong-pong seeds, but when his family begin to drink them, he has a change of heart and knocks their glasses from their hands. However, Lochlan (Sam Nivola) wakes up the next morning and decides to make himself a smoothie with the remnants of his dad’s concoction. He unknowingly drinks the deadly beverage and collapses near the pool, apparently dying — but it’s revealed in the end that he survives and sees a vision of God and his family. They head back home on the boat, but their lives are about to change with the FBI hot on Timothy’s heels.

Below, see what happens to everyone else on “The White Lotus,” including Jaclyn, Kate, Laurie, Belinda, Zion and more.

A second child has died from measles as an outbreak of the highly contagious virus continues to grow in western Texas.

The school-aged child was not vaccinated, had no underlying health conditions and was in hospital suffering complications from measles, Aaron Davis, the vice-president of UMC Health System, told the BBC.

US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has faced a backlash over his handling of the outbreak, visited Texas on Sunday in the wake of the death, which is the third overall in recent weeks.

The southern US state has reported more than 480 cases of measles so far this year as of Friday, a jump from 420 earlier in the week. The outbreak has extended to neighbouring states.

Across the whole of the US, more than 600 cases of measles have been recorded so far this year, more than double the 285 cases that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded last year.

In 2019, there were a total of 1,274 measles cases recorded across the US, but prior to that there had not been a larger outbreak than this year’s since the early 1990s, according to the CDC.

Many of this year’s cases – nearly all in unvaccinated people – are related to the outbreak that began in western Texas.

“This unfortunate event underscores the importance of vaccination,” Mr Davis said in a statement. “Measles is a highly contagious disease that can lead to serious complications, particularly for those who are unvaccinated.”

The child – an eight-year-old girl – died early on Thursday.

The BBC contacted the state health department and the US Department of Health and Human Services for comment. Neither agency listed the death in their case counts on Friday.

In a statement posted on social media, Kennedy confirmed the girl’s death.

“My intention was to come down here quietly to console the families and to be with the community in their moment of grief,” he said in the statement.

He also said he was engaging with officials there to “support Texas health officials and to learn how our HHS agencies can better partner with them to control the measles outbreak”. Kennedy said he was deploying a team – as he did in March – to help distribute vaccines, medications and other supplies, among other support services.

“The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” Kennedy wrote, referring to the measles, mumps and rubella jab.

In February, an unvaccinated six-year-old girl in the local Mennonite community was the first child to die of measles in the US in a decade. In March, an unvaccinated man died in New Mexico after contracting the virus, though his cause of death is still under investigation.

President Donald Trump on Sunday told reporters aboard Air Force One that he believes the outbreak is largely contained.

“It’s so far a fairly small number of people, relative to what we’re talking about,” he said. “It’s something that people have known about for many years. This is not something new.”

“We’ll see what happens. If it progresses, we’ll have to take action. Very strong action,” he said in response to a question from the BBC.

The virus – which can cause a fever, red rash, cough and other symptoms – is associated with a host of complications, including pneumonia, brain swelling and death.

The US declared measles eliminated from the country in 2000. But outbreaks have grown since then with a rise in anti-vaccine sentiment.

Two shots of the immunisation – proven safe – are 97% effective at preventing the virus and reduce severe infections. To achieve herd immunity – when enough of a group is immune to a disease, limiting its spread and protecting the unvaccinated – around 95% of the population must have the shots, experts say.

The recent outbreak originated in a religious community that strongly rejects vaccines. Local health officials in western Texas have told the BBC they have seen limited progress in attempts to improve vaccination rates.

Kennedy’s early response to the worsening outbreaks was muted, drawing criticism from health experts.

Kennedy, a vaccine sceptic, initially described the situation as “not unusual”.

He changed his approach after a child’s died from measles in February – the first in the US in a decade – but stopped short of recommending that parents vaccinate their children. He instead encouraged them to talk to their doctors about the shot.

On Sunday, Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican who represents Louisiana, called for stronger messaging. Cassidy is also a doctor and has previously criticised Kennedy for his sceptical attitude towards vaccination.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg2xyyj9w5o

Sam was lying in bed one morning when her tenant in a house she owned in Margate sent her a photo of a piece of graffiti that had appeared on the wall outside.

Astonishingly, it looked like a Banksy. It would turn out to be perhaps the graffiti artist’s most interesting new artwork of recent years, Valentine’s Day Mascara (pictured above), which was revealed in Margate on Valentine’s Day, 2023.

Bamboozled, Sam googled: what do you do when you wake up with a Banksy on your wall?

“What did Google say about that?” I asked her.

“Nothing! And I was like, I need to contact the council, I need to find an art gallery who can advise me.”

Sam called Julian Usher at Red Eight Gallery. Julian’s team, conscious that new Banksys are under immediate threat from street cleaners, the weather, rival graffiti artists and other art dealers, promised he’d be in Margate within the hour: “We knew we had to get the piece covered,” say Julian.

And there was another reason Julian got to Margate double-quick: if Banksy chooses your wall for one of his drawings, you could be seriously in the money.

For the second season of my BBC Radio 4 podcast The Banksy Story, which is called When Banksy Comes To Town, I’ve been following the very different fates of two sets of homeowners who wake up one day to find a Banksy on their wall. The season shows just how important his graffiti becomes for a local community – and why people disagree so vehemently about what should happen after it’s discovered.

Sam became the custodian of Valentine’s Day Mascara, which speaks to the theme of domestic violence, incidents of which usually spike each Valentine’s Day. It’s a complicated bit of work. A peppy 50s housewife with a black eye has bludgeoned her partner. A real pan with flecks of red is at her feet, and his painted legs are upended into the real fridge-freezer that Banksy left by the wall. A broken plastic chair testifies to the fight they have had.

Later on the day it appeared, refuse collectors arrived to spirit away the fridge-freezer. This precipitated a free-for-all, with the public helping themselves to the remnants. It was mayhem.

A media scrum, a wrong-footed local council, millions of global onlookers. Exactly, one suspects, what Banksy wanted.

And this time, just for laughs, he left behind oil painter Peter Brown, commissioned to capture the scenes he would miss. I spoke to Pete “The Street” Brown for my series. “The whole reason I was employed was because Banksy was questioning what was the art about,” Pete explained. “Is it about the graffiti? Or is it about the reaction afterwards, and what happens to it?”

As luck would have it, Pete was captured on video just as Banksy’s team were putting the finishing touches to Valentine’s Day Mascara – a video that The Banksy Story managed to obtain. In it we can see that one of Banksy’s team let a local kid play with their drone.

“They’re in the process of putting a large piece on a wall and yet they’re taking the time to teach a kid how to fly a drone,” says Steph Warren, who used to work with Banksy and who appeared in my first series – about the artist’s rise and rise. “Very sweet!”

Alongside Sam, I’ve been following the story of Gert and Gary. They, like Sam, did not want me to use their last name. A 30ft-high seagull appeared one morning on the wall of their buy-to-let in Lowestoft in Suffolk. The bird needed to be massive for Banksy’s ambitious visual gag to work. The artist had shoved large yellow insulation strips into a skip that now looked like a fast-food container that the seagull divebombed to steal chips.

Banksy had chosen his wall well. Visitors arriving by train were treated to this witty meditation on the scourge of Britain’s seaside towns, equal parts warning and celebration. The Lowestoft Seagull was part of Banksy’s Great British Staycation, his post-Covid lockdown campaign to cheer us all up at the prospect of a summer holiday spent in the UK.

But Gert was not cheered-up at all. “It’s not a seagull, it’s an albatross!” she quipped when I went to interview her.

“How did you know it was a Banksy?” I asked.

“There was scaffolding erected on the side of the house. I tried to find out if it was a particular scaffolding firm, but there was no phone number,” Gert replied. “On the Monday morning the letting agency informed me that I could possibly have a Banksy. By then the scaffolding had gone and this seagull appeared.”

This fits with what we know of Banksy’s modus operandi. He claims hiding in plain sight is the best way to remain invisible. “If questioned about your legitimacy,” he wrote in his book Wall & Piece, “simply complain about the hourly rate.”

