250 million bees escape after truck overturns in US
A commercial truck carrying an estimated 70,000 pounds (31,751 kilograms) of honeybee hives overturned in western United States, authorities said on Friday.
About 250 million bees are estimated to have been set free.
US Defense Secretary Hegseth warns of ‘imminent’ China threat
United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Saturday cautioned that China was “credibly preparing to potentially use military force” in a bid to reorder the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific.
Hegseth reassured Washington’s allies in the region that they would not be abandoned to tackle the growing military and economic pressures from Beijing.
Appeals court refuses to lift block on Trump’s mass firings at government agencies
The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to pause a judge’s ruling blocking President Donald Trump from carrying out mass layoffs of federal workers.
The firings were part of the White House’s plans to overhaul government and restructure federal agencies.
The appeals court ruling means that, for now, the Trump administration cannot proceed with plans to shed tens of thousands of federal jobs and shutter many government offices and programs.
US District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco on May 22 blocked the large-scale layoffs, saying that the president may only restructure agencies when authorized by Congress.
The Trump administration had sought an emergency stay of the injunction.
But the three-judge 9th Circuit panel denied the stay bid pending an appeal, which could take months to resolve.
The administration will likely now ask the US Supreme Court to pause the ruling.
PBS sues Donald Trump and administration officials over funding cuts
US television broadcaster PBS filed suit against President Donald Trump and members of his administration on Friday in an attempt to block what it says is overreach and a First Amendment violation.
Trump signed an executive order stripping Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) of all federal funding on May 1, calling it “radical, woke propaganda disguised as news” and claiming it was biased against him.
“PBS disputes those charged assertions in the strongest possible terms,” said PBS legal representative Z.W. Julius Chen.
“But regardless of any policy disagreements over the role of public television,” the suit charges, “our Constitution and laws forbid the President from serving as the arbiter of the content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS.”
PBS asserts the order “makes no attempt to hide the fact that it is cutting off the flow of funds to PBS because of the content of PBS programming and out of a desire to alter the content of speech. That is blatant viewpoint discrimination.”
Trump has been on a crusade against private and public media outlets, forcing massive payouts for supposed injustices and actively influencing corporate and editorial decision-making at news outlets, such as most recently at CBS.
National Public Radio (NPR) filed a similar suit on Tuesday.
Both PBS and NPR are non-profits that rely on partial public funding. The remainder of their revenue comes from corporate and individual sponsors as well as viewer donations.
Beyond news, PBS produces educational content for children and adults — the most famous examples of which are perhaps Sesame Street and Ken Burns.
PBS operates a 330-station system that often serves remote communities otherwise cut off from the rest of the country. They are also often the only source of critical information viewers have during emergencies.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/us-updates-trump-to-double-steel-tariffs-to-50/live-72733159