It’s a good gag. But how fun is it for the folk on the other end of his spray can?

I found that with good hustling skills a Banksied homeowner might see their bank balance expanded, but it’s not an easy process.

As Gert explains, exasperated, “Lowestoft people commented that it belongs to Lowestoft… But nobody’s turned up to say, ‘we’ll help you protect it’. It doesn’t belong to the person filming it, or the person taking pictures with their children. The problem is mine!”

Gert had to contend with people putting their children into the skip for photo opportunities, the council trying to charge her for Perspex screens, and the threat of a Preservation Order which might have cost her £40,000 a year.

And the two stories I’ve been following have ended up having entirely different outcomes.

Both artworks have been taken off the houses they were painted on – a complex, expensive operation that uses specialist equipment – so they can be sold. But while the Banksy in Margate is now on the verge of selling for well over £1m, with a sizeable chunk set to go to a domestic violence charity, and with the piece remaining in the town for the foreseeable future, the Banksy up the coast in Lowestoft languishes in a climate-controlled warehouse, costing its owners £3,000 per month.

It has cost Gert and her partner Gary around £450,000 so far to preserve the piece and although there are buyers sniffing around, nobody has bought it yet. Speaking about the situation, Gary told me: “I’m so angry at what’s going on.”

Not everyone approves of people trying to sell Banksy’s street art.

Steph Warren – who starred in the first series of The Banksy Story as the only person ever to work for Banksy without signing his non-disclosure agreement – suggests that worried homeowners should simply “get busy with five litres of white emulsion and paint it out”.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy73nx46y3o

Long, flowing wigs and weave extensions have dominated the catwalks of Ivory Coast’s massively popular beauty pageants for years.

Contestants in the West African nation often spend a huge amount of money on their appearance, from outfits to hairdos – with very few choosing the natural look.

In more than six decades, there have only been two notable exceptions, the most recent was Marlène-Kany Kouassi, who took the Miss Ivory Coast title in 2022 – looking resplendent with her short natural hair, the crown becoming her only adornment.

Her victory was not only unusual in Ivory Coast but across the world, where Western beauty standards are often the desired look both for those entering contests and for the judges.

Changes are slowly creeping in – last December Angélique Angarni-Filopon, from the French Caribbean island of Martinique, made headlines when she was crowned Miss France, mainly because of her age – she is 34 – and she also sported short Afro hair.

But this year the organisers of the Ivorian competition are shaking things up right from the start.

Wigs, weaves and hair extensions have been banned from the preliminary stages of the competition, which are held in 13 cities across the country (as well as two abroad for those in the diaspora).

“We want the candidates to be natural – whether with braids or straightened hair, it should be their own. Beauty must be raw,” Victor Yapobi, president of the Miss Ivory Coast organising committee, told the BBC.

Ivory Coast is the only African country enforcing the ban for a national competition.

Mr Yapobi said the organisers in Ivory Coast had long been trying to promote a more natural look – for example cosmetic surgery is a no-no and skin lightening is frowned upon.

“We decided this year to truly showcase the natural beauty of these young women,” he said.

Other changes have also been implemented, like allowing slightly shorter women to compete – the minimum is now 1.67m (5.4ft), increasing the age by three years to 28 and – crucially – lowering the entrance fee by more than $30 (£25) to $50.

“This change in criteria is because we observed these young women were putting up a lot of money to participate, and it was becoming a bit of a budget drain.”

When the BBC joined the first preliminary pageant in Daloa, the main city in the western region of Haut-Sassandra, one contestant was overjoyed by the new rules – feeling it gave her a better chance of success as she prefers not to wear wigs.

“I would see other girls with long, artificial hair, and they looked so beautiful,” 21-year-old Emmanuella Dali, a real estate agent, told the BBC.

“This rule gives me more pride as a woman – as an African woman.”

The move aimed at celebrating natural African beauty has sparked a lively debate across the country, where wigs and extensions are popular.

As a fashion choice, many women love the creativity that wigs and weaves allow them. They also serve as what is called “protective style”, which means minimising the daily pulling and tugging on hair that can cause breakages.

This was reflected by some contestants in Daloa who felt the rule removed an element of personal expression.

“I’m a wigs fan. I love wigs,” said contestant and make-up artist Astrid Menekou. The 24-year-old told the BBC she was initially shocked by the no-wig, no-extensions stipulation.

“I didn’t expect this rule! But now? I like my hair, and that’s OK.”

The new rule has made the competitors think more about concepts of beauty – and changed some opinions, like those of Laetitia Mouroufie.

“Last year, I had extensions because I thought that’s what beauty meant,” the 25-year-old student told the BBC.

“This year, I feel more confident being myself.”

Should the competition influence attitudes beyond the pageant world, it could have huge economic implications.

Wigs from human hair, which can last for years if cared for properly, can range in price from an estimated $200 to $4,000, while synthetic ones cost around $10 to $300.

Ivory Coast’s hair industry is worth more than $300m a year, with wigs and weaves making up a significant share of that market.

“This rule is not good for us,” Ange Sea, a 30-year-old hairdresser in Daloa, told the BBC.

“Many women love wigs. This will hurt our business and we make more money when working with wigs and weaves.”

At her salon, glue will be used to carefully attach wigs to make them look more natural and women will spend hours having weaves and extensions put in.

It shows how deeply engrained wig culture is in West Africa, despite a natural hair movement that has been gaining momentum among black women around the world over the last decade.

Natural hair products have become much more readily available and natural hair influencers proliferate on social media worldwide with advice on how to manage and style natural hair, which can be time-consuming.

It used to be considered unprofessional to wear one’s hair naturally and it would have been extraordinary to see black female TV stars on screen or CEOs in the boardroom with natural hair.

According to Florence Edwige Nanga, a hair and scalp specialist in the main Ivorian city of Abidjan, this is often still the case in Ivory Coast.

“Turn on the TV [here], and you’ll see almost every journalist wearing a wig,” the trichologist told the BBC.

“These beauty enhancements are fashionable, but they can also cause problems – like alopecia or scalp infections,” she warned.

With the preliminary rounds under way, arguments over whether pageants should be setting beauty rules or women should decide such things for themselves continues.

The outcome may be that there is more of an acceptance of both in Ivory Coast, allowing women to switch styles up – between natural hair and wigs and weaves.

Mr Yapobi said the feedback he had received over the new rules was “extraordinary” and clearly showed it was having an impact.

“Everyone congratulates us. Everyone, even from abroad. I receive emails and WhatsApp messages from everywhere congratulating us for wanting to return to our roots.”

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9w8r094k41o

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited the epicenter of Texas’ still-growing measles outbreak on Sunday, the same day a funeral was held for a second young child who was not vaccinated and died from a measles-related illness.

Kennedy said in a social media post that he was working to “control the outbreak” and went to Gaines County to comfort the families who have buried two young children. He was seen late Sunday afternoon outside of a Mennonite church where the funeral services were held, but he did not attend a nearby news conference held by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the outbreak.

Seminole is the epicenter of the outbreak, which started in late January and continues to swell — with nearly 500 cases in Texas alone, plus cases from the outbreak believed to have spread to New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and Mexico.

The second young child died Thursday from “what the child’s doctor described as measles pulmonary failure,” and did not have underlying health conditions, the Texas State Department of State Health Services said Sunday in a news release. Aaron Davis, a spokesperson for UMC Health System in Lubbock, said that the child was “receiving treatment for complications of measles while hospitalized.”

This is the third known measles-related death tied to this outbreak. One was another elementary school-aged child in Texas and the other was an adult in New Mexico; neither were vaccinated.

It’s Kennedy’s first visit to the area as health secretary, where he said he met with families of both the 6- and 8-year-old children who died. He said he “developed bonds” with the Mennonite community in West Texas in which the virus is mostly spreading.

Kennedy, an anti-vaccine advocate before ascending to the role of nation’s top health secretary earlier this year, has resisted urging widespread vaccinations as the measles outbreak has worsened under his watch. On Sunday, however, he said in a lengthy statement posted on X that it was “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles.”

The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine has been used safely for more than 60 years and is 97% effective against measles after two doses.

Dr. Manisha Patel, CDC incident manager, said in a Sunday news conference that the MMR vaccine is the best way to protect against measles. She also told parents in Gaines County that it was important not to “delay care” for a child who is sick with measles.

“Call your doctor and make sure you’re talking to a health care professional who can guide you on those next steps,” Patel said.

Kennedy’s social media post said CDC employees had been “redeployed.” CDC spokesman Jason McDonald clarified late Sunday that the first CDC team arrived in early March and left Gaines County on April 1, while a team led by Patel “was redeployed and arrived today to assess needs” as ordered by Kennedy and requested by Texas’ governor.

Asked about the outbreak Sunday by reporters on Air Force One, Trump said, “they’re doing reports on it,” adding that if the outbreak “progresses, we’ll will have to take action very strongly.”

Neither the CDC nor the state health department included the death in their measles reports issued Friday, but the CDC acknowledged it when asked Sunday.

The number of cases in Texas shot up by 81 between March 28 and April 4, and 16 more people were hospitalized. Nationwide, the U.S. has more than double the number of measles cases it saw in all of 2024.

Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, a liver doctor whose vote helped cinch Kennedy’s confirmation, called Sunday for stronger messaging from health officials in a post on X.

“Everyone should be vaccinated! There is no treatment for measles. No benefit to getting measles,” he wrote. “Top health officials should say so unequivocally b/4 another child dies.”

Cassidy has requested Kennedy to appear before his health committee Thursday, although Kennedy has not publicly confirmed whether he will attend.

A CDC spokesperson noted the efficacy of the measles vaccine Sunday but stopped short of calling on people to get it. Departing from long-standing public health messaging around vaccination, the spokesperson called the decision a “personal one” and encouraged people to talk with their doctor. People “should be informed about the potential risks and benefits associated with vaccines,” the spokesperson added.

Misinformation about how to prevent and treat measles is hindering a robust public health response, including claims about vitamin A supplements that have been pushed by Kennedy and holistic medicine supporters despite doctors’ warnings that it should be given under a physician’s orders and that too much can be dangerous.

Doctors at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, where the first measles death occurred, say they’ve treated fewer than 10 children for liver issues from vitamin A toxicity, which they found when running routine lab tests on children who are not fully vaccinated and have measles. Dr. Lara Johnson, chief medical officer, said the patients reported using vitamin A to treat and prevent the virus.

Dr. Peter Marks, the Food and Drug Administration’s former vaccine chief, said responsibility for the death rests with Kennedy and his staff. Marks was forced out of the FDA after disagreements with Kennedy over vaccine safety.

“This is the epitome of an absolute needless death,” Marks told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday. “These kids should get vaccinated — that’s how you prevent people from dying of measles.”

Marks also said he recently warned U.S. senators that more deaths would occur if the administration didn’t mount a more aggressive response to the outbreak.

Experts and local health officials expect the outbreak to go on for several more months if not a year. In West Texas, the vast majority of cases are in unvaccinated people and children younger than 17.

With several states facing outbreaks of the vaccine-preventable disease — and declining childhood vaccination rates nationwide — some worry that measles may cost the U.S. its status as having eliminated the disease.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/measles-texas-rfk-death-vaccine-4e28b0edf5cab47980b40b2d47f0ec50

President Donald Trump said Sunday evening that he is not intentionally engineering the ongoing stock market sell-off, but said little to try and dissuade it.

“I don’t want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One Sunday night when asked about the markets.

The comments came as U.S. stock futures dropped on Sunday evening, with Dow Jones Industrial average futures sliding 4.1%, accelerating losses that carried through from Thursday and Friday and indicating more selling is likely to hit Monday morning.

He cited the trade deficit with China as his rationale for pressing on with his tariffs plan despite the recent pain in the markets.

“We have to solve our trade deficit with China,” he said. “We have a trillion-dollar trade deficit with China, hundreds of billions of dollars a year we lose with China. And unless we solve that problem, I’m not going to make a deal.”

“I’m willing to deal with China,” he added, “but they have to solve their surplus.”

He added that he spoke with European and Asian leaders over the weekend on the tariffs rolled out by his administration, which are expected to take effect in the coming week.

Trump’s comments echo those made by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who on Sunday said the administration will remain steadfast in its plans for reciprocal tariffs on major U.S. trading partners, even in the face of the global stock market sell-off. White House National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett said the stock market drop is not part of an intentional strategy.

Source : https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/06/trump-says-he-doesnt-want-stocks-to-go-down-but-sometimes-you-have-to-take-medicine.html?__source=iosappshare%7Cnet.whatsapp.WhatsAppSMB.ShareExtension

Tech mogul Elon Musk, a close adviser to President Donald Trump, on Saturday broke with Trump’s decision to impose expansive tariffs on most foreign countries, saying he hopes to see a “zero-tariff situation” between the United States and Europe.

“I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America,” Musk told The League Congress, an event hosted Saturday by right-wing Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini.

“That’s what I hope occurs, and also more freedom of people to move between Europe and North America if they wish, if they wish to work in Europe or wish to work in America, they should be allowed to do so, in my view. So that has certainly been my advice to the president,” Musk added.

Trump announced tariffs this week on some of the country’s largest trading partners. The United States is set to impose a 20% tariff on the European Union under his plan.

Markets plunged Thursday, the day after Trump’s announcement, as the S&P 500 index fell nearly 5%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 4% and the Nasdaq plummeted 6%, with all three posting some of the largest declines since the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020.

At a White House event announcing the tariffs Wednesday, Trump said the United States has been “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered” by other countries’ trading policies and called the next era in the United States the “golden age of America.”

After two days of the stock market’s falling, Trump was steadfast Saturday on Truth Social in his rationale for having imposed the widespread tariffs, writing that China “and many other nations, have treated us unsustainably badly. We have been the dumb and helpless ‘whipping post.'”

“THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” he added.

So far, European leaders have threatened to respond to the tariffs, with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, writing on X that: “Europe is prepared to respond. We’ll always protect our interests and values. We’re also ready to engage. And to go from confrontation to negotiation.”

Source : https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/elon-musk-zero-tariff-free-trade-zone-europe-rcna199849

U.S. customs agents began collecting President Donald Trump’s unilateral 10% tariff on all imports from many countries on Saturday, with higher levies on goods from 57 larger trading partners due to start next week.
The initial 10% “baseline” tariff paid by U.S. importers took effect at U.S. seaports, airports and customs warehouses at 12:01 a.m. ET (0401 GMT), ushering in Trump’s full rejection of the post-World War Two system of mutually agreed tariff rates.

“This is the single biggest trade action of our lifetime,” said Kelly Ann Shaw, a trade lawyer at Hogan Lovells and former White House trade adviser during Trump’s first term.
Shaw told a Brookings Institution event on Thursday that she expected the tariffs to evolve over time as countries seek to negotiate lower rates. “This is a pretty seismic and significant shift in the way that we trade with every country on earth,” she added.
Trump’s Wednesday tariff announcement shook global stock markets, wiping out $5 trillion in value for S&P 500 index (.SPX), opens new tab companies by Friday’s close, a record two-day decline. Driven by recession fears, prices for oil and commodities plunged, while investors fled to the safety of government bonds.

Among the countries first hit with the 10% tariff were Australia, Britain, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Saudi Arabia despite their having goods trade deficits with the U.S. last year. White House officials have said many countries would run larger deficits with the U.S. if their policies were fairer.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection bulletin provided a 51-day grace period, opens new tab for cargoes loaded or in transit to the U.S. before 12:01 a.m. ET Saturday. These cargoes need to arrive by May 27 to avoid the 10% duty.
Trump’s higher “reciprocal” tariff rates of 11% to 50% are due to take effect on Wednesday at 12:01 a.m. ET. European Union imports will face a 20% tariff, while Chinese goods will be hit with a 34% tariff, bringing Trump’s total new levies on China to 54%.
Beijing on Saturday said, “The market has spoken” in rejecting Trump’s tariffs. China applied a slew of countermeasures, including extra levies of 34% on all U.S. goods and export curbs on some rare earth minerals.

“China has been hit much harder than the USA, not even close,” Trump said on Saturday on social media. “THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic.”
Shortly after posting the comment, Trump was spotted arriving at his Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, reading a New York Post article covering China’s retaliation to U.S. tariffs and the stock market fall.

SHELTER FROM THE STORM
“A trade war is in no one’s interest. We must stand united and resolute to protect our citizens and our businesses,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on X.
Some world leaders hoped to strike a deal with Trump and avert economic fallout while others weighed countermeasures.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer wrote in the Telegraph newspaper that he was ready to “use industrial policy to help shelter British business from the storm,” noting that his government’s priority was to try to secure a trade deal with the U.S. which could include tariff exemptions.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he will depart for Washington on Sunday for a meeting with Trump to discuss the new 17% tariff on Israel.
Media reported Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba of Japan, which faces a 24% levy, was seeking a telephone conversation with the U.S. president.
Vietnam, which benefited from the shift of U.S. supply chains away from China after Trump’s first-term trade war with Beijing, agreed on Friday to discuss a deal with the U.S. after Trump announced a 46% tariff on Vietnamese imports.
The head of Taiwan’s National Security Council was in Washington for talks that were expected to include the tariffs, a source said. Taiwan President Lai Ching-te huddled with tech executives on Saturday to discuss how to respond to the 32% duty imposed on its products.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/markets/us-starts-collecting-trumps-new-10-tariff-smashing-global-trade-norms-2025-04-05/

David and Victoria Beckham were an elegant sight to behold as they held hands at the soccer star’s milestone birthday last Sunday night.

The former England captain turned sports impresario actually turns 50 on May 2, but he started celebrating early — hiring out the swanky Cipriani Downtown Miami, a favorite of his and wife Victoria’s, to party with an array of celebs.

Tom Brady and Eva Longoria were on the guest list, along with Shaquille O’Neal and Inter Miami stars Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez. It was a sign of how the couple have formed a powerful clique in Miami, where David co-owns the MLS club and the Beckhams have an $80 million mansion.

The Beckhams were joined at their celebration by, from left, son Romeo Beckham and his girlfriend Kim Turnbull; daugter Harper Beckham; and son Cruz Beckham and his girlfriend Jackie Apostel.
Instagram/victoriabeckham“Their inner circle is very tight,” a Beckham friend told Page Six.

But on the same day, a ghost from the past came back to haunt the man known as “Golden Balls” — as his former assistant Rebecca Loos spoke out on “60 Minutes Australia,” doubling down on her claims that the pair had an affair in 2004.

“I have stuck to the truth. I’ve never exaggerated. I never lied about a single thing,” Loos, 47, said on the show. “Why? Because I’m going up against the strongest, most powerful couple in the media who have all the money in the world for the best PR, the best lawyers.”

She added: “And all I had on my side was the truth.”

The Beckhams, insiders said, paid no attention to Loos’ comments. “There’s nothing new there,” one source in the know told us.

While Loos’ claims were alluded to in the 2023 Emmy-winning Netflix doc “Beckham,” the couple never referred to her by name.

“There was some horrible stories that were difficult to deal with,” David said in the series. “It was the first time that me and Victoria had been put under that kind of pressure in our marriage.”

“It was the hardest period for us,” Victoria added. “Because it felt like the world was against us. And here’s the thing, we were against each other if I’m being completely honest.”

But the source in the know said that, more than 20 years after the alleged affair, this is not something that continues to haunt them.

“They may have been famous for other people’s preconceptions of them, but the documentary went a long way to showing who David and Victoria are in their real life,” the source said.

Becks’ black-tie event featured dinner and drinks, as well as music from DJ D-Nice at Cipriani’s Socialista lounge.

“So I thought I’d start celebrating slightly early, such a special night in Miami So lucky to have amazing friends and family to start the 50th celebrations with Love you @victoriabeckham @romeobeckham@cruzbeckham #HarperSeven,” David posted on Instagram. He included several photos from the evening, including of Victoria and his kids: Romeo, 22, with DJ girlfriend Kim Turnbull, 24; Cruz, 19, and songwriter girlfriend Jackie Apostel, 29; and daughter Harper, 13.

But one person was noticeably absent: David and Victor’s beloved eldest son, Brooklyn, 26, who lives with his wife, Nicola Peltz Beckham, in Los Angeles.

Page Six is told that Brooklyn, who has just launched his own hot sauce range, Cloud23, was busy working in LA.

However, one source who knows the family intimately told us that tension has risen as Brooklyn has grown extremely close to his wife’s family, including her billionaire investor father Nelson Peltz and mother Claudia.

“Nelson treats Brooklyn like a son,” the source said, “The in-laws are very powerful.”

“Brookyn loves them,” another insider said. “He feels very close to them and this has riled David and Victoria.”

Page Six previously revealed how the families clashed over Brooklyn and Nicola’s April 2022 wedding.

The entire Beckham clan was last spotted together at Christmas in Miami; before that, Brooklyn and Nicola joined the family at Victoria’s fashion show in Paris in September. However, they were not at her most recent Paris show in March.

TMZ reported this week that Brooklyn and Romeo are feuding over Turnbull — claiming that she is an ex of Brooklyn’s. However, Page Six is told Turnbull never dated Brooklyn (though she did go out with Madonna’s son Rocco Ritchie.

The source in the know said that any rumors of a brotherly feud are exaggerated, adding, “The children are amazing and they have a great relationship.”

David is also planning a big birthday bash back in Britain, and we’re told it’s possible Brooklyn and Nicola may attend.

“David and Victoria genuinely are in a very good place. They have huge ambitions and huge aspirations – at 50, they haven’t even scratched the surface,” the source in the know said.

Becks sees Inter Miami as a huge part of his legacy, and the club is heading up MLS standings after bringing in big guns like Messi. Next year, Beckham is set to be a big part of the 2026 World Cup.

“His heroes are the Michael Jordans and the athletics taking control of their careers,” said the friend, “None of this happened overnight.”

He recently stripped off for the first time in 10 years for a Boss underwear campaign — he has a clothing range with the brand out this spring — and appeared in a Stella Artois commercial with Matt Damon.

He also has a supplement business, IM8, and he works out with Victoria every day.

Source: https://pagesix.com/2025/04/05/celebrity-news/david-and-victoria-beckham-not-rattled-by-affair-allegations/

Tension among the royal family was especially high at King Charles III’s coronation in May 2023, lip reader Jeremy Freeman revealed.

Prince Harry allegedly shared some harsh words about the royal family as he sat next to his cousin, Princess Eugenie’s husband Jack Brooksbank, according to Freeman.

“I’m fed up with the way they treat me.” the Duke of Sussex, 40, allegedly said, per the Sun.

“It’s not an ideal situation.”

Brooksbank responded, “It’s not the quiet life, is it?”

Though, not seen in the same clip the outlet shared, the lip reader went on to allege Harry shook his head and said, “They don’t care.”

“I haven’t time for that,” Brooksbank shot back. “Not if it’s over…”

Harry then interrupted to add: “It’s an eventuality.”

Representatives for the former royal did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.

While Harry didn’t specifically name who he was talking about, it’s believed he was speaking about his ongoing rift with his dad, Charles, and his brother, Prince William.

The brothers’ feud dates back to 2016 when Harry started dating his now-wife, Meghan Markle.

The beef appeared to get worse after he and the “Suits” alum, 43, both resigned from their royal duties in 2020 and moved to California.

Harry also shared some of the royal family drama in his 2023 tell-all book, “Spare.”

He also divulged more details about the issues in his relationships with his brother, 42, and dad, 76, during his and Markle’s 2021 bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey.

As we previously reported in 2023, the Sussexes have attempted to make amends with Charles. However, they have yet to come to an agreement.

Source: https://pagesix.com/2025/04/05/royal-family/prince-harry-caught-making-harsh-comments-about-royal-family-at-king-charles-coronation-lip-reader/

The show “Under15” attracted criticism in South Korea for encouraging children aiming to be the next K-Pop prodigy to dress, sing and perform the provocative routines of established stars.

K-pop groups, like the band BLACKPINK, generally begin performing at a young age.Image: Yonhap/picture allianceFacing fierce backlash for what critics condemned as the sexualization of children in their early teens, the producers of South Korea’s “Under15” K-Pop audition show canceled the series shortly before its scheduled premiere on Monday evening.

In a statement on March 28, the Crea Studio production company said: “After deep consideration, we have decided that it will be best to cancel the scheduled broadcast and focus on protecting the participants and reorganizing the program.”

“Moving forward, we will do our best to produce the program in a way that ensures the essence of the show is not damaged while making sure the sincerity of the participants is properly delivered,” it added.

Given the anger aimed at Maeil Broadcasting Network (MBN) immediately after it released the first teasers for the new series, media analysts say the producers had little choice but to apply the brakes.

The show was marketed as a “K-Pop prodigy discovery initiative” and closely followed 59 young girls — all aged 15 or younger — as they competed to become the industry’s next star.

“Promoting younger artists is not, of course, new in the entertainment industry,” said Chuyun Oh, assistant professor of dance theory at San Diego State University and author of the book “K-Pop Dance.”

Controversy over marketing children
“But one of the reasons this program has attracted controversy is that it explicitly advocates the girls’ age, as the title implies, as a source of marketing,” she told DW.

“Some of the audience — TV and online — are not happy about the show, including parents and teachers,” Oh added.

“Their major concern is that the participants are minors but their dance, including movement, costume, facial expressions and so on are too mature as the girls would be replicating the choreography of the original K-Pop girl groups.”

K-Pop frequently attracts criticism from some quarters over lyrics, moves or performances that are overly graphic.

For example, K-Pop star Jennie Kim was effectively canceled in South Korea after a particularly raunchy performance on HBO’s series “The Idol.” In another instance, CU, a singer with DimePiece, experienced a wardrobe malfunction during a live performance in 2017 and revealed too much.

For some in conservative South Korea, the sexualization of girls in their early teens on “Under15” was too much — and made worse by the girls’ ages being highlighted on promotional posters in a barcode design that critics said reduced the girls to objects.

‘Packaged and sold’
“It is not just a question of the sexuality of these girls being promoted that is causing problems, but the idea that they are products being packaged and sold,” said David Tizzard, an assistant professor of education at Seoul Women’s University and a columnist for a Korean daily focusing on social affairs.

“When it is adults that are being packaged in this way, then it is less of a problem,” he added. “But because they are young, this is much more sensitive,” he told DW.

He emphasizes, however, that using “sex to sell” is not new in South Korea or anywhere else in the world.

“BoA, sometimes called the ‘Queen of K-Pop,’ was 13 when she started out. But how old was Michael Jackson when he started performing? Or Britney Spears?” he asked.

“It could be argued that we live in a society that is a paradox of freedom at the same time that it is hyper moralistic.”

Part of the problem for the producers of “Under15,” he suggested, has been unfortunate timing.

In early March, media reports emerged that actor Kim Soo-hyun, 37, had dated actress Kim Sae-ron when she was 15 and a minor.

Kim Sae-ron was one of the most promising young performers in South Korea but she died by suicide in February at the age of 24.

Her parents have gone public with accusations that Kim Soo-hyun groomed their daughter, triggering a fierce backlash against the previously popular actor.

Kim Soo-hyun gave a tearful press conference of his own on Monday, confirming that the two had dated but claimed their relationship had only started after Kim Sae-ron had legally become an adult.

“I cannot admit something that I did not do,” Kim told massed ranks of the media in Seoul. “I feel sorry that the late actress is not able to rest in peace.”

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/k-pop-show-mired-in-child-exploitation-controversy/a-72126837

US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has advised taking vitamin A to fight measles. A Texas hospital is now treating children with toxic levels of the supplement in their bodies.

Covenant Children’s Hospital says it has treated several children suffering from hypervitaminosis A — or vitamin A toxicity Image: Mary Conlon/picture allianceWest Texas has been gripped by a measles outbreak for the past several weeks and as a result of misinformation passed on by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., it now faces a second, related health problem: Vitamin A toxicity — or hypervitaminosis A — in infants and children.

The situation appears to be the direct result of bogus medical information pedaled by the vaccine-skeptic secretary himself.

Kennedy recently said that although the measles vaccine is the best defense against the highly contagious and potentially fatal infection, he emphasized that getting inoculated was a “personal choice.”

Kennedy, whom President Donald Trump appointed to be the nation’s top health advisor, suggested, “vitamin A can dramatically reduce measles mortality,” or even prevent measles infections.

Kennedy recently directed the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to update measles guidance to promote vitamin A use in fighting the infection.

In early March, the CDC’s top communications officer, Thomas Corry, cited Kennedy’s slow response to the West Texas outbreak and his embrace of so-called “alternative measles treatment,” as the reason for his resignation.

Numerous other CDC and HHS officials have resigned since Kennedy took over, more health workers still —so far at least 10,000 — have also fallen prey to Elon Musk’s cost-cutting measures.

In all, HHS has lost a quarter of its workforce.

West Texas anti-vax parents making their kids sick on Kennedy’s bad advice?

Though Kennedy and the CDC suggest vitamin A should only be taken under doctor’s supervision, West Texas parents are apparently giving their children so much of it that they are now being admitted to hospital emergency rooms.

Among other remedies, Kennedy has claimed that cod liver oil, which is rich in vitamins A and D, “works” as a treatment against measles.

Although vitamin A may be given to measles patients who suffer malnutrition-related vitamin A deficiencies, there is no evidence suggesting that it is effective in preventing measles.

And even though it is known that excessive cod liver oil consumption can have serious negative health consequences, demand for it has exploded in West Texas, with pharmacies saying, “it’s flying off the shelf.”

Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, has said it has treated “fewer than 10 cases” of vitamin A toxicity over the past couple of weeks. Administrators say the children were initially admitted with measles symptoms but later determined to have had abnormally functioning livers as a result of vitamin A toxicity.

Doctors at Covenant are publicly warning against excessive vitamin A intake, saying that it could lead to severe side effects such as dry skin, impaired sight, bone problems and liver failure.

SYDNEY Sweeney stunned as she sported a tiny minidress while filming with supermodel Emily Ratajowski yesterday.

The pair turned heads as they shot a promotional campaign for haircare brand Kerastase on the streets of New York City.

Sydney Sweeney and Emily Ratajowski shot a promo campaign for a haircare brand yesterdayCredit: Getty

White Lotus star Sydney looked incredible as she showed off her famous assets in a figure-hugging cream number.

With her blonde locks styled in bouncy waves and accessorising with a pair of 90s style shades, the Anything But You actress looked every inch the Hollywood superstar.

The Euphoria beauty held hands with runway star Emily, who sported a plunging lemon dress which hugged her toned, gym-honed body.

Em’s own tresses were teased into beachy waves as she advertised the salon favorite.

After posing up a storm as a duo, Sydney took some snaps with a giant bottle of hair gloss, flashing plenty of her tanned pins in the process.

After shooting their promo in the city’s Meatpacking district, the duo later headed to the Kerastase Pop-Up store at Lavan.

They were all smiles as they posed with fellow guests Ebonee Davis and Camila Coelho.

If Sydney was feeling the strain after recently calling off her engagement to film producer fiance Jonathan Davino, just a few months before they were planning to tie the knot, she certainly hid it well.

Since scrapping the nuptials, Sydney has once again found herself linked to her Anything But You co-star Glen Powell.

She even attended Glen’s sister Leslie’s wedding earlier this month.

During an appearance on Today with Jenna and Friends this week during , Glen was quizzed by presenter Jenna Bush Hager and guest host Olivia Munn.

“The wedding caused a little bit of a stir. Did that surprise you?” Jenna asked Glen.

Laughing, Glen replied: “You know, timing is everything in this world, isn’t it?”

He continued: “She and Syd are obviously great friends and it was a hell of a wedding.

“It was just such a fun, rowdy wedding.

“The Powells know how to crank it up,” he added, shifting attention away from the romance rumors he is currently caught up in.

Sydney and Glen first sparked romantic speculation when they co-starred in Anything But You together.

They made gushing comments about each other in interviews, and looked cosy on the red carpet together.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/13946261/sydney-sweeney-stuns-tiny-minidress-emily-ratajkowski/

The artist of the Donald Trump’s portrait in the Colorado Capitol Building is firing back at the president’s claims she distorted his image for political reasons … insisting she didn’t do that, and adding his comments have hurt her career.

Sarah A. Boardman — the artist who painted the controversial portrait of the Commander-In-Chief — finally released a statement Saturday firing back at President Trump after he claimed she “must have lost her talent as she got older.”

Boardman says the Colorado State Capitol Advisory Committee, Denver commissioned her to paint the portrait … and the committee signed off on all progress photos she provided along the way as well as the final product itself.

In fact, Boardman says the portrait — which hung for six years in the Capitol’s rotunda — received many positive review from people who saw it until President Trump blasted it on Truth Social.

Sarah claims no political bias factored into her painting … and, she in no way attempted to caricature the prez.

She adds, “President Trump is entitled to comment freely, as we all are, but the additional allegations that I purposefully distorted’ the portrait, and that I ‘must have lost my talent as I got older’ are now directly and negatively impacting my business of over 41 years which now is in danger of not recovering.”

Source: https://www.tmz.com/2025/04/05/donald-trump-portrait-artist-slams-his-claims/

The Israeli military originally claimed the vehicles did not have any headlights or emergency signals and were therefore targeted as they looked “suspicious”.

IDF opens fire on Gaza paramedicsThe IDF has admitted to mistakenly identifying a convoy of aid workers as a threat – following the emergence of a video which proved their ambulances were clearly marked when Israeli troops opened fire on them.

The bodies of 15 aid workers – including eight medics working for the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) – were found in a “mass grave” after the incident, according to the head of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Jonathan Whittall.

The Israeli military originally claimed an investigation found the vehicles did not have any headlights or emergency signals and were therefore targeted as they looked “suspicious”.

But video footage obtained by the PRCS, and verified by Sky News, showed the ambulances and a fire vehicle clearly marked with flashing red lights.

In a briefing from the IDF, they said the ambulances arrived in the Tel Sultan neighbourhood in Rafah shortly after a Hamas police vehicle drove through.

An IDF surveillance aircraft was watching the movement of the ambulances and notified troops on the ground. The IDF said it will not be releasing that footage.

When the ambulances arrived, the soldiers opened fire, thinking the medics were a threat, according to the IDF.

The soldiers were surprised by the convoy stopping on the road and several people getting out quickly and running, the IDF claimed, adding the soldiers were unaware the suspects were in fact unarmed medics.

An Israeli military official would not say how far away troops were when they fired on the vehicles.

The IDF acknowledged that its statement claiming that the ambulances had their lights off was incorrect, and was based on the testimony from the soldiers in the incident.

The newly emerged video footage showed that the ambulances were clearly identifiable and had their lights on, the IDF said.

The IDF added that there will be a re-investigation to look into this discrepancy.

Addressing the fact the aid workers’ bodies were buried in a mass grave, the IDF said in its briefing this is an approved and regular practice to prevent wild dogs and other animals from eating the corpses.

The IDF could not explain why the ambulances were also buried.

The IDF said six of the 15 people killed were linked to Hamas, but revealed no detail to support the claim.

The newly emerged footage of the incident was discovered on a phone belonging to one of the workers who was killed, PRCS president Dr Younis Al Khatib said.

“His phone was found with his body and he recorded the whole event,” he said. “His last words before being shot, ‘Forgive me, mom. I just wanted to help people. I wanted to save lives’.”

Sky News used an aftermath video and satellite imagery to verify the location and timing of the newly emerged footage of the incident.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/idf-admits-mistakenly-identifying-gaza-aid-workers-as-threat-after-video-of-attack-showed-ambulances-were-marked-13342874

The “Hands Off!” protests were against the Trump administration’s handling of government downsizing, human rights and the economy, among other issues.

Thousands of people gathered in various cities across the US as protests against Donald Trump and Elon Musk took place in all 50 states on Saturday.

Around 1,200 demonstrations were planned in locations including Washington DC, New York City and West Palm Beach, Florida – just miles away from where the US president has this weekend played golf.

The “Hands Off!” protests were against the Trump administration’s handling of government downsizing, human rights and the economy, among other issues.

In Washington DC, protesters streamed on the grass in front of the Washington Monument, where one person carried a banner which read: “Make democracy great again.”

Another protester took aim at Mr Trump’s handling of Russia and Ukraine, with a placard that read: “Stop Putin’s puppets from destroying America.”

Tesla boss Mr Musk also featured on many signs due to his role in controversial government cuts as head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Terry Klein, a retired biomedical scientist, said she drove to the rally to protest Mr Trump’s policies on “everything from immigration to the DOGE stuff to the tariffs this week, to education”.

“I mean, our whole country is under attack, all of our institutions, all the things that make America what it is,” she added.

Some at the various protests carried Ukrainian flags, while others sported rainbow attire and waved rainbow flags in support of the LGBTQ+ community.

Other protesters wore Palestinian keffiyeh scarves and carried “Free Palestine” signs.

Thousands marched in New York City’s midtown Manhattan and in Boston, Massachusetts, while hundreds gathered in the sunshine outside the Utah State Capitol building in Salt Lake City, and in the rain outside the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/make-democracy-great-again-thousands-protest-against-trump-at-rallies-in-every-us-state-13343002

A new academic report warns human-human relationships could be about to suffer from the introduction of artificial intelligence and people becoming besotted by robots

Akihiko Kondo married his virtual wife (Image: mainichi)People having relationships with robots could replace the need to find a human partner, scientists have warned.

Psychologists say it is becoming increasingly commonplace for people to develop intimate, long-term relationships with artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

The academic paper, published in the Cell Press journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, states that people have “married” their AI partners in non-legally binding ceremonies and at least two people have killed themselves following AI chatbot advice.

Experts warn such relationships could disrupt human-human relationships in societies and robots could give harmful advice by telling people what they want to hear.

Lead author Daniel Shank, of Missouri University of Science and Technology, who specialises in social psychology and technology, said: “A real worry is that people might bring expectations from their AI relationships to their human relationships.

“Certainly in individual cases it is disrupting human relationships but it is unclear whether that is going to be widespread.

“With relational AIs, the issue is that this is an entity that people feel they can trust. It is ‘someone’ that has shown they care and that seems to know the person in a deep way, and we assume that ‘someone’ who knows us better is going to give better advice. If we start thinking of an AI that way, we’re going to start believing that they have our best interests in mind when in fact they could be fabricating things or advising us in really bad ways.

“The ability for AI to now act like a human and enter into long-term communications really opens up a new can of worms. If people are engaging in romance with machines we really need psychologists and social scientists involved.”

It follows the story of Akihiko Kondo from Tokyo, Japan, who after three years ‘married’ a hologram of his favourite fictional character he found himself unable to communicate with her when the company that developed the service terminated the ‘limited production model’.

Source: https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/humans-shun-relationships-marry-robots-34997033

Liking a co-worker’s photo on social media. Sending them direct messages. Checking in on Slack more often than before.

Progressively interacting in this way with someone outside your relationship may be no big deal to you. To your significant other, however, it may be microcheating, which some people consider a form of infidelity because it can involve building a bond one heart emoji at a time.

Although pushing the boundaries of what’s allowed in a relationship is not a new concept, the issue has become even more common with the rise of remote work, said William Schroeder, a therapist and owner of Just Mind Counseling centers in Austin, Texas.

“People are having more digital relationships so it kind of creates more space for that,” Schroeder said. “In this work-from-home environment, it can happen even easier because it’s real low risk.”

What is microcheating?
Microcheating, a term popularized by Australian psychologist Melanie Schilling, could be anything short of a physical or emotional relationship if it involves a behavior you can’t talk about openly with a partner.

Besides furtive social media chatting, it also could mean lingering too long at the water cooler to talk to a co-worker, sharing personal details of your own relationship, or dressing up if you know you’ll see someone.

“We’ve just put a newer label on it,” said Abby Medcalf, a psychologist in Berkeley, California, and host of the “Relationships Made Easy” podcast.

But Medcalf noted that with most of her patients in recent years, microcheating involves texting or messages on social media. And it can be a slippery slope.

What’s the big deal?

As relationship norms evolve and terms like “polyamory” come out of the shadows, liking or commenting on a photo may seem fairly innocuous. Many couples don’t care, Medcalf said, but people who do shouldn’t feel bad for it.

“There isn’t a right and wrong in relationships,” she said. “It comes down to preferences.”

Even if a specific action has not been discussed and forbidden, trouble arises when it takes away energy from your primary relationship, she said.

“It’s cheating if your partner doesn’t like it, or doesn’t know about it, or wouldn’t like it if they knew about it,” she said.

She advised resisting the urge to snoop, which is a sign there is a lack of trust in the relationship. “All you want to know is, how is your partner treating you?” she said. “Do you feel No. 1?”

How should couples handle it?
Schroeder said every relationship has boundaries, some of which may have been discussed and others that are implied. These days, the gray area is bigger than ever.

Particularly if a couple met on a dating app, it’s important to discuss whether to disable it and be exclusive, he said. Then define what “exclusive” means, such as not dating other people, continuing conversations through an app or pursuing others on social media.

The best time to bring it up is long before a problem arises, even if it’s difficult to know when or how, he said. He equated having this talk with driving.

“If you think that you have a full tank of gas, you’re not going to start thinking, ‘When should we stop to get gas?’” he said.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/microcheating-infidelity-flirting-social-media-3933161a5cd97365e73b133744e4175c

A social media influencer was jailed for almost three years for joking Jesus should get a haircut.

The TikToker was found guilty of violating Indonesian blasphemy laws by spreading hate speech against Christianity, as well as disrupting “public order” and “religious harmony”.

Ratu Thalisa, a transgender Muslim woman with nearly 450,000 followers on TikTok, was sentenced to two years and ten months by a court in North Sumatra province.

The decision was condemned by human rights groups including Amnesty International as a “shocking attack on freedom of expression.”

“While Indonesia should prohibit the advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, Ratu Thalisa’s speech act does not reach that threshold,” Amnesty International Indonesia’s executive director Usman Hamid said.

Thalisa was charged under Indonesia’s controversial Electronic Information and Transactions (EIT) law.

The legislation was introduced in 2008 and amended in 2016 to address online defamation. However, many are accusing Indonesian authorities of using the law to restrict freedom of expression.

In September 2023, a Muslim woman received two years in prison for uttering a Muslim expression before eating pork. One year later, another TikToker was arrested and accused of blasphemy after posting a quiz asking children what kind of animals can read the Quran.

Source: https://www.themirror.com/news/world-news/tiktoker-jailed-nearly-three-years-1071209

Donald Trump on Thursday announced the tariff US will impose on the countries. While the move adds to economic burden of most of the countries, what caught the internet’s attention was America announcing a 10 per cent tariff on goods from uninhabited volcanic islands near Antarctica, which are home only to glaciers, penguins, and seals, in addition to mainland Australia.

The news created a sensation online, especially X, with netizens flooding the social media platform with hilarious memes featuring Trump and penguins. While some showed penguins protesting by holding banners with ‘No Tarifs’ signs, many featured Trump standing alongside the penguins.

One user shared a video of penguins walking with a backpack. The caption read, “Penguins leaving Heard Island and McDonald Island. is THIS what you voted for?”

Another meme shows an angry animated penguin holding a gun, with the image reading “Peace Was Never An Option”.

Another meme featured many penguins holding placards and opposing tariffs with a different spelling of tariff on each card.

Source : https://www.news18.com/viral/internet-flooded-with-penguin-memes-as-trump-slaps-tariffs-on-uninhabited-antarctic-islands-9286608.html 

Concern is growing that some people who leave the US – even American citizens – won’t be allowed back in afterwards.

The Trump administration has instituted a tough new regime which has led to some countries warning people to be cautious even if they’ve secured visas or green cards, Newsweek reported. Canadians are also being told to buy a burner phone.

And one US legal firm said even American citizens should consider deleting apps such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, or X from devices as they could be inspected by an immigration officer amid an alarming response by China to a decision by Trump.

One case involved the detainment of Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder who helped lead pro-Palestinian protests at the college amid the war with Israel in Gaza. Administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, have filmed video messages posted through U.S. Embassy social media pages across the world, warning that visas or other forms of identification do not guarantee stays if individuals act unruly or “undermine national security.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is warning people travelling internationally outside the U.S. or those entering the country to be wary of phone searches by federal immigration authorities—whether individuals have full citizenship or not. CAIR-Massachusetts Executive Director Tahirah Amtul-Wadud told Newsweek that the seemingly increasing ambiguity in U.S. immigration law is getting worse.

“We’re getting multiple calls a day from people who are worried about whether or not they should travel,” Amtul-Wadud said. “We’re talking about doctors, students, families. We could get calls from one person and the immigration status of people in their family could be varied. They’re taking a family trip and one person could be a green card holder; the other person could be a citizen, right?

“This is complicated for families and it’s scary not knowing who has what right to return here and under what circumstances. What I’m saying as a lawyer and when I’m speaking to other lawyers and doctors and those who have professions where there are explicit obligations of confidentiality in what they provide to the public, I’m saying, ‘Hey, you might be a citizen, but you might have your devices taken and the content downloaded.’

“So, I think of all the students I’ve advised this week and use WhatsApp to do it on. Like, by traveling with that device am I violating my obligation of attorney-client privilege? Are you violating your obligation of HIPAA if you talk to a patient, and now that information is with Customs and Border Patrol. We really have to think about what the implications are based on our exposure, even as citizens.”

One expert issued international travel tips for dealing With US Immigration Officers. US Legal firm Ballard Spahr gave this advice:

For U.S. Citizens

U.S. citizens have an absolute right to re-enter the United States, but some have reported heightened questioning based on dual nationality, prior travel history, or other factors.

Ensure your U.S. passport is valid for at least six months and that any foreign passport you carry does not conflict with your U.S. entry.

U.S. citizens should not be denied re-entry but can be delayed—sometimes significantly—especially if flagged in a government database or selected for advanced screening.

Immigration officers may request to view your cell phone or other devices. Consider deleting social media applications such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, or X (formerly Twitter) from your devices before you are inspected by an immigration officer.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Assistant Commissioner Hilton Beckham has denied that political beliefs could lead to people being barred. He said: “Claims that CBP is searching more electronic media due to the administration change are false,. CBP’s search numbers are consistent with increases since 2021, and less than 0.1 percent of travelers have their devices searched.

“These searches are conducted to detect digital contraband, terrorism-related content, and information relevant to visitor admissibility—all of which play a critical role in national security. Allegations that political beliefs trigger inspections or removals are baseless and irresponsible.”

The CBP website reads in part: “All travelers crossing the United States border are subject to CBP inspection. On rare occasions, CBP officers may search a traveler’s mobile phone, computer, camera, or other electronic devices during the inspection process. … Border searches of electronic devices are often integral to determining an individual’s intentions upon entry to the United States and thus provide additional information relevant to admissibility of foreign nationals under U.S. immigration laws.”

Gadeir Abbas, a senior attorney with CAIR with a background in civil rights litigation, told Newsweek that he and other CAIR attorneys are advising individuals to avoid international travel altogether if they’re not U.S. citizens—based on what the Trump administration may do next.

Source : https://www.the-express.com/travel/usa/168158/travel-alert-us-citizens-delete

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States after he was accidentally sent to a notorious megajail in El Salvador.

U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, Judge Paula Xinis ruled that the government must return Garcia by April 7 at 11:59 pm.

Garcia, a protected legal resident who has been living in Maryland since 2011 and is originally from El Salvador, was sent back to El Salvador on March 15 because of what the Trump administration called an “administrative error” in court filings Monday.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin repeated the Trump administration’s claims that Garcia is an MS-13 gang member in a statement after the ruling.

“Whether he is in El Salvador or a detention facility in the U.S., he will be locked up and off America’s streets,” she said.

At the hearing on Friday, Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, shot down previous claims by the Trump administration that his client is a MS-13 member.

Garcia filed a lawsuit last week asking that the judge order the government to return him to the United States. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem countered the lawsuit on Monday, arguing that U.S. courts do not have the authority to seek Garcia’s extradition.

At a hearing for the case earlier in the day, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the Trump administration appeared to side with Garcia.

“I will say for the court’s awareness that when this case landed on my desk, the first thing I did was ask my client the same question,” the lawyer, Erez Reuveni, said. “I have not yet received an answer that I find satisfactory.”

Reuveni conceded that Garcia “should not have been removed” and told U.S. Judge Paula Xinis he did not know why Garcia was ever arrested.

“You’re not going to like my answer to a lot of this,” Reuveni said. “I am also frustrated that I also have no answers for you on a lot of these questions.”

“The absence of evidence speaks for itself,” he later added.

Reuveni asked Judge Xinis to give the government “one more chance to do this without court superintendence.”

“Give us 24 hours to get him back, Reuveni said. “That was my recommendation to my client but that hasn’t happened”

Sandoval-Moshenberg replied: “If Mr. Abrego Garcia can be produced in this court on Monday, we are happy to accept that. Given the manner they’ve chosen to litigate this case, it doesn’t appear they’re taking it seriously.”

Judge Xinis then called the court into a brief recess. When the hearing restarted, the judge ultimately decided that the government’s time had run out.

“This case is certainly important to Mr. Abrego Garcia and his family,” he said. “I can’t wait on giving my order. I will write a formal opinion.”

In recent days, Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, have repeatedly accused Garcia of being a member of the gang MS-13.

Sandoval-Moshenberg has denied the government’s claims that he is affiliated with the gang. Instead, Garcia came to the U.S. from El Salvador in 2011 to flee gang violence, Sandoval-Moshenberg said, adding that gang members threatened to kill him in an attempt to extort his parents. His attorney also noted that Garcia does not have a criminal record in the U.S. or El Salvador.

“First of all, if they thought he committed a crime, they could arrest him and try to convict him of that crime,” Sandoval-Moshenberg told MSNBC on Wednesday. “Second of all, if they thought he was deportable on the basis of his gang membership, they could have brought charges in the immigration court.”

“They did none of those things. They just stuck him on a plane,” he added.

On Friday, Xinis chalked up the government’s claims that Garcia was a gang member to “just chatter.”

“In a court of law when someone is accused of membership in such a violent and predatory organization, it comes in form of indictment or criminal proceeding so we can assess facts,” Xinis said. “I haven’t seen any of those.”

Vance described Garcia as “not exactly father of the year” in an interview with Fox News on Thursday.

Sura shot back, telling NBC News on Friday: “He’s wrong. My husband’s the best father. He cares for our son who is in the high autism spectrum and it’s tough, but he’s able to manage it.”

Garcia’s deportation appears to coincide with the departure of three planes carrying noncitizens to El Salvador on March 15, whom the Trump administration accused of being Venezuelan gang members.

Noem visited the prison last week. She posed for a photo-op in front of prison cells packed with the deported men, whose heads were forcibly shaved by authorities and were shirtless.

On Friday, Sandoval-Moshenberg used Noem’s visit to justify his argument that the government can retrieve Garcia.

Source : https://www.nbcnews.com/news/rcna199582

Barack Obama is getting candid about his relationship with his wife Michelle Obama … and revealing some of their marital challenges.

The former president was talking to students at Hamilton College on Thursday when he told the crowd he “was in a deep deficit with my wife” after 8 years in the White House.

Barack added … “I have been trying to dig myself out of that hole by doing occasionally fun things.”

Obama pulled back the curtain on his marriage with Michelle while answering a question from Hamilton College’s President Steven Tepper, who asked what Barack had been up to lately.

Barry says most of his time goes to his Obama Foundation and is finishing the second half of his presidential memoirs … which he joked was “like 50 term papers.”

The Obamas have been married since 1992 … but they haven’t been spotted out together a lot this year, despite Barack claiming he’s trying to do fun stuff with Michelle.

Source : https://www.tmz.com/2025/04/04/barack-obama-trying-dig-out-hole-michelle-obama/

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Kristi Noem made the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) take a lie detector test to confirm that he didn’t leak information from a private meeting.

Cameron Hamilton, FEMA’s acting administrator, took the test on March 25—two weeks after meeting with Noem, who is known as “Ice Barbie” for posing for PR stots at detention centers and immigration raids, and Corey Lewandowski, an adviser to President Donald Trump. DHS acknowledged the test in an email to the agency’s employees, two former senior FEMA officials told Politico.

Lie detectors are not admissible as evidence in court because of their questionable reliability, but law enforcement uses them to help in investigations anyway.

The meeting with Hamilton comes a day after Noem pledged to eliminate FEMA in a meeting televised on C-SPAN. Noem’s statement blindsided FEMA officials, with one telling Politico, “We heard about it on TV like everyone else.”

On March 24, Hamilton addressed hundreds of state and local emergency managers in a speech at a conference in Washington, D.C., in which he outlined his vision for improving FEMA’s ability to respond to disasters while shifting some responsibilities to state governments.

“There is a federal interagency coordinated stratosphere, if you will, of resources. But navigating that is complex, not always the easiest to understand,” he said.

A former Navy SEAL, Hamilton has no formal background in emergency management but got the role because Trump decided not to appoint a permanent FEMA administrator.

Since 2009, every FEMA administrator had previously run a state emergency management agency, making Hamilton an outlier.

It was earlier this month that Noem promised to use polygraphs to figure out who might be leaking information about operations to the media, CBS reported.

Source : https://www.thedailybeast.com/ice-barbie-kristi-noem-gave-fema-chief-cameron-hamilton-lie-detector-test-after-leak/

COMEDIAN Russell Brand was yesterday charged with rape and sexual assaults against four women.

Police posted sex assault charges to Brand at his Florida home — and he says he will return to the UK to face the claims.

The comic, 49, is accused of rape, indecent assault and sexual assault between 1999-2005.

The summons orders him to attend Westminster magistrates’ court in London on Friday, May 2.

Brand said yesterday: “I was a drug addict, a sex addict, and an imbecile. But what I never was, was a rapist.”

It’s understood Scotland Yard has been ready to charge him for some time but he has not been in the UK for a year.

He was interviewed several times by police following an investigation by the Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches in September 2023 revealed claims against him.

After talks with police, it is understood Brand’s lawyers have promised he will fly back for the court hearing.

He is charged with the rape of a woman in Bournemouth, Dorset, in 1999.

The other alleged offences are said to have taken place in Westminster.

He is accused of indecent assault there in 2001.

He is accused of the oral rape and sexual assault of a woman in 2004.

Finally, he is alleged to have sexually assaulted a woman between 2004 and 2005.

In his video posted on X yesterday Brand added: “I’ve never engaged in non-consensual activity.

“I pray that you can see that by looking in my eyes.”

He added: “I’m now going to have the opportunity to defend these charges in court and I’m incredibly grateful for that.”

Earlier, senior CPS lawyer Jaswant Narwal said: “We have today authorised the Metropolitan Police to charge Russell Brand with a number of sexual offences.

“We carefully reviewed the evidence after a police investigation into allegations made following the broadcast of a Channel 4 documentary in September 2023.

“He will appear at Westminster magistrates’ court for a first hearing on Friday May 2, 2025.”

The Met said its investigation remains open and anyone affected can speak with its officers.

Former Big Brother’s Big Mouth host and radio star Brand was married to singer Katy Perry from 2010-12.

He wed Laura Gallacher in 2017 and they have three children.

Now teetotal and a born-again Christian, Brand has reinvented himself in the US as a podcaster and conspiracy theorist.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/13944746/russell-brand-charged-post-florida-rape/